To chime in on the termies.. I've been playing various factions and abusing the cacophony plas combo which is awesome. But if you have another form of anti tank/anti multi-wound units I think that scarabs are fine, maybe even preferable. The ability to fire at full effect with votlw outside of 12" can't be overstated especially against good screening opponents. Getting double tap with prescience and/or rerolls is very hard against good opponents where SOTs can be placed without regard to double tap range. Plus psych. And votlw is just so potent that infernos can threaten bigger targets well enough in conjunction with hfm. Very solid utility unit imo. I would recommend them even against slaaneshi terminators.
Niiru wrote: So I'm considering adding a unit of terminators to my collection, the rest of my army currently being pretty heavily... heavy. (Lord Disco, Princes, Maulerfiend, Dreads).
The current choice is between -
'Purge' CSM Terminators, Bolters + Axes - 145pts
Standard setup, but with rerolls built in, so no need for a babysitter. Cheap and cheerful. (relatively speaking).
Scarab Occults, InfernoBolters + Powerswords - 189pts
Slower, more expensive, no rerolls so less accurate. But more AP on bolters, and better defence against weaker attacks. Also has a pocket sorcerer for smite or Glamour.
Honestly not too sure which way to go on it. Scarabs will be marginally more defensive (and if Glamour succeeds, decently more defensive), and their attacks will be more powerful (but less accurate). Also like 33% more expensive though.
Thought you guys might have some thoughts on the Scarabs that I might be missing
It seems like you need the Termis for chaff clearing?
I would suggest regular CSM Terminators with Mark of Slannesh. A big unit puts out 80 Bolter shots at 24" with VoTW wounding most screens on 2´s.
My first addition to my thousand sons army is complete Magnus in all his glory!
At the moment my plans are to to collect modes that I like the look of but if I wanted to somehow field him in a competitive game - can anyone suggest any current trends for how to do so?
My first addition to my thousand sons army is complete Magnus in all his glory!
At the moment my plans are to to collect modes that I like the look of but if I wanted to somehow field him in a competitive game - can anyone suggest any current trends for how to do so?
Here are a few gems in the thousand sons codex in no particular order. But to be fair you can make most units work in T Sons codex. The only thing they lack is decent anti armour (beyond smite spam).
Tzaangors, 1 or 2 big blobs that you can deepstrike and give an instrument to to make it an 8" charge. Also can use in conjunction with dark matter crystal for great 1st turn screen clearing.
Ahriman, on a disc or on foot he has merits both ways. He is excellent for his points and a reliable source of psychic powers.
Winged daemon prince with talons, tough, good psychic abilities and a blender in close combat.
Scarab Occult Terminators, ine of my favourite units post bolter discipline. Drop in and hit anything with -2ap bolters at 24". I like a big blob of 10 so I can stack all the buffs in them. Clears screens and threatens up to t7 models with weight of fire. Also a good target for dark matter crystal.
Contemptor/Daredeos/leviathan dreadnoughts. Always good. Probably best to take them as scourged as they won't benifit from the t sons trait. But would still be fluffy as T Son allies. Lots of butcher cannons, soulburners and c beam also good.
Also does anyone know if hellforged leviathan dread can have TS legion keyword?
Yes. You can stack Weaver of Fates and Glamour of Tzeentch on a leviathan.
Yea. I just noticed that the Butcher Cannon Array got cut in half in the CA 2018. That makes one with two Butcher Cannon Array's less than 300 points. I am going to get one as I think it will draw fire away from my other units, and with 16 Butcher Cannon shots I think it can do some real damage. and Weaver and Glamour on it will make is really hard to take down.
I've been running a list based on that very idea for the past year or so.
Here's a shot of a game I played yesterday with the solo leviathan + Ahriman detachment. It works very well.
It's important to deploy the leviathan out of LOS on T1 to avoid getting alpha striked before your defense buffs are up. You can always use prescience/blasphemous machines to negate the hit penalty for moving and shooting.
Ahriman, TSDP, TS leviathan, and 30 cultists are my go-to fire support battalion whenever I play daemons.
What's the strongest way to run Magnus these days? I remember seeing a bash bros list that did well at LVO using Magnus, Mortarion, Kairos Fateweaver, a Lord of Change, and a bloodthirster.
In building my TS army, I have a few more questions:
1. When it comes to Tzaangors, is it legal to have them armed with a blade and an autopistol? I often see the chainsword and autopistol combination referenced, but combining the blade and the pistol strikes me as having the best of both worlds.
2. Are Skyfires worth having in the army? Everywhere I go online, everyone talks about how great the divining spears are, but say little about the greatbows. I currently have the models to create three Enlightened and three Skyfires, but while I'm definitely putting the Enlightened in my TS army, should I bother with the Skyfires?
3. When it comes to arming my Rubrics, for my first unit so far, except for the one with the gatlin gun (and the sorcerer), I've given them all boltguns as that's what one of the staff at my local GW recommended. However, looking deeper, I see that the flamers aren't bad. I've got a second unit from the SC box, and I'm wondering now if I should keep going down the bolter path or sprinkle in some flamers as well. Also, for my sorcerer, I've given my first sorcerer the hand with the eye instead of the pistol, and was thinking of doing the same with the second, but I was wondering if that's the right thing to do.
4. For my army's DP's, should I use the TS version, the Chaos Daemon version (I'm going to be having a daemon battalion), or both?
1. No, it's either/or. Go blades every time.
2. they're both good. You can actually have your birdies swappable: each load out has a separate pair of arms and chest-piece. Glue them together, but don't glue it to the rest of the model, instead blueback or magnetise. Now you can swap between either load out. Unlike tzaangors, both are great options to have. ... People like enlightened because they take warptime so well, giving you 2 turn-1charges (dark matter crystal on a tzaangor blob and warptime enlightened. They are quite scary when buffed.
3. I'd recommend getting 3x5 lots of rubric together at least with aspiring sorcerers and boltguns only. From there you can stick some reapers on there, and maybbeeee flamers. They don't really want to get stuck in like that though. You're welcome to give em a go, but they are a bit substandard. Good luck!
I finally got a chance to look at the new Heretic Astartes codex, and it occurred to me that using a detachment to bring along a Dark Apostle or two might help with Magnus's round 1 survivability. The Benediction of Darkness prayer causes enemy shots on the target to be at -1 to hit (like Glamour), but the key is that it goes off at the beginning of the round, NOT at the beginning of your turn. So if you're playing T-Sons and you wind up going second, at least Magnus will have some initial protection against getting blown right off the board.
Sterling191 wrote: Prayers are <LEGION> keyworded. You cant target a Thousand Sons unit with it.
Huh. I thought that the limitation there was that the D-Guard and Sons couldn't add their LEGION keywords to stuff in the Heretic Astartes codex that wasn't already in their codexes. In other words, I thought that the D-Guard and Sons have the LEGION keyword, but can't apply it to anything in Heretic Astartes that they don't already have. So a Battle-Forged Sons detachment can't itself include a Dark Apostle because the DA can't be given the Sons LEGION keyword, but a DA from a separate detachment could use his prayers to buff a Sons model. Is that incorrect?
For those that are interested, i'm running my Thousand Sons again this weekend and again at the LGT in a couple of weeks time. I won't have time to adjust my list between events due to the LGT submission deadline being halfway through the event, but, i'm cautiously optimistic about doing ok overall.
List is -
Spoiler:
Battalion Detachment +5CP (Chaos - Thousand Sons) [46 PL, 5CP, 905pts]
Ahriman on Disc of Tzeentch [9 PL, 166pts]: Death Hex, Doombolt, Glamour of Tzeentch
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch [9 PL, 180pts]: Malefic talon [10pts], Wings [1 PL, 24pts], RELIC: Dark Matter Crystal, Diabolic Strength, Warptime
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun [45pts], Cultist Champion [5pts]
Tzaangors [10 PL, 199pts]: 26x Tzaangor w/ Tzaangor Blades [182pts], Twistbray [7pts], Brayhorn [10pts]
Tzaangors [10 PL, 220pts]: 29x Tzaangor w/ Tzaangor Blades [203pts], Twistbray [7pts], Brayhorn [10pts]
Tzaangor Shaman [5 PL, 90pts]: Force stave [8pts], Temporal Manipulation
Battalion Detachment +5CP (Chaos - Thousand Sons) [41 PL, 5CP, 630pts]
Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch [8 PL, 140pts]: Force stave [8pts], Inferno Bolt Pistol, Prescience, Weaver of Fates, WARLORD: High Magister
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [8 PL, 124pts]: Familiar [9pts], Force axe [10pts], Inferno Combi-bolter [3pts], Glamour of Tzeentch, Infernal Gaze
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [8 PL, 124pts]: Familiar [9pts], Force axe [10pts], Inferno Combi-bolter [3pts], Weaver of Fates, Gift of Chaos
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 50pts]: 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun [45pts], Cultist Champion [5pts]
Rubric Marines [7 PL, 96pts]: 4x Rubric Marine w/ Inferno Boltgun [72pts], Aspiring Sorcerer [24pts], Force stave [8pts], Inferno Bolt Pistol, Temporal Manipulation
Rubric Marines [7 PL, 96pts]: 4x Rubric Marine w/ Inferno Boltgun [72pts], Aspiring Sorcerer [24pts], Force stave [8pts], Inferno Bolt Pistol, Temporal Manipulation
Battalion Detachment +5CP (Chaos - Daemons) [29 PL, 5CP, 465pts]
Chaos Allegiance: Tzeentch
Changecaster [4 PL, 70pts]: Staff of Change [5pts], Flickering Flames, Gaze of Fate
The Changeling [5 PL, 100pts]: Gaze of Fate
Horrors [12 PL, 235pts]: 30x Pink Horror [210pts], Daemonic Icon [15pts], Instrument of Chaos [10pts]
Horrors [4 PL, 30pts]: 10x Pair of Brimstone Horrors [30pts]
Horrors [4 PL, 30pts]: 10x Pair of Brimstone Horrors [30pts]
Worth noting that for the first event, you have to be 75% of a faction to be considered for the Best in Faction award, and, for ITC, this also doubles up nicely as a Tzeentch list, rather than running the standard Plaguebearers.
Anybody else notice this, in TSFAQ Updated 27/09/2019
ERRATA
All Thousand Sons datasheets (excluding Chaos
Cultists and Tzaangor)
Add the following ability:
‘Hateful Assault: If this unit makes a charge move, is
charged or performs a Heroic Intervention, add 1 to the
Attacks characteristic of models in this unit until the
end of the turn.’
So, real TS units gets some additional close combat utility? Small boost for Scarabs especially, with their included power swords.
Timmon wrote: Anybody else notice this, in TSFAQ Updated 27/09/2019
ERRATA
All Thousand Sons datasheets (excluding Chaos
Cultists and Tzaangor)
Add the following ability:
‘Hateful Assault: If this unit makes a charge move, is
charged or performs a Heroic Intervention, add 1 to the
Attacks characteristic of models in this unit until the
end of the turn.’
So, real TS units gets some additional close combat utility? Small boost for Scarabs especially, with their included power swords.
It's been in play for a while now, as it was part of the mini set of Marine updates when Shock Assault was first added to the new Space Marine Codex.
While nice, it doesn't really provide the boost you'd hope and expect it to, i'm afraid.
Sterling191 wrote: Prayers are <LEGION> keyworded. You cant target a Thousand Sons unit with it.
Huh. I thought that the limitation there was that the D-Guard and Sons couldn't add their LEGION keywords to stuff in the Heretic Astartes codex that wasn't already in their codexes. In other words, I thought that the D-Guard and Sons have the LEGION keyword, but can't apply it to anything in Heretic Astartes that they don't already have. So a Battle-Forged Sons detachment can't itself include a Dark Apostle because the DA can't be given the Sons LEGION keyword, but a DA from a separate detachment could use his prayers to buff a Sons model. Is that incorrect?
That is extremely incorrect. The Dark Apostle must be given a <LEGION> keyword, which cannot be DEATH GUARD or THOUSAND SONS. The buff(s) from the Dark Apostle will only affect models/units which match his <LEGION>. There is no method by which you can have a Dark Apostle provide any benefit to a Death Guard or Thousand Son model.
Hey, Im starting up a Tsons army and I got a few questions for you veteran tsons players if ya dont mind.
1: With all these psychic powers I was wondering can I cast the same power as long as it is from a different source? I know smite can be but its cost goes up for most armies but I was wondering about the rest, my local group isnt very psyker heavy so I havent been in the situation where it would arise much.
2: With enlightened is it better to go multiple squads of 3 or can I go 6 to a squad?
3: Are Vortex Beasts worth taking? And if so what sort of units should I roll him with? Im thinking Just one MVB and two either forgefiends or maulerfiends.
For 1 if tsons don't have specific exception(pretty sure no) then max 1(success or fail) of each. If different source would allow orks would be da jumping lot more
Solosam47 wrote: Hey, Im starting up a Tsons army and I got a few questions for you veteran tsons players if ya dont mind.
1: With all these psychic powers I was wondering can I cast the same power as long as it is from a different source? I know smite can be but its cost goes up for most armies but I was wondering about the rest, my local group isnt very psyker heavy so I havent been in the situation where it would arise much.
2: With enlightened is it better to go multiple squads of 3 or can I go 6 to a squad?
3: Are Vortex Beasts worth taking? And if so what sort of units should I roll him with? Im thinking Just one MVB and two either forgefiends or maulerfiends.
Thanks in advance
1) Only one per turn period except for smite.
2 & 3) Neither of these are ideal units in a competitive setting currently (there was a time when running 50+ enlightened was a thing). Which is fine, just be prepared when bringing these if you play against TFG to be a little frustrated potentially.
2) For enlightened - in general for chaos bigger blobs of units works better b/c this allows usage of spells / strats to stack more (such as prescience etc.). So if you want to use them as a rush down / damage dealer, going big isn't wrong but the rest of your army should be in a situation where buff spells are good for multiple units (ideally) so they aren't wed to just one and you arne't bleeding poitns just to make enlightened 'work'. On the flip side, running these as minimum squads to sit on objectives and shore up a detachment is a completely different purpose and also has its merits. So either way is playable depending on your list and needs
Gotcha, thank you. I had a feeling you couldnt cast from multiple sources but began to question it for whatever reason. Shame neither the MVB or the Enlightened are competitive right now, I love the nature and models for both units. I am going to maybe add a min squad of enlightened and a MVB just to paint em up and see how it goes. Thanks for the tips and rule clarifications!
Well, in my books playing the units you like is more important than what is the top tier competitively.
You won't win as often, but you'll have more fun.
A note about casting though, the rubrics and scarabs only cast a watered-down version of smite, who is mathematically BAD to cast (does more harm than good) if your smite target isn't high quality.
If it hits a chapter master, go ahead. if it hits a basic marine-better not.
BoomWolf wrote: Well, in my books playing the units you like is more important than what is the top tier competitively.
You won't win as often, but you'll have more fun.
A note about casting though, the rubrics and scarabs only cast a watered-down version of smite, who is mathematically BAD to cast (does more harm than good) if your smite target isn't high quality.
If it hits a chapter master, go ahead. if it hits a basic marine-better not.
To each their own but at the same time I'm not sure the purpose of asking for unit advice if you are going to play whatever you want anyway(?)
Good to know on the smites! Thank you, and yeah after thinking on it I’m not gonna add a MVB but still may add the enlightened on disks to give the army some mobility towards grabbing objectives later in gave and as a cc deterrent for my line.
Me and a couple of friends are going to a tournament in the beginning of December and are playing around with different lists. I can begin by saying I´m not a great player, I´m not aspiring on being a great player. I mostly want to hang out with friends, throw some dice, and hopefully do some cool stuff. So my lists tend to be a little crazy so bear with me.
Spoiler:
2000pts
Battalion (thousand sons)
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings; 2 Malefic talons
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings; 2 Malefic talons
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings; 2 Malefic talons
What are the legal wargear options for the sorcerer in terminator armor? in the codex its basically Force-staff+inferno combibolter but battlescribe adds all the normal CSM options. Is there a way to get a Thousand sons sorcerer with the regular csm options?
Does GW even want us to play this army anymore? Tzaangors going up two points is insulting enough, but 185 points for a DP with wings? What a load of doo.
Tazngors only went up one point.
And (our) winged princes went up because they were OP and practically every other chaos player brought a supreme command of ahriman and two princes. TS princes are MUCH stronger than any other prince, only the DG prince even compete.
The "TS core" of the army (basic sorcerers, rubrics scarabs) all went down.
The daemon engines all went down.
The FA slot (spawn and enlightened) all went down.
What they WANT is to make TS into actually TS, and not "horde of goats"
BoomWolf wrote: Tazngors only went up one point.
And (our) winged princes went up because they were OP and practically every other chaos player brought a supreme command of ahriman and two princes. TS princes are MUCH stronger than any other prince, only the DG prince even compete.
The "TS core" of the army (basic sorcerers, rubrics scarabs) all went down.
The daemon engines all went down.
The FA slot (spawn and enlightened) all went down.
What they WANT is to make TS into actually TS, and not "horde of goats"
I will admit that I wrote that post before I saw the other stuff, which I all approve of. Still, can't a DP of Tzeentch without wings do that same stuff, just with less movement? The drastic point increase strikes me as a bit overkill.
BoomWolf wrote:Counter question-how often did you take a wingless prince?
Because part of the thing that makes him such an issue is the combination of speed, spells and melee power.
The wings were a no-brainer for the prince before, and honestly even WITH the price hike-I'm probably sticking to winged princes.
A wingless prince can easily be protected with a cultist shield, less easily with terrain, and has ephemeral form. The wings definitely help, but they aren't required.
Overall the changes are great. Tzaangors going up is annoying in a meta that has ludicrous amounts of anti-infantry.
That being said: Rubrics are now a well-pointed unit in every respect and Scarab Occult feels about right for what they bring.
Spawn going down is great and my 5 already saw the table. Enlightened coming down is a neat little surprise. My 12 see the table frequently and now will see it all the more.
Exalted NOT going down when Base Sorcerer went down is.....curious. I will hold out judgement until January when we see PA 4 and its rules contents.That may be the reason why if we get "exalted sorcerer only" relics or Strategems which may very well be a thing.
Ahriman21 wrote: Overall the changes are great. Tzaangors going up is annoying in a meta that has ludicrous amounts of anti-infantry.
That being said: Rubrics are now a well-pointed unit in every respect and Scarab Occult feels about right for what they bring.
Spawn going down is great and my 5 already saw the table. Enlightened coming down is a neat little surprise. My 12 see the table frequently and now will see it all the more.
Exalted NOT going down when Base Sorcerer went down is.....curious. I will hold out judgement until January when we see PA 4 and its rules contents.That may be the reason why if we get "exalted sorcerer only" relics or Strategems which may very well be a thing.
Maybe exalteds will get the same treatment as imperial priests and librarians, with extra casts etc.
Also if you soup in daemons or CSM they both got good point drops. Flamers at 20 points is awesome. They will go up this time next year. I am thinking of taking my DP as Daemon now. And thank god elightened went down.
xeen wrote: Also if you soup in daemons or CSM they both got good point drops. Flamers at 20 points is awesome. They will go up this time next year. I am thinking of taking my DP as Daemon now. And thank god elightened went down.
Problem is the smaller HQs got up so much that it basically nulls out the discounts if you dont take a LOT of daemons.
xeen wrote: Also if you soup in daemons or CSM they both got good point drops. Flamers at 20 points is awesome. They will go up this time next year. I am thinking of taking my DP as Daemon now. And thank god elightened went down.
Problem is the smaller HQs got up so much that it basically nulls out the discounts if you dont take a LOT of daemons.
im happy that LoC's got reductions, i've been eyeing them for a while and them getting a pts drop is probably what will push me into buying them. Time to make a chicken list with a LoC, Kairos and Magnus.
xeen wrote: Also if you soup in daemons or CSM they both got good point drops. Flamers at 20 points is awesome. They will go up this time next year. I am thinking of taking my DP as Daemon now. And thank god elightened went down.
Problem is the smaller HQs got up so much that it basically nulls out the discounts if you dont take a LOT of daemons.
im happy that LoC's got reductions, i've been eyeing them for a while and them getting a pts drop is probably what will push me into buying them. Time to make a chicken list with a LoC, Kairos and Magnus.
I started planning this as soon as i heard they might be getting reductions! There are quite a few interesting options, but it definitely turns into more of a Daemons list rather than a Thousand Sons one.
OK, after playing around with CA points
Spawn at 20 is possibly too low when fated mutation is a thing.
Like, is need to calculate what mutation is best against what target, but in general they are cheap enough that getting shot ain't painful, and they kill things fast bigger then they are with ease.
4 x 5 Rubrics, 2 x 10 Cultists and 10 Scarabs gave me an awesome 92 points drop. Also you can compensate the 15+ points for the DP by running one of them as daemon DP since sadly the fluxmaster and Changecaster got their point increases.
Too bad the defiler didn`t get an price drop, really makes the decicion between defiler and forgefiend with gatling harder.
Good thing our troops got cheaper in case that next psychic awakening prevents souping with an daemon battalion to get all the buffs like with those marines chapters.
Really hope for some sneaky magic stuff there.
Also might stock up on normal sorcerers, they got quite interesting now as back up sorcerers and to add to our smite pool.
That LoC and flamer price drop really disturbs my painting shedule as well.
We have plenty of psychic support and supremacy. We need stratagems that boost our bread and butter units, mainly Rubrics and scarab occult.
Something like "soul fire" choose a unit with a warpflamer,inferno boltgun or inferno combibolter, for every model that unit kills an additional wound is scored.
Or "Leaping flame" increase the range of warpflamers by 4 inches this lasts until the end of the game turn. Try charging into that (Or burn things when coming out of a dreadclaw)
Yea. I am hoping the Tgor price increase relates to some awesome strategim that we don’t know yet. Just played the other day and rubrics and scarabs seem just right with the points.
They could use some stratagem support
Currently other than VotLW no stratagem is even worth considering on them.
Also, opposing to what said, our magic sucks.
Half the TS unique spells are actually copies of spells other armies have, except harder to cast AND shorter range.
The other half is a mix of the most silly spells in the game.
We need a massive overhaul to be competitive beyond spamming HQs for smite.
So far? Nothing.
It liturally changes nothing in my army at all, I can't afford to switch warlord trait or relics anyway, and one spell hardly makes a difference.
I am with Boomwolf, the showing while interesting didnt change anything with regard to how I run my Tsons. If that's the best we have then it doesnt really change how we play which is sad. We will have to actually see everything to determine if the extra stuff really matters or not.
We got a 1 CP strategem for Rubrics and Scarabs to fire twice with rapid fire weapons if they didn`t move this turn. Yes! Simply awesome.
Also goes great with the new Rubrics risen strategem if you have the first turn. Looking at 50+ wounds with some buffs + VOTLW on those 20 Rubrics. Might even get better with additional rules.
Also da jump psychic power equivalent with WC 7+ 6" range for Cult of Duplicity units. No cap on infantry as far as i can see.^^
Furthermore a start-of-battle-round relic that gives the opponent a CP on a roll of 1 and gets you one CP on a roll of 4+. (Can allready see myself rerolling ones just to deny that free CP. )
Oh and we got some fancy renamed bolter drill by the name of malicious volleys. Almost same rules, cooler name. Except its doubletap works on Terminators, Bikes and Brutes. Fair enough.
Scout Deployment for a unit of 20 Rubrics. Dark Matter Crystal on infantry and Da Jump on anything. TSons just got some verrrrry aggressive early game pressure ioptions
20 Rubric marines are a pretty bad idea (almost a trap), fun to try but generally bad given how expensive they are, any loss to moral hurts big time, that stratagem is already good with 5/10 man squads , ideally on SoT but they hardly will ever be counting as not moved
Also we better hope we get a strat for additional warlord trait and improved one for relics as otherwise not that much choice
As far as the CP relic goes, I personally think is bad and will be taking the Helm over it, I think is the first relic in the game that can give advantage to the opponent?
Normally it has roughly the same chance of giving you 1 CP in the round as Helm, it becomes better only when then opponent is out of CP (which means that likely we don't have any either) and at that point feeding them that 1 CP could swing the game for them, not worth it
deTox91 wrote: 20 Rubric marines are a pretty bad idea (almost a trap), fun to try but generally bad given how expensive they are, any loss to moral hurts big time, that stratagem is already good with 5/10 man squads , ideally on SoT but they hardly will ever be counting as not moved
Also we better hope we get a strat for additional warlord trait and improved one for relics as otherwise not that much choice
As far as the CP relic goes, I personally think is bad and will be taking the Helm over it, I think is the first relic in the game that can give advantage to the opponent?
Normally it has roughly the same chance of giving you 1 CP in the round as Helm, it becomes better only when then opponent is out of CP (which means that likely we don't have any either) and at that point feeding them that 1 CP could swing the game for them, not worth it
I’d argue that the new relic is substantially more likely to give you more CP over the course of a battle than the Helm is, simply because it’s a 50% chance each turn, rather than a 33% chance when your opponent uses a stratagem.
There is a chance that you’ll hand over 1 or 2 CP to your opponent during the course of an event, but, with enough planning you’ll generally be able to deny this. (Yes there will be occasions where you screw yourself over by rolling a double 1, but I’d generally take this risk 90% of the time).
BoomWolf wrote: Donno, the helm can roll multiple times a turn, unlike the book.
And burning CP to mitigate your own CP generator flaws seems counter productive
I accept that the Helm can activate more than once a turn, but, it is rarely gaining you CP beyond the 3rd turn, and still has the significantly higher chance of failing, than the Tome has of gifting your opponent a CP.
10CP is often used as the “average” CP an army has. Many armies use some of that during deployment and list building. On top of that, many lists burn through a significant portion of their CP in battleround 1, in the attempt to alpha strike and gain a large advantage (especially in ITC). It is not uncommon to see lists with 0 CP left after battleround 1, or to only have enough CP to perform a “trick” or highly important re-roll. In both these cases, you’re generally maxing out at 1 CP gained from the relic, maybe 2 if you’re lucky.
The Tome on the other hand, is going to give you a CP 50% of the time, no gain or loss 41.66% of the time, lose 1 CP 5.55% of the time, and have it swing where you lose 1, and they gain one, 2.77% of the time.
This gives you a massive 91.66% chance of gaining or not losing. Even if you don’t have CP to re-roll, you’re still looking at an 83.33% chance of gaining/not losing. For me, that reliability over 4-6 turns is well worth it in the long run.
Granted, if you were playing against a list that was rocking 15CP+, and you knew that the CP burn would hold out for 4-6 turns, then, it’ll possibly be reasonably close between the 2 for overall gains, but, again, it’ll depend on your opponent not blowing 50%+ of their CP before the end of battleround 1.
For example, my current Craftworlds list runs 10CP. 2CP is burned before the game, 1 CP is burned in deployment.
1, maybe 2, CP is spent in turn 1, pretty much everything else gets used in turn 2. I don’t have an Autarch to regain CP.
The Helm would only have a 33% chance of getting a CP turn 1, those, the odds would be in favour of it getting one turn 2. After that, there is nothing. Whereas the Tome will remain active throughout the entire battle.
Only 9 stratagems, but pretty good ones. we're gonna need more CP. a LOT more.
Some of the cults are cool. time is probably my favorite.
The effect wont be great, and honestly it loots like just being a supcom for another chaos army is what got the most out of this book-but at least it adds some flair.
Watched a review and wrote most of the stuff down for you guys.
Might have missed some small details but that should be it:
There is no army wide buff like with SM chapters, instead we get a bonus detachment wise, choosing a cult for each detachment and get a psychic power, WL trait and relic for it. Multiple detachments can be from the same cult as well. Each psyker in that detachment knows that cult psychic power. Named characters, tzaangor units and cultists don´t get the bonuses but don´t prevent detachments from gaining the bonus as well. So sadly no cult buff for Magnus and Ahriman, but they still get the strategems.
Here a list of the Cults:
Cult of Knowledge:
Psychic Power: 18" WC6+ Cult units reroll wound rolls of 1 against an unit within18"
Warlord Trait: reroll dice rolls of 1 with psychic tests
Relic: relic warpflame pistol with D6 shots and S6
Cult of Change:
Psychic Power: 12" WC6+ -1 Ld & -1 attack on an enemy unit
Warlord Trait: reroll charge rolls + fall back & charge
Relic: once per turn ether switch a 1 to a 6 for 1 of your psychic tests or a 6 to a 1 for an enemys
Cult of Prophecy:
Psychic Power: WC6+ roll a dice and set it aside, uce that dice for a cult units hit, wound, advance or charge roll, or a psychic, deny the witch or morale test. (Not sure what about rolls of 2D6, guess you still roll the second one?)
Warlord Trait: can move up to 6" after overwatch
Relic: 6" bubble on FRIENDLY units, reroll 1 hit, 1 wound or 1 damage roll (might get FAQ`d?)
Cult of Time
Psychic Power: 6" WC 5+ bring back 1 destroyed cult infantery model or D3 on 9+
Warlord Trait: if you manifest a psychic power with a result of 9+, manifest an additional power (once)
Relic: model that dies gets back once with D3 wounds at the end of the phase
Cult of Mutation:
Psychic Power: 18" WC 6+ select a terrain feature in 18" than a unit within 3" of it. Halve its movement & -1 advance and charge rolls
Warlord Trait: hit rolls of 6+ in melee inflict an additional mortal wound
Relic: sorcerer model adds 1S 1T & 1A
Cult of Sceming
Psychic Power: 24" WC6+ cult unit can shoot and charge after falling back
Warlord Trait: cult units in 3" get Obsec or improve their ObSec to count as 2 models
Relic: you get to use one strategem for 0CP once
Cult of Magic
Psychic Power: 9" WC 6+ closest enemy unit suffers D3 MW & each unit in 3" gets 1 MW Warlord Trait: in you inflict MW with a psychic power, increase MW inflicted by 1
Relic: +1 on psychic tests
Cult of Duplicity
Psychic Power: 6" WC7+ teleport a cult unit
Warlord Trait: set up D3 cult units again at the start of the first battle round
Relic: roll a D6 at the start of the battle round roll of 1 opponent gets 1 Cp, roll of 4+ you get 1 CP
Cult of Manipulation
Psychic Power: 18" WC6+ select an enemy character, he suffers 1 MW and -2 on psychic tests for him
Warlord Trait: substract 1 from enemy units attack characteristic in 1"
Relic: you can steal the melee weapon of an enemy infantry unit in 1", but no hit or wound rerolls and you have to attack that unit
Short summary of the new strategems:
1 CP Risen Rubricae: infiltrate them dudes, one use strategem
1 CP Magister: extra WL trait
1 CP Infernal Fusillade: Scarabs or rubrics shoot twice with rapid fire weapons if they remained stationary,
1 CP Sorcerous Infusion: after resolving a psychic power with 9+, a model in this unit gains D3 lost wounds. Otherwise return 1 lost modell with full wounds
1 CP Indomitable Foes: Rubrics or Scarabs can improve their invul by 1 if chasen as target of an attack
2 CP Yoked Automata: After enemy charges 1 squad Rubrics or Scarabs in 12" to a unit that charged an non tzaangor character they can do 2 2D6 heroic intervention to that unit
1 CP Adepts of the Immaterium: prevent a perils of the warp
Really love the stuff we got. Can see a lot of people using Cult of magic to do lots of mortal wounds.
That Infusion strategem is awesome for magnus or some Scarabs, even on Rubrics.
All cult units knowing their relevant psychic power is just fantastic, like that duplicity one where your rubrics can port themselves in the endgame for example.
That manipulation psychic power to debuff an enemy psyker is sweet as well.
That cult of prophecy relic bubble can buff chaos knights and other stuff, at least until they FAQ it. (If they do?)
Cult of time seems to be good as well.
Overall its not OP, but we get some quite cool buffs, nice strategems and a lot more flexibility.
Can`t wait to test it on Tuesday.
As I wrote on bolter+chainsword, I'm ranking the cults the following:
A tier-Just always good to have as your main-Time, Duplicity
B tier-Useful to have around as a SDC to support another force/main in tiny games-Magic, Prophecy, Scheming
C tier-can be useful when you know who you are facing in advance-Mutation (when you know something needs to be slowed), Manipulation (against armies that depend on one specific spell going off)
BoomWolf wrote: As I wrote on bolter+chainsword, I'm ranking the cults the following:
A tier-Just always good to have as your main-Time, Duplicity
B tier-Useful to have around as a SDC to support another force/main in tiny games-Magic, Prophecy, Scheming
C tier-can be useful when you know who you are facing in advance-Mutation (when you know something needs to be slowed), Manipulation (against armies that depend on one specific spell going off)
D tier-just a meme-Knowledge, Change
I would put Magic in A-tier.
The amount of MW you can dish out is just great, also that "small" infernal gateway with 15" is fantastic on Rubrics.
That +1 relic is cool as well.
Otherwise i completely agree with you.
Prophecy, Sceming and Manipulation also heavily depend on your opponent and might be a lot better / worse against certain armies / builds.
BoomWolf wrote: As I wrote on bolter+chainsword, I'm ranking the cults the following:
A tier-Just always good to have as your main-Time, Duplicity
B tier-Useful to have around as a SDC to support another force/main in tiny games-Magic, Prophecy, Scheming
C tier-can be useful when you know who you are facing in advance-Mutation (when you know something needs to be slowed), Manipulation (against armies that depend on one specific spell going off)
D tier-just a meme-Knowledge, Change
I would put Magic in A-tier.
The amount of MW you can dish out is just great, also that "small" infernal gateway with 15" is fantastic on Rubrics.
That +1 relic is cool as well.
Otherwise i completely agree with you.
Prophecy, Sceming and Manipulation also heavily depend on your opponent and might be a lot better / worse against certain armies / builds.
Magic can never be tier A.
Because its strong. competing for the strongest even-but it does nothing to support your main army. it just creates one nuker. (a very scary nuker, but one nuker.)
Magic is going to probably be the go-to choice for a SCD (unfortunately what TS usually are relegated to, a supporting SCD), with Prophecy (because of the amazing relic) and Scheming (for Objsec termies and a 0CP beam) being the second choices for people who want to mix it up a bit.
But it will not be the choice for a "main" detachment in a "real" TS army. only Time and Duplicity really hold tools that make a main detachment shine.
Psychic Power: 9" WC 6+ closest enemy unit suffers D3 MW & each unit in 3" gets 1 MW Warlord Trait: in you inflict MW with a psychic power, increase MW inflicted by 1
Relic: +1 on psychic tests"
Does anyone know the exact wording of that warlord trait? Could be super powerful with the Cult Power and Infernal Gate.
Psychic Power: 9" WC 6+ closest enemy unit suffers D3 MW & each unit in 3" gets 1 MW Warlord Trait: in you inflict MW with a psychic power, increase MW inflicted by 1
Relic: +1 on psychic tests"
Does anyone know the exact wording of that warlord trait? Could be super powerful with the Cult Power and Infernal Gate.
Psychic Power: 9" WC 6+ closest enemy unit suffers D3 MW & each unit in 3" gets 1 MW Warlord Trait: in you inflict MW with a psychic power, increase MW inflicted by 1
Relic: +1 on psychic tests"
Does anyone know the exact wording of that warlord trait? Could be super powerful with the Cult Power and Infernal Gate.
Yes, it works exactly as you think.
Wow, that's especially good on the Cult power working off of UNIT not MODEL like infernal gate...Hit an Ork Boy 30-model mob, everything within 3" of that mob takes two mortal wounds as well as the mob itself....
Fair enough Boomwolf, the other Cults get a better overall buff.
Especially when you consider chaos soup, i see your point there.
For my part, i play Thousand Sons mostly mono, so i get 2-3 detachments easy and can sneak that Nuke in more easily without loosing on the other a-tier Cults.
@virules: Yeah that power sounds amazing, even better if combined with infernal gateway or some other MW power.
Also makes an great Magic-Cult Assassin with Doombolt / Firestorm / Infernal Gaze sniping Characters and doing 7,5 MW on average if he gets off all 3 powers using the great sorcerer strategem.
Cult of magic seems like a brute force method to winning with tsons which goes against my feelings on how tsons should be run.
Now the Cult of Duplicity, that's money. The movement shenanigans there are just outstanding. If what I am seeing is correct we are talking about any unit from tsons (not a named chr) so you can teleport all sorts of things around the board all game. You could even do stuff like dark matter crystal a sorcerer behind enemy lines, cast a few mortal wound spells to a chr that isnt properly screened, then teleport back before your opponent can do anything about it if the opportunity arises. Duplicity is definitely where I am going with my sons.
I do think Spawn, Mutaliths, Helbrutes, Tanks, and Daemon Engines all qualify.
It's worth getting away from Tzaangor bombs. You will have to play a full game instead of banking on a T1 win, but Rubrics have recieved so many microbuffs they're probably emerging as a stronger choice.
Honestly, brigades are not as hard as most people think they are for csm
We got dirt cheap FA to work with, and multiple elites at fair price. Troops are also cheap if you use cultists.
HS is the main limiting factor.
Problem is, we lack quality HS. His triple predator only worked because the opponent wasn't waac either. Had he faced even a simple space marine tank line, they would quickly fall behind, as every support chaos gives tanks is outmatched by loyalists.
BoomWolf wrote: Problem is, we lack quality HS. His triple predator only worked because the opponent wasn't waac either.
It also probably helped that he was running 30x Rubrics. The GK bolters coudn't find a worthwhile target at all once the enlightened got blown off the table.
General question regarding Sorcerous Facade (Cult of Duplicity spell), when cast it yeets a unit somewhere and state that the unit counts as having moved, but if I use it on a unit that was in combat, do they count as having fallen back? Or just as having moved so they'd be able to shoot?
If its the latter the the Cult of Duplicity is really starting to seriously tickle my interest
Edit: I did a bit of googling around Da Jump as its worded exactly in the same way aaaaand.... *trumpets*.... They don't count as having fallen back as they did not perform a fall back move and are not within 1" at the beginning of the shooting phase.
Ooooh boy I'm excited
General question regarding Sorcerous Facade (Cult of Duplicity spell), when cast it yeets a unit somewhere and state that the unit counts as having moved, but if I use it on a unit that was in combat, do they count as having fallen back? Or just as having moved so they'd be able to shoot?
I haven't looked at the exact wording, but if it works like Da Jump for the orks, which I think it does, than yes, you can teleport out of combat without counting as falling back. IIRC it's how Dark Mater Crystal works too.
That's really powerful, for the first time I'm tempted to include some tank or leviathan dread into a TS detachment as it would mean that they are really hard to tie down I combat, as compared to Da Jump this is not limited to Infantry only.
Also even simply teleporting a buffed up Leviathan dread with a claw and a grav-flux 9" away from the enemy might be hella scary and pretty effective, shoot then charge and in your turn teleporta him out again and repeat on another flank, oh boy
I agree pretty much with Boom’s take on the Cults. Duplicity feels like it will be the standout Cult for any main detachment going forward. However, I’m not too sure about Time. Regaining models is always good, but, your only options are Rubrics or SOTs, and if you’re going heavy on those, you’re prob running Duplicity anyway.
Prophecy, I feel like is going to get the FAQ nerf. But, if it doesn’t, then I can see it being a toss up between running Magic or Prophecy on your SCD, depending on the rest of your list.
My personal take on this is going to be a Duplicity Battalion, Magic SCD and a Tzeentch Daemons Battalion. The extra CP from the cheapish Daemons Battalion, along with some of their strats is really helpful.
I currently have 25 Tzaangors in the Battalion, but I might take them out depending on testing. The idea of Rising 20 Rubrics, Jumping 10 Rubrics and DMCing 25 Tzaangors is very interesting. All depends on how things go in the games where my opponent deploys fully first and has Infiltrator units.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I do have a question though…
If a unit is deployed mid table via a strat (i.e Risen Rubricae), but then re-deployed later by the Duplicity WL trait, can it still deploy as per the strat, or does it need to be setup in your own deployment zone?
I think Change is a "small detachment support" rather than a pure meme, simply because it has maybe the best relic in the business.
Against any opponent with lots of psykers, my small support detachment is 100% going to be change. That thing is like a Culexus Assassin that also gives me +2 if I'm near it, doubles my opponent's chance to peril, halves my chance to peril...so good.
Just attempting to wrap my limited brain power around this... so the Cult of Magic WL trait - if I manage to roll two 6s for Tzeentch's Firestorm, is that 4 MW?
And the Astral Blast spell will be D3+1, then 1+1 on everything else in 3"? Hoo boy.
Gonna play my first game with the new rules tomorrow.
Time Cult Battalion:
Ahriman on Disk
Daemon Prince (Comeback relic)
Exalted Sorcerer (Warlord w. High Magister)
20 Rubrics
2 x 10 Kultists
Magic Cult Vanguard Detachment:
Daemon Prince (+1 Psy Relic and +1 MW Warlord trait)
Exaltet Sorcerer on Disk (DMC)
Contemptor wit 2 x TwinLasCa
5 Scarabs
Shaman
Daemon Battalion:
Changecaster
Fluxmaster
3 x Brimstones with some blue horrors
Not 100% sure about the Time Cult battalion, might be better to switch for duplicity to jump those 20 Rubrics around and get access to the CP relic instead?
Wanna infiltrate those 20 Rubrics and use fussilade + veterans first turn. Sounds to much fun not to do it.
Also want to test that MW spamming Magic Cult HQ.
First idea was to use the DP to get Gateway + new spell for lots of mortal wounds.
Alternative is to use the Disk Exaltet with Doombold, Infernal Gaze and Firestorm to snipe some characters. Maybe a mix of both?
Thought about combining DMC and / or warptime to reach some sweet spot.
Altarnative take: Exaltet on foot to get Boon of mutation as well and hope to get a gateway with +4 at some point.
Or try to use a Termi Sorcerer to get a +6 on his gateway test just for the lulz, no +1 MW tough.
Patch wrote: Just attempting to wrap my limited brain power around this... so the Cult of Magic WL trait - if I manage to roll two 6s for Tzeentch's Firestorm, is that 4 MW?
And the Astral Blast spell will be D3+1, then 1+1 on everything else in 3"? Hoo boy.
Patch wrote: Just attempting to wrap my limited brain power around this... so the Cult of Magic WL trait - if I manage to roll two 6s for Tzeentch's Firestorm, is that 4 MW?
And the Astral Blast spell will be D3+1, then 1+1 on everything else in 3"? Hoo boy.
It should only be 3 mortal wounds for Tzeentch's Firestorm - 2 for the spell, and then an additional 1 for the warlord trait.
I think the winning approach is playing the mission and piecemealing the enemy army over 6 turns, not trying to force a decisive finish by the bottom of T2. TS got a lot of love but they're not going to outshoot marine gunlines due to a stratagem or leafblow entire armies off the board due to a few casting tricks.
It should only be 3 mortal wounds for Tzeentch's Firestorm - 2 for the spell, and then an additional 1 for the warlord trait.
I see now that you are correct.
"When this Warlord manifests a psychic power that inflicts 1 or more mortal wounds on an enemy unit, increase the mortal wounds inflicted on that unit by 1."
It's the "or more" that I'd missed previously. Well that's a little disappointing. Still makes Astral Blast and similar spells d3+1 and the 1+1 on surrounding units, so that's decent.
Also makes FNP rules interesting with this WL trait.
Already it appears that if you don't roll a 6 or 4+ on Firestorm or Infernal Gaze, you won't trigger the effect, but, if your opponent FNPs the initial MWs, then, i think it also prevents it from triggering.
BoomWolf wrote: The problem with change is that the relic is the only thing worth a damn.
Yep, which is why I'd reserve it to a small probably supreme command with ahriman and two princes.
The question is whether Magic for the super-smiter is better or whether having the crest on the board is better. And I think it just depends on how many psykers the enemy has, since a more reliable caster who debuffs enemy psykers will be more useful into a bunch of deny attempts anyway.
BoomWolf wrote: The problem with change is that the relic is the only thing worth a damn.
Yep, which is why I'd reserve it to a small probably supreme command with ahriman and two princes.
The question is whether Magic for the super-smiter is better or whether having the crest on the board is better. And I think it just depends on how many psykers the enemy has, since a more reliable caster who debuffs enemy psykers will be more useful into a bunch of deny attempts anyway.
I think change will be the go to choice for TS supreme command detachments in chaos soup. Their power is actually ok, as it can target units and - is never bad. That said it is slightly less useful than the cult of Magic’s power. This gap IMO is a lot smaller than some think however, as Magic’s has less range (15 inches vs 18) and has to target the nearest enemy unit. The restrictions that magic have aren’t that big of deal when facing easier opponents, but matter a lot more vs experienced players.
Outside of the that, I think cult of change relic is ridiculous. Very few relics in the game offer meaningful benefits to your psychic phase, while disrupting your opponents. One of the first to come out was the Tyranid relic from Blood and Baal. Cult of changes relic is IMO better than that one, as your opponent will be forced to re-roll any 6’s on important powers (so long as they are casting within 18 of the bearer), as once they accept a 6 as result you can force them to change that into 1, and they have to live with it. Makes it extremely easy to stop a very important power, while you get to basically guarantee that any important power you have can go off. I’d be happy if this relic just had the turning 1’s into 6’s effect. The 6’s into 1’s effect just makes this ridiculous.
So while the cult of magic might have a better psychic power than cult of change, IMO cult of change’s relic being much better than cult of Magic’s more than makes up for this. In any army which can afford to take 2 thousand son warlord traits I could see using cult of magic due to their good warlord trait, but in a lot of soup lists this isn’t really an option and the first psychic power warlord trait you’re taking is always “High Magister.” Meaning any list which takes a non thousand son warlord should be using cult of change for their supreme commands.
Another power I think people are sleeping on is Cult of Manipulation.
It's "only" a single Mortal Wound but it's 24" range and doesn't require LOS! Meaning you can infiltrate Rubric squads into screening cover and chip away at important HQs. The enemy can't remove the threat either, as you can simply deploy other MSU into safe positions if they get killed. If they don't remove your forward units, they can't easily target your psychic snipers either due to character restrictions. And if their gunline can't apply its firepower, or loses its critical support characters before you really start engage in earnest, they're probably going to lose.
The WL trait and Relic are also pretty good for a Sword Exalted, you have access to 2 different CC relics and SM Smash Captains might strike at -4 to hit (WLT, Glamour, Boon result, TH penalty). So you can really penalize fast assaulters who come after your Rubrics, and if they come after your Exalted, you can yoke a MSU squad into action with a 2D6 charge. In fact, this is the first time I can think of a legit use for SOT. They'd be perfect in this role.
The more I think about it, the more I’m leading towards a Duplicty/Time/Magic mix. However, depending on what happens over the next few weeks, Time might get replaced with Mutation.
Outside of the that, I think cult of change relic is ridiculous. Very few relics in the game offer meaningful benefits to your psychic phase, while disrupting your opponents. One of the first to come out was the Tyranid relic from Blood and Baal. Cult of changes relic is IMO better than that one, as your opponent will be forced to re-roll any 6’s on important powers (so long as they are casting within 18 of the bearer), as once they accept a 6 as result you can force them to change that into 1, and they have to live with it.
That's the part that I'm not really sure of and that I think will require a FAQ, what's the order of operations on the relic? as based on how it's currently warded the 6 that you change to a 1 can then be re-rolled as it's a change not a re-roll so the rule "can't re-roll a re-roll" don't apply, atm I think the possible interpretations seems to be:
Opponent Rolls 5 and 6 -> you replace the 6 with a 1 -> the opponent can use/uses command re-roll on the 1 that you've placed to still cast successfully as technically you replaced a die didn't re-roll it so "can't re-roll a re-roll" doesn't apply (making the relic far less powerful)
Opponent Rolls 2 and 6 -> you replace the 6 with a 1 -> he opponent can use/uses command re-roll on the 2 potentially translating into a successful cast (making the relic good but not exceptional as the opponent can react)
Opponent Rolls 1 and 6 -> the opponent has to decided if to use command re-roll -> after the re-roll you decide if to use the relic ability, meaning that once the relic is used no command re-roll can be used on either of the die (making the relic REALLY good)
And I have the sad feeling (following the unwritten law of physics that's states 'Chaos can't have nice things') that it is case 1, re-rolls can be done after you modify the value AND they can re-roll the 1 that you've placed, this also seem to be the common agreement on Reddit where I initially posted this thing
So with the Cult of Prophecy- Guided by the Whispers the warlord can move 6 after overwatch. Does that mean: A charge is declared towards my Warlord on let say 7 inches. I fire overwacht and them move out of range to 13 inches. Thus making them fail the charge.
Am I right in thinking that a unit teleported by the Dark Matter Crystal can still use the Infernal Fussilade start to fire again?
Nowhere does it say that I can find that they count as moving.
Where as with the Sorcerous Facade power it does specify that they moved.
dan2026 wrote: Am I right in thinking that a unit teleported by the Dark Matter Crystal can still use the Infernal Fussilade start to fire again?
Nowhere does it say that I can find that they count as moving.
Where as with the Sorcerous Facade power it does specify that they moved.
Q: If a unit uses a rule that removes them from the battlefield and then sets them up again, such as the Teleport Homer ability or the Gate of Infinity psychic power, does that unit count as having moved for the purposes of moving and firing Heavy weapons?
A: Yes. Treat such units as if they are arriving on the battlefield as reinforcements.
This was a FAQ a while back, all reinforcement count as having moved when they arrive, it pretty much affects anything that removes models and places them back again so also the DMC, was a hell of a debate at the time as people would Waptime units that arrived from DMC and that's forbidden too
Karang029 wrote: Scout Deployment for a unit of 20 Rubrics. Dark Matter Crystal on infantry and Da Jump on anything. TSons just got some verrrrry aggressive early game pressure ioptions
Can that be used turn 1? Its called Sorcerous Facade. Or for that matter, the dark Matter Crystal?
Nevermind, can't be used. Too bad. One or two units cheating, isn't like an entire army alpha striking.
1's - Pretty useless unless you have large squads that are testing morale. Reroll with Gaze I think.
2's - Probably most useful to negate Perils. Also to change a failed wound for the right unit.
3+ - Now we start to be able to use this in most situations. Most useful to ensure key powers, denies, charges, critical weapons results, etc. I think we also get some control over the Athenean Scrolls since we can deliberately force a double.
6's - This opens up huge charges with the DMC, guaranteed hits regardless of WS/BS, guaranteed Doombolt or really good chance of gateway with +2, etc. So many possibilities!
I think it's best to cast this at the start of your psychic phase. Depending on your result, it can cue you as to what you want to do as you can actually pre-plan around that dice roll.
At first, I really looked down upon it-a miracle dice that you have one turn to spend, costs a spell to generate and effects a limited subsection of the army? pass.
Then I looked again, and if I'm reading this right-unlike miracle dice, this is used AFTER rolling.
You could pull some real shenanigans with the 6" move if you get charged, you either set up an easy intervention from Rubricae or whatever failed the charge becomes Smite bait.
Most DS chargers set up at 9", so they'd have to make a 15" charge? That's probably tough even for an Eversor.
There are enough rerolls with command dice, gaze of fate and the new prophecy replace a die roll, that you can do something nasty like field a defiler, teleport it and 3 rerolls to guarantee a charge. You need two cults to pull that off though. Not sure if you can do with, but you got up to 3 detachments in 2000pts so why not.
I'd field like 3 defilers, just so I can do that 3 times, maybe Maulerfiends since they can be broke good too. Or both in a spearhead. I think its going to be fun and make a lot of people sad if you pull it off.
Then add in some nightlord warp talons raptorial hosts, combat plus lock them in combat when you consolidate. Mellee Tsons is going to be viable.
We're going to have the same issue as CSM, too many cool powers to cherry-pick them all. So we probably have to decide what's most important in our primary det, and then what secondary support fits into our game plan best.
This Sunday I tried out a list setup with tons of sorcerors, 2 10-mans of Rubrics and 2 5-mans of Scarabs. I used a Battalion with Cult of Time, and a supreme Command of Change with the crest on a disc exalted sorceror.
The crest was, in a word, absolutely crazy. I have never had a relic make a bigger difference in any game of 40k I've ever played, both my opponent and myself were remarking on it throughout the game.
Not one, not two, but FOUR times I turned a smite into a bigly smite with the Crest, I used it to effectively deny my opponent's casts 2 times (he only had two psykers, so not a ton of opportunities to do that) and I used it to turn failure into success for my own powers so many times I lost count.
The powers were not the game changers I thought they'd be, tbh. I used the Change power one time to debuff some terminators I was tarpitting with horrors, and I used the Time power three times to resurrect a total of 5 rubrics over the course of the game. Ironically my best roll resurrecting 3 was IMMEDIATELY nullified by that squad of rubrics using the crest to get a power off, willingly periling in order to successfully Doombolt an enemy Discolord, which resulted in 3MWs zooping the three rubrics I had just respawned back into the warp.
Will probably test out two different cults in my next game for variety, but Change is 1000% just worth it for the relic. Probably Duplicity for my big detachment and Magic for my supreme command, we will try out The Nukebird TM with my demon prince. (+1 to cast relic, +1MW trait, Infernal Gateway and the Cult of Magic power for ultimate brainmelting.)
One sad thing about relics, after reading the wording of the "Sorcerous Arcana" it seems that the limitations of the accessibility of the content are even higher then what I initially though, you can take only 1 Relic from the whole Ritual of the Damned and it has to match the cult of your warlord, which implies that with the extra relic strat you can't get additional Cult Relics, is my understanding correct? .... if yes that really sucks, and it also means that the Crest can be accessed uniquely if your warlord if from the Cult of Change
"If your army is led by a Thoushand Sons <Cult> Warlord you can give the relevant <Cult> Sorcerous Arcana Relic to a Thousand Sons <Cult> Character model from your army instead of giving them a Sorcerous Arcana Relic from codex: TS"
also the_scotsman how did you play the Crest for your opponent? meaning once you replace his 6 with a 1, he can re-roll it or not? that's something that I keep on trying to discuss but somehow always get's missed, on the enemy front the crest to me sounds very confusing, as RAW that's not a re-roll so it can be then re-rolled by the opponent, still it's good enough just for the effect on our own casts
deTox91 wrote: One sad thing about relics, after reading the wording of the "Sorcerous Arcana" it seems that the limitations of the accessibility of the content are even higher then what I initially though, you can take only 1 Relic from the whole Ritual of the Damned and it has to match the cult of your warlord, which implies that with the extra relic strat you can't get additional Cult Relics, is my understanding correct? .... if yes that really sucks, and it also means that the Crest can be accessed uniquely if your warlord if from the Cult of Change
"If your army is led by a Thoushand Sons <Cult> Warlord you can give the relevant <Cult> Sorcerous Arcana Relic to a Thousand Sons <Cult> Character model from your army instead of giving them a Sorcerous Arcana Relic from codex: TS"
also the_scotsman how did you play the Crest for your opponent? meaning once you replace his 6 with a 1, he can re-roll it or not? that's something that I keep on trying to discuss but somehow always get's missed, on the enemy front the crest to me sounds very confusing, as RAW that's not a re-roll so it can be then re-rolled by the opponent, still it's good enough just for the effect on our own casts
Yes, you can never have more than one model with a CULT relic in your army. I had my DpTz from the Change detachment as my warlord with the boosted invuln save trait, and then I gave the crest to a disc sorc.
It didn't come up. If my opponent had asked, I would have let him reroll the 1. RAW I don't think it's clear. Certainly the dice has not been 'Rerolled' and it's not a 'Modifier' as those are defined.
I will have to read the "more relics" stratagem in detail, but I *think* that you would be able to use it to gain additional CULT relics as long as the model fulfils the requirements. Just like you could take a relic that, say, replaces a power sword so long as the target model fulfils the requirement "has a power sword". If the stratagem just says "give a sorcerous arcana to a character from your army" then the relics in ROTD are sorcerous arcana and the rule is just relevant to the one free relic you get to have.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "Your army can have 1 extra sorcerous arcana"
The relics in ROTD are defined as sorcerous arcana, and therefore they can be added to your army freely via the Relics of the Thousand Sons stratagem.
the_scotsman wrote: This Sunday I tried out a list setup with tons of sorcerors, 2 10-mans of Rubrics and 2 5-mans of Scarabs. I used a Battalion with Cult of Time, and a supreme Command of Change with the crest on a disc exalted sorceror.
The crest was, in a word, absolutely crazy. I have never had a relic make a bigger difference in any game of 40k I've ever played, both my opponent and myself were remarking on it throughout the game.
Not one, not two, but FOUR times I turned a smite into a bigly smite with the Crest, I used it to effectively deny my opponent's casts 2 times (he only had two psykers, so not a ton of opportunities to do that) and I used it to turn failure into success for my own powers so many times I lost count.
The powers were not the game changers I thought they'd be, tbh. I used the Change power one time to debuff some terminators I was tarpitting with horrors, and I used the Time power three times to resurrect a total of 5 rubrics over the course of the game. Ironically my best roll resurrecting 3 was IMMEDIATELY nullified by that squad of rubrics using the crest to get a power off, willingly periling in order to successfully Doombolt an enemy Discolord, which resulted in 3MWs zooping the three rubrics I had just respawned back into the warp.
Will probably test out two different cults in my next game for variety, but Change is 1000% just worth it for the relic. Probably Duplicity for my big detachment and Magic for my supreme command, we will try out The Nukebird TM with my demon prince. (+1 to cast relic, +1MW trait, Infernal Gateway and the Cult of Magic power for ultimate brainmelting.)
Interesting write up, thanks!
The more I look at the Magic DP combo, the more I’m considering swapping Infernal Gateway out for either Doombolt or Bolt of Change. I feel like Infernal Gateway will work once (as it’s 3” from the closest model rather than the unit), whereas Doombolt/Bolt are always targetable where you want them.
Will be interesting to hear how you get on with it!
the_scotsman wrote: This Sunday I tried out a list setup with tons of sorcerors, 2 10-mans of Rubrics and 2 5-mans of Scarabs. I used a Battalion with Cult of Time, and a supreme Command of Change with the crest on a disc exalted sorceror.
The crest was, in a word, absolutely crazy. I have never had a relic make a bigger difference in any game of 40k I've ever played, both my opponent and myself were remarking on it throughout the game.
Not one, not two, but FOUR times I turned a smite into a bigly smite with the Crest, I used it to effectively deny my opponent's casts 2 times (he only had two psykers, so not a ton of opportunities to do that) and I used it to turn failure into success for my own powers so many times I lost count.
The powers were not the game changers I thought they'd be, tbh. I used the Change power one time to debuff some terminators I was tarpitting with horrors, and I used the Time power three times to resurrect a total of 5 rubrics over the course of the game. Ironically my best roll resurrecting 3 was IMMEDIATELY nullified by that squad of rubrics using the crest to get a power off, willingly periling in order to successfully Doombolt an enemy Discolord, which resulted in 3MWs zooping the three rubrics I had just respawned back into the warp.
Will probably test out two different cults in my next game for variety, but Change is 1000% just worth it for the relic. Probably Duplicity for my big detachment and Magic for my supreme command, we will try out The Nukebird TM with my demon prince. (+1 to cast relic, +1MW trait, Infernal Gateway and the Cult of Magic power for ultimate brainmelting.)
Interesting write up, thanks!
The more I look at the Magic DP combo, the more I’m considering swapping Infernal Gateway out for either Doombolt or Bolt of Change. I feel like Infernal Gateway will work once (as it’s 3” from the closest model rather than the unit), whereas Doombolt/Bolt are always targetable where you want them.
Will be interesting to hear how you get on with it!
You don't really need to swap though as you can have both really, the Magic DP package assumes this character is there for the purpose of dealing MW , it knows Smite, Astral Blast + 2 other spells, these other two spells can (arguably should?) be Infernal Gateway and one of Infernal Gaze/Doom Bolt/Bolt of Change , in a psychic phase you'll be casting 2 + 1 (strat) spells, so you either go Smite -> Astral Blast -> Bolt if the enemy is spacing properly as a couterplay or you go smite -> Astral Blast -> Infernal Gateway if the opponent is clustered enough, arguably if you can hit even a single other unit with Gateway other then the primary target that's already the spell to use as it'll net the biggest benefit from the WL trait
I have to say the fact that the psychic powers are locked into the cults keyword as well severely limits their use to Tsons as a whole.
I feel if they had just let the psychic powers be used on any Thousand Sons unit then we would as an army be more flexible but as is, youre basically getting one psychic power that only works on a specific detachment.
Hopefully an faq rectifies this but I doubt it.
That said, magic sounds good but against an opponent expecting it doesnt have a large impact on the game. The Time psypower is great but only able to be used on one squad from one detachment.
The Change relic really shines because it can be used on any Thousand Sons.
All in all a bit lackluster in comparison with what Grey Knights got. Hopefully we get a similiar buff when we get our 9th codex.
Tried to make the most out of Duplicity in 2 1500 points games. The idea was to risen rubricae, teleport a close range Leviathan into the enemy (AM) backline, but it was to no avail. The dread just gets blown to bits after killing 1 basilisk.
list looked something like: Exalted on a disk, DP w/ wings, 15x rubrics, 3x5 rubrics, Contemptor w/ lascannons, and Leviathan with Gravbombards or Fist/soulburner.
Matthew Allee came in 45th at LVO with a ton of Rubrics, Daemon Princes and Ahriman, a Hellforged Scorpius, and a CSM battalion with some Cultists and Oblits.
My first game last week with the new rules was quite a success.
I had 2 Daemonprinces, Ahriman, 1 Disc Exalted, 1 Exalted, 1 Shaman, a squad of 20 Rubric Marines, 2 x 10 cultists, 5 Scarabs, an Hellforged contemptor with 2 x TwinLasCa and a minimal Tzeentch Daemon Battalion.
Used magic and time cults with every important psychic power on board at least once.
Opponent had a LR Crusader, the rusty 17, an inquisitor, 1 culexus assassin and many custodes, some bikes and a Captain of those deep striking.
Infiltrated the 20 Rubrics midfield and placed my army very offensive behind them except some camping / screening cultists and horrors.
First turn:
My opponents forces deployed out of the risen rubrics range except the rusty 17 screening, who got obliterated by the magic DP with magic WL trait & relic(over a dozen mortal wounds) and the firepower of the 20 rubrics.
Contemptor weakened the LR Crusader.
Enemy turn my rubrics got all the enemy firepower with an 3++ from indomitable foes & glamour of tzeentch so i lost only 5 and some horrors nearby.
Custodes didn`t get any charges because they werea bit to far off.
Mahlstrom at its best: Easy "Priority orders recieved" Defend objective X for my warlord, had to move 3" to get my a nice 6:1 VP start vafter battleround 1.
Second turn:
After Death Hex and a load of MW from all my units the Rubrics got to quad-tab and i killed all Custodes except one squad + banner + Trajan.
My second CCDP got warptimed, charged his LR crusader who survived with 3 wounds remaining.
Now the custodes bikes + captain + Culexus arrived, but only managed to kill most of my screening units. Managed to screen really nice so the Culexus had to come in a bit offside, so most psi would be unaffected afterwards.
DP made 10/12 3++ saves and survived Trajan, Banner, Inquisitor, Custodes squad and some shooting, killed the inquisitor and some custodes in return.^^
Third turn:
Prince killed the LR Crusader with MW, got killed by the other prince by "accident" though. All my HQ`s went all in, killed half the Custodes Bikes with MW & the rubrics helped them with another quad-tab.
Ahriman got counter charged by the Shield Captain, made enough invul. safes to survive with 1w and killed the dude.
Second Prince and some Characters took care of the remaining bikes in CC, my termis cleaned the opponents backjard from remaining enginseers and some acolythes.
Minor disturbances by the Culexus, who got engaged by my shaman, both failing to do anything.
Imperial forces had only the Culexus, Trajan and 2 or 3 custodes / bikes left, with a few close combats going on.
Minor losses for the TS, most characters still alive.
Fourth turn:
Basicly all over now, so after checking the objectives that were of the charts for me this game we called it a day, would have tabled him this turn anyway.
Well he had deployed poorly and played his forces far to defensive imo, which gave me the chance to kill his stuff in waves.
Also got lucky my rubrics never got charged and got to shoot a lot. Quad-tab with prescience, reroll1 and votlw is brutal, but hard to get of against lots of stuff i guess.
Loved my magic DP with relic and trait, he did at least 20 MW that game. Too bad he was out of range to snipe that banner, Infernal Gaze + Infernal Gateway & Smite & Astral Blast are quite a combination.
Infernal Gateway + Blast kinda worked against his screening, but is very hard to pull of properly.
Might change him for a disk sorcerer, but i like his extra durability and the chance to add his CC output to the MW he dishes out. Warptime on Ahriman got him exactly where i needed him to be, also good way to pull of gateway etc and get him back afterwards.
Time flux was a nice gimmic, got a few Rubrics back who did shoot a lot, so i will play time cult again for sure.
Used Adepts of the Immaterium & Sorcourous Infusion strats both once, also a nice-to-have.
But i need more CP, thats for sure.
That means getting more cultists / rubrics if i want to keep that mob of 20 or just play 4x5 + 2 x 10 cultists. Not sure which (3rd) cult though?
Also using that Tzeentch battalion means loosing a third cult. Maybe going for a brigade with 3 spawns but what would you add for heavy support?
Only got a defiler so far and then you need another battalion or some silly patrol detachment if you want 3 cults.
Oh and finally we actuelly have to think which relics to use. 3-5 are quite good now.
So I got a game in with the new rules, and I have to say I think the TS are much improved. Still probably not top tied as a pure army, but some of the new stuff is really good.
I played against UM who brought some storm ravens, predator, AssCan Razors, scouts, and Incessors (primaris jump guys) captin/Lt
I had dual battalion one time and one magic, plus a vanguard as duplicity.
The vanguard was Arhiman, SoT x5, Tgor mage, and Dreadnought
Magic was DP (no wings), Sorcerer and three cultists
Time was DP (wings), Sorcerer, two rubrics at 9 each (I have the only number of Tzeentch squads) 10 man Tgors, 5 of the Elightend with bows, and an Leviathan.
The Magic DP had the relic and WL trait for magic, the DP w/wings had time relic, and a Sorcerer had the cast WL trait.
Thoughts:Good
First the Magic relic/WL trait is bonkers. I did so many mortal wounds with Gateway/Blast/Smite, especially when you use the Strat that lets you cast another power so you use all 3.
I love the strat that lets you get a SoT back on a cast of 9+. I brought back 3 SoT during the game.
the SoT with duplicity is really good. They jump around the battlefield where needed, and they are better than most backfield units they will face. It is really good when you roll a 9+ and bring back a SoT then move them.
I used every new strat except the heroic intervention one. They are all money. The double shooting is really good, but can be a bit tricky with the not being able to move part.
I Thoughts: Bad
Time seems cool, but I don't think it does much for regular rubrics. I didn't even get to use it as the one squad was holding an objective on the far side of the table (so took very little shooting) and the other was killed in one turn. I think time might work really well with SoT, but then they have such limited movement. Obviously I need to play some more games with them, but bringing back an SoT is so much better than a Rubric that I can see any Time spells being focused on more SoT, so maybe bring more of them as opposed to Rubrics.
Why did Tgors up up a point???? Reasons?
I still think the Enlightened don't do enough for their points. They are too fragile, and their shooting does not have enough volume of shots or high damage to make them worth it. I have been using them in every game as I have models I really like painted, but they never seem to do anything and just get killed by even the lightest of small arms fire. And nothing new helps them at all.
Overall I am happy with what we got, and can't wait to play some more.
There goes my dream of plonking down 20 Rubrics and shooting twice for an absurd number if shots all for 1CP.
1.
Although this trick aint legal, there is another one that comes handy:
There is a stratagem that let you deploy your rubric squad anywhere 9"outside of opponen unit and deployment zone meaning you can have them in range for turn1 double shot without moving.
After all the buffs, you can have them: 76 shots, hitting on 2+ / rerolling 1ns, +1 to wound -> s4, ap-2
and you can throw some defensive powers on them if you think they gonna soak up a lot of return dmg:
-1 to hit, +2 invaruable save (1 from powers, 1 from stratagem) leaving you up with 3++/2++ against dmg1 weapons.
Then you need either, cult of time to keep healing models from them or cult of duplicity letting you jump this bomb around table every single turn (I like option 1 more).
2.
Cult of magic -> to be honest we only need this on a single character, that preferably is DP We take -1cp Magister / -1cp relic or we make him our warlord for +1 to cast and mortal wound increase trait.
With arcane blast, infernal gateway and doombolt(or other mortal wound spell)
This way, if our opponent sets up units close to each other (like TAU gunbase or possessed bomb) we can cast all three powers for a UNBELIVABLE CRAZY amount of mortal wounds
We get either 3d3+3 into target and all the units in 3" range get d3+3 mortal wounds
Or if we manage to cast +12 gateway we do: 2d3 + d6 + 3 into target and all units within 3" d6+3
Worst case scenario:6 mortal wounds into target, 4 mortal wounds into every single unit that is within 3", not bad at all.
Best case scenario: 15 mortal wounds into target, 9 mortal wounds into every single unit that is within 3"
From 1 character...
On a single psychic phase....
That is not monster and can be screened....
(using +2 to cast stratagem gives you quite nice chance of getting big gateway (33%), or high cast values so its hard to deny and other dice manipulation let you reroll dmg's of the spell for a superb consistency)
To get this cheap, we can always take a patrol of a daemon prince and cultist's.
3.
Cult of time, i think it works best on a big blob of 10 scarab occult terminators, it let them heal 1 model every turn, but sometimes you can heal up to 4 models if you get 9+cast (unmodified).
if you want to relay on this unit heavily you can use some cults and cp rerolls to manipulate dices in order to get +4 models constantly.
(u can use this revive to get better charge range - > you simple create a line forward into opponent that stays inunit coherency)
4.
DMC is best now on the 10 scarab occult terminator's , we can move them around map turn 1 and still get full 24" rapid fire for 40 shots. Not bad, Not bad at all.
5.
I really like the combos, shenigans, and synergies between 2 or 3 cult play but i think competetive wise "The way is always the same." ->
TS stay's best as a SUPRREME COMMAND in chaos soup lists, and PA gave them just a little more dmg output with cult of magic for that.
I hope to be proven wrong, would love to see this Mono 1KSons lists goin well all around the world.
Unfortunately you are correct, mono Tsons is still played one way to be semi competitive and that is smite spam with min squads of rubrics.
True competetive lists will only use Tsons in Supreme command.We are lacking in actual units to be competetive not rules, we have very little good anti tank. Preds are too flimsy, dreads as well.
Cult of time sounds great but in practice you probably wont use the spell more than 3 times and because it must be used on cult units there is limited synergies in your force.
Duplicity I think is better for Pure Sons lists as it gives us much needed mobility and opens up some larger units to us, A leviathan that can DS turn one or a blob of 20 rubrics for instance.
Magic is useful only on a singe character, so useful in a supcom or patrol detachment.
We are very much hampered spell wise by the fact that the spells only affect cult units and dont affect Thousand Sons units, which to me is odd because none of the powers get OP if they can be used cross cults. Especially since theyre all just single use per turn
Although this trick aint legal, there is another one that comes handy:
There is a stratagem that let you deploy your rubric squad anywhere 9"outside of opponen unit and deployment zone meaning you can have them in range for turn1 double shot without moving.
After all the buffs, you can have them: 76 shots, hitting on 2+ / rerolling 1ns, +1 to wound -> s4, ap-2
and you can throw some defensive powers on them if you think they gonna soak up a lot of return dmg:
-1 to hit, +2 invaruable save (1 from powers, 1 from stratagem) leaving you up with 3++/2++ against dmg1 weapons.
Then you need either, cult of time to keep healing models from them or cult of duplicity letting you jump this bomb around table every single turn (I like option 1 more).
I expect that 2++ to get FAQ´d as soon as GW realises it, like they did with Tzeentch Daemons.^^
Might leave it the way it is though, there are not many weapons that trigger this special situation outside of not overheating plasma and D1 power weapons.
Used time cult for that infiltrating Rubric bomb but i got lucky with enemy charges and that way you just have the DMC as backup. Still cool though.
I`ll go for Duplicity next time, its safer and more flexible for sure.
We are lacking in actual units to be competetive not rules, we have very little good anti tank. Preds are too flimsy, dreads as well.
Well i think the Hellforged Contemptor and Leviathan are fine.
You can keep them out of sight if you go second and get some buffs on them if you don`t use it for magnus or a large squad of Rubrics.
170 points for the Contemptors 4 x 2+ LasCannons is fine and did work great for me. It`s small enough to avoid some LOS and shoot around corners hoping not to get obliterated too soon.
Cult of time sounds great but in practice you probably wont use the spell more than 3 times and because it must be used on cult units there is limited synergies in your force.
Duplicity I think is better for Pure Sons lists as it gives us much needed mobility and opens up some larger units to us, A leviathan that can DS turn one or a blob of 20 rubrics for instance.
I personally like the idea of a time and duplicity battalion with 3 x 5 Rubrics each to get most out of the two psychic powers. With 2 x 5 or 1 x 10 time Cult Scarabs as well to get the maximum additional points per battle.
Then another battalion with magic Cult for that MW nuke and 3 x 10 cultists for cheap CP.
With Ahriman, 2 Exaltet and 3 princes thats 2000 points and enough CP to fool around.
Might not be highly competitive but gets the most out of our beautiful models without those beaky dudes.
Just need 10 more Rubrics for this.
If i would run 20 Rubrics in that list i would go for Duplicity Cult to jump them around and keep returning models to that 10 Time Scarabs at the same moment.
We are very much hampered spell wise by the fact that the spells only affect cult units and dont affect Thousand Sons units, which to me is odd because none of the powers get OP if they can be used cross cults. Especially since theyre all just single use per turn
None of it would have been broken even if there were no cults at all abd these were just more warlord traits, relics and spells to choose from.
But as it is, especially with the limitation that you can only pick a relic from your warlord's cult...
The entire book basically buffs one dude. In the army most suffering from "allied supcom syndrome" in the game.
As much as I love the army, its just nonfunctional. Having effectivly no army trait means we are still stuck in almost index era.
And seeing the rise of GK, who hard counter us to absurd levels, just makes me lose hope for the army being remotely useful any time soon.
I think once our codex comes out and the Army Doctrine kicks in we will see our army play like our army.
If we got a mirror of what the Grey Knights got we would all be ecstatic and it would open up alot of stuff. But we will have to wait for that.
Im curious if they will try and tie in Death Guard and Thousand Sons into the main Chaos codex like they did with Loyalist marines except for Grey Knights.
demontalons wrote: I think once our codex comes out and the Army Doctrine kicks in we will see our army play like our army.
If we got a mirror of what the Grey Knights got we would all be ecstatic and it would open up alot of stuff. But we will have to wait for that.
Im curious if they will try and tie in Death Guard and Thousand Sons into the main Chaos codex like they did with Loyalist marines except for Grey Knights.
Let's not kid ourselves; if they were planning to give us a better army doctrine they would've done so in PA.
The problem is that the tactic does not have any practical effect beyond the supreme command detachment. (yes, technically rubrics, scarabs and shamans are also effected. but that's 3 non-HQ units in the entire codex. the range RARELY matters, and the ability to spam smites isn't amazing when they do only 1MW, because perils can still kill your own dudes.)
The fact most of our unique units are actually no different in a TS detachment over a random chaos soup detachment makes TS effectively not an army.
Chaos marines in general are hosed by this that a BL predator is identical to a WE one, and both are outright inferior to ANY imperial counterpart, but TS somehow gets the situation even worse.
My lists tend to be composed of mostly Scarabs, Rubrics and sorcerers, so that is probably why our views differ.
In those lists the +6 range is always a game changer, and I throw a lot of smites. Now we even have a stratagem to avoid perils!
By the way, the next list i'm going to try is a double battalion of TS and a vanguard of Tzeentch demons for the exalted flamers (good thing that the rule of 3 does not affect summoning). CA rules oriented. Don't expect much from it, but should be fun.
The fact that a similar list got first place in a GT though gives me hope...
One cult will be prophecy to buff the exalted flamers, the other one i cannot decide between time, magic, change and duplicity.
The fact that all marines got a mono army bonus and no one else did tells me that the mono army bonuses will be the main selling point of the new codexes.
Our additional range does matter a lot and is a good buff but as said previously, only affects our casters and not our bread and butter units. Our non magic damage output is not very good and neither is our resilience.
Guy's, what about ALL - IN strategy ?
2k, Batalion + super heavy auxiliary
Ahriman on Disc
Daemon Prince wings, talons
2x20 rubrics (2 soulreaper cannon)
25 tzangors bayhorn
heldrake
heldrake
Magnus the red
What we do is, we set up 1 unit of rubrics from stratagem 9" away from opponent.
We "jump" second squad of rubrics 9" from opponent. (spell from duplicity)
We push 25 tzangors 9" away from opponent with DMC and using rerolls, we try to get them turn1 charge (8+ with reroll is decent chance)
heldrakes all in !
And we either 16"+2d6 charge with magnus, and 12"+12"+2d6 (warptime) daemon prince
or we warptime magnus to have a 100% chance of hitting his charge, and we leave DP for turn 2.
If we dont start, we probably loose, or at least cry
If you go Duplicity in any case, why not add Spawns instead of the second Heldrake. As fas as I can tell, cult sticks to Spawns so a sorcerer can fling them with Duplicity spell, 9" away, but it is still over 20% change of a charge, and no way can they be ignored. And cheap as it gets.
Outside of the that, I think cult of change relic is ridiculous. Very few relics in the game offer meaningful benefits to your psychic phase, while disrupting your opponents. One of the first to come out was the Tyranid relic from Blood and Baal. Cult of changes relic is IMO better than that one, as your opponent will be forced to re-roll any 6’s on important powers (so long as they are casting within 18 of the bearer), as once they accept a 6 as result you can force them to change that into 1, and they have to live with it.
That's the part that I'm not really sure of and that I think will require a FAQ, what's the order of operations on the relic? as based on how it's currently warded the 6 that you change to a 1 can then be re-rolled as it's a change not a re-roll so the rule "can't re-roll a re-roll" don't apply, atm I think the possible interpretations seems to be:
Opponent Rolls 5 and 6 -> you replace the 6 with a 1 -> the opponent can use/uses command re-roll on the 1 that you've placed to still cast successfully as technically you replaced a die didn't re-roll it so "can't re-roll a re-roll" doesn't apply (making the relic far less powerful)
Opponent Rolls 2 and 6 -> you replace the 6 with a 1 -> he opponent can use/uses command re-roll on the 2 potentially translating into a successful cast (making the relic good but not exceptional as the opponent can react)
Opponent Rolls 1 and 6 -> the opponent has to decided if to use command re-roll -> after the re-roll you decide if to use the relic ability, meaning that once the relic is used no command re-roll can be used on either of the die (making the relic REALLY good)
And I have the sad feeling (following the unwritten law of physics that's states 'Chaos can't have nice things') that it is case 1, re-rolls can be done after you modify the value AND they can re-roll the 1 that you've placed, this also seem to be the common agreement on Reddit where I initially posted this thing
As far as I know the order of activation is...
roll-> controlling player applies modifiers/rerolls -> non-controlling player applies modifers/rerolls-> die result is determined.
The reroll strat might circumnavigate that but from what I can tell they are still spending CP to negate something you did with a single Artifact, which means they are burning extra CP.
Looking at the different cults there are some which are worth noting.
Time and Change can net you lots of extra Rubricae up to 18, 12 on average, espically if you use GoF. Including the strat and
Magic, Scheming, and Duplicity seem to sync well. Using the latter two, to bait the enemy into a position where they are tightly packed togeather so you can get maximum effect with your AoE spells.
Change and Manipulation allowes for some interesting HQ shenanigans, forcing opponents to attack themselves, even if they have very high Leadership (10).
Unfortunately I have to agree with Boomwolf when it comes to Knowledge, it is absolutely meme worthy. At best it gives a very small bonus for MSU play but that is about it, the warlord trait seems good till you realize it's only 2 casts which let you reroll 1s. If want to go full meme just bring min squads of Rubrics and put Plasma Pistols on every Aspering Sorcerer.
Were definitely in a better place but still not anywhere near competitive mono lists.
The point about our chapter tactic is solid boomwolf, the only time the range really comes into play is during the first turn. After that first turn the range becomes a nonissue, and that's only if your Rubric/SOT heavy. It's useful for 1 turn and then it becomes useless after that. So we have a CT that is useful in the first round with a particular Army composition. Which is a hell of a difference compared to other CT which are useful all game.
Honestly what we need is a transport that carrys 6 models (maybe 9) and allows 1 Psyker to cast while in/on the transport.
Biggest nerf for me is the stealth nerf to Cult relics on the last page of the FAQ doc.
Spoiler:
Q: If I have a <Cult> Warlord and I use the Relics of the
Thousand Sons Stratagem to give a Thousand Sons Character
from a different <Cult> a Sorcerous Arcana, can I select their
relevant <Cult> Sorcerous Arcana?
A: No, as you can only select that Sorcerous Arcana if
your Warlord is from that <Cult>
You now only get 1 Cult relic per list, and only on your Warlord. No using the extra relic strat to get 1 or more of them.
I personally think this is a massive mistake and misunderstanding by GW, but.... yeh.
BoomWolf wrote: As I said from the get go, PA was a joke for TS.
Looking more and more like this is the case.
Unfortunately, they really just don't care about TS not sure why. They seem to think TS are fine, or they have something in the pipeline which they plan on releasing fairly soon, which I doubt.
After a few more games, it is readily apparent that all of the TS stuff in PA is unnecessarily restrictive. We would have been better off with no cults with GW just giving us the best 6 of the relics, spells, WL traits all of them working on TS units. I mean would it really be that game breaking to use the Duplicity spell on Tgors? Even losing the free spell these upgrades with no cults would have been so much better. Now the FAQ really made this even more the case with unnecessary restrictiveness. No other army I can think of has this limitation on taking relics (you can take a relic from two different CSM legions for example). Not being able to cast Cult spells on none cult units also is unnecessary. So if a time and duplicity cult are fighting together they won't share their internal spell and teleport or heal, but gladly cast weaver etc. on the other cult? There is just no reason for this.
Ultimately, I still think what we got was good, and is an improvement, but no where near SM or even Grey Knights. But then again what non-imperial force was that improved either?
1 Cult relic per list is just so stupid. I was looking forward to trying out a full-Magic sorceror backed up by the Capricious Crest, but that's impossible now.
You could put the relic on a non-WL though, it's just that your WL has to be from that cult (yay! restrictions!)
xeen wrote: After a few more games, it is readily apparent that all of the TS stuff in PA is unnecessarily restrictive. We would have been better off with no cults with GW just giving us the best 6 of the relics, spells, WL traits all of them working on TS units. I mean would it really be that game breaking to use the Duplicity spell on Tgors? Even losing the free spell these upgrades with no cults would have been so much better. Now the FAQ really made this even more the case with unnecessary restrictiveness. No other army I can think of has this limitation on taking relics (you can take a relic from two different CSM legions for example). Not being able to cast Cult spells on none cult units also is unnecessary. So if a time and duplicity cult are fighting together they won't share their internal spell and teleport or heal, but gladly cast weaver etc. on the other cult? There is just no reason for this.
I think the reason for this is that it has upped the number of spells our basic squad sorcerers know to 3, for zero points.
Moreover, there are some really nice toolbox spells there- Teleport, Resurrect, Fall back and shoot, free reroll.
Astral blast is a decent damage spell to replace minismite- and there are debuff spells for the enemy too.
These open some new and interesting ways to support different army builds, if you commit to one cult.
xeen wrote: After a few more games, it is readily apparent that all of the TS stuff in PA is unnecessarily restrictive. We would have been better off with no cults with GW just giving us the best 6 of the relics, spells, WL traits all of them working on TS units. I mean would it really be that game breaking to use the Duplicity spell on Tgors? Even losing the free spell these upgrades with no cults would have been so much better. Now the FAQ really made this even more the case with unnecessary restrictiveness. No other army I can think of has this limitation on taking relics (you can take a relic from two different CSM legions for example). Not being able to cast Cult spells on none cult units also is unnecessary. So if a time and duplicity cult are fighting together they won't share their internal spell and teleport or heal, but gladly cast weaver etc. on the other cult? There is just no reason for this.
I think the reason for this is that it has upped the number of spells our basic squad sorcerers know to 3, for zero points.
Moreover, there are some really nice toolbox spells there- Teleport, Resurrect, Fall back and shoot, free reroll.
Astral blast is a decent damage spell to replace minismite- and there are debuff spells for the enemy too.
These open some new and interesting ways to support different army builds, if you commit to one cult.
Wouldn't it be bad to use your one astral blast per turn with an Aspiring Sorceror? If you commit to magic wouldn't you just use your warlord with the +1 damage? Using it just as an upgraded smite seems like a huge waste.
I have to disagree with everyone, I think that PA really helped us out. Cult of Duplicity's Warlord Trait is really good. And the Cult of Change relic is also good. The duplicity shenanigans makes TS feel like a different army. Also, don't think that the Grey Knights got much better, they are still one of the if not the worst faction in the game.
Problem is not our PA; problem is everyone else got far better supplements / PA rules.
I think the amount of buffs we got would have been perfekt for all other books.
Slight improvement and new toys to play around, but nothing gamechanging. 40k right now is killy enough.
Except some stupid restrictions with our new relics / traits combos and the usual useless stuff everybody gets our update seems fine to me.
Ok some kind of army wide buff would have been nice though. Even if its just something like improved all is dust, which would have been super cool and fitting.
Or a mechanic like tzeentch destiny dice or the new sisters rule for manipulating dice would have been great as well.
Now we are even more in a spot of getting used to spice up chaos soup with our top (HQ) units.
No real reward for going solo except access to multiple cults.
2.
Cult of magic -> to be honest we only need this on a single character, that preferably is DP We take -1cp Magister / -1cp relic or we make him our warlord for +1 to cast and mortal wound increase trait.
With arcane blast, infernal gateway and doombolt(or other mortal wound spell)
This way, if our opponent sets up units close to each other (like TAU gunbase or possessed bomb) we can cast all three powers for a UNBELIVABLE CRAZY amount of mortal wounds
We get either 3d3+3 into target and all the units in 3" range get d3+3 mortal wounds
Or if we manage to cast +12 gateway we do: 2d3 + d6 + 3 into target and all units within 3" d6+3
Worst case scenario:6 mortal wounds into target, 4 mortal wounds into every single unit that is within 3", not bad at all.
Best case scenario: 15 mortal wounds into target, 9 mortal wounds into every single unit that is within 3"
From 1 character...
On a single psychic phase....
That is not monster and can be screened....
(using +2 to cast stratagem gives you quite nice chance of getting big gateway (33%), or high cast values so its hard to deny and other dice manipulation let you reroll dmg's of the spell for a superb consistency)
To get this cheap, we can always take a patrol of a daemon prince and cultist's.
You might want to check the wording on Infernal gateway, and it refers to a model, not the unit as the target:
Infernal Gateway: The psyker opens a portal to the warp, a tear in the fabric of the mortal plane that sucks foes into certain oblivion.
Infernal Gateway has a warp charge value of 8. If manifested, identify the nearest enemy model that is within 12" of the psyker
and visible to him; that model’s unit, and every other unit (friend or foe) within 3" of that model, suffers D3 mortal wounds. The
number of mortal wounds inflicted is D6 instead if the power is manifested with a Psychic test of 12+.
Hi,
Finally got to test the cults. Relaxed local league, first match, against BA with lots of Death Company and Sanguinary Guard, Mephiston, Lemarters, Sang Priest and Libby Dread. My list had Magnus in a supremeHQ of Cult Magic, outrider duplicity detachment 3 x single spawn, and battalion of cult of Time. Battalion had 15 rubrics and 10 scarabs.
ITC ruleset, I gave 1st turn to BA, they managed (easily) a charge but not against my Rubric-castle with Magnus & al. inside. They broke stuff but that DC unit was killed by smites in turn. Then opponent made a mistake by not dropping second DC, Lemartes, Sang priest and DC dread from Stormraven, but instead driving that bird within my Smite-strike-range. I didnt even need to leave the rubric castle except with Magnus (to have on option of charging things). Smites destroyed the transport, then Rubrics double-double tapped DC squad, and Scarabs dropped for the purpose killed the DC dread, although just with a lucky charge. I played Veterans for Rubrics, which was a mistake as that left the dread allive. Then I failed to charger Lemartes also (hurrying unduly) and he intervened and killed some scarabs.
Opponent then had just his characters left from the transport, but was able to drop Sang Guard in a line behind them, and made a 14 inch charge with stratagem to engage both Magnus and remaining 8 Scarabs (not the 2 termi sorcs behind scarabs though). Sang guard had 5 fists, four of them against Magnus, and swords against Scarabs. Character buffs, assault doctorine and stuff made for 5 attacks, wounding even Magnus with 2's and doing minimum of 2 dmg each. Magnus was first lucky, with Tzeench Glimmer being hit only with 5's (though full rerolls), losing only 6 wounds. Scrabs died all. Then transhuman psysich allowed Magnus to only kill 3 (sword) sangs in return. Then 3pts fight again stratagem, and again four fists with insane buffs. Magnus was left with one wound!
My turn, Magnus made a fall back, with warptime, beyond anything BA had left, after smiting Sangs. Ahriman, Exalted Magic cult WL, and rubrics shooting twice again then killed all the sangs and Sang priest with sniping magic. Lemartes was also smitten to death.
Rest was mopping, his Lib dread and 3 x 5 intercessors and 3 x 5 tacs didnt play any significant role, especially as the Libbydread had to lend a hand to Spawn-aggravated Tac squad on turn 2 and so was very out of position to main fight.
Takeaways: Magic WL & spell less than overwhelming. Nice to have extra mortals, of course helped but was not ciritcal (forgot at least once). No positions to splas dmg really, managed that only twice for 1 extra mortal. Infernal gateway with Magnus for d6 was also sort of wasted. Time Cult got 8 rubrics back and kept the squad at full strenght, even out of cover. However, as they had perimeter duty, all never managed to fire.
Used fire twice two times, for very good effect, both times with Veterans (second was mistake though). Very good combo. Scarabs didnt have opportunity to recuperate, as 2dmg was in play with BA stratagem & char attacks. Term Socr with Magistered High Magister & Familiar is a brutal caster. Both Term lords in a crater easily survived latter turn bolt rifle shots (no sniper Intercessors for some reason). Used "no-perils" stratagem once, very nice to have.
Finally got to test the cults. Relaxed local league, first match, against BA with lots of Death Company and Sanguinary Guard, Mephiston, Lemarters, Sang Priest and Libby Dread. My list had Magnus in a supremeHQ of Cult Magic, outrider duplicity detachment 3 x single spawn, and battalion of cult of Time. Battalion had 15 rubrics and 10 scarabs.
ITC ruleset, I gave 1st turn to BA, they managed (easily) a charge but not against my Rubric-castle with Magnus & al. inside. They broke stuff but that DC unit was killed by smites in turn. Then opponent made a mistake by not dropping second DC, Lemartes, Sang priest and DC dread from Stormraven, but instead driving that bird within my Smite-strike-range. I didnt even need to leave the rubric castle except with Magnus (to have on option of charging things). Smites destroyed the transport, then Rubrics double-double tapped DC squad, and Scarabs dropped for the purpose killed the DC dread, although just with a lucky charge. I played Veterans for Rubrics, which was a mistake as that left the dread allive. Then I failed to charger Lemartes also (hurrying unduly) and he intervened and killed some scarabs.
Opponent then had just his characters left from the transport, but was able to drop Sang Guard in a line behind them, and made a 14 inch charge with stratagem to engage both Magnus and remaining 8 Scarabs
Spoiler:
(not the 2 termi sorcs behind scarabs though). Sang guard had 5 fists, four of them against Magnus, and swords against Scarabs. Character buffs, assault doctorine and stuff made for 5 attacks, wounding even Magnus with 2's and doing minimum of 2 dmg each. Magnus was first lucky, with Tzeench Glimmer being hit only with 5's (though full rerolls), losing only 6 wounds. Scrabs died all. Then transhuman psysich allowed Magnus to only kill 3 (sword) sangs in return. Then 3pts fight again stratagem, and again four fists with insane buffs. Magnus was left with one wound!
My turn, Magnus made a fall back, with warptime, beyond anything BA had left, after smiting Sangs. Ahriman, Exalted Magic cult WL, and rubrics shooting twice again then killed all the sangs and Sang priest with sniping magic. Lemartes was also smitten to death.
Rest was mopping, his Lib dread and 3 x 5 intercessors and 3 x 5 tacs didnt play any significant role, especially as the Libbydread had to lend a hand to Spawn-aggravated Tac squad on turn 2 and so was very out of position to main fight.
Takeaways: Magic WL & spell less than overwhelming. Nice to have extra mortals, of course helped but was not ciritcal (forgot at least once). No positions to splas dmg really, managed that only twice for 1 extra mortal. Infernal gateway with Magnus for d6 was also sort of wasted. Time Cult got 8 rubrics back and kept the squad at full strenght, even out of cover. However, as they had perimeter duty, all never managed to fire.
Used fire twice two times, for very good effect, both times with Veterans (second was mistake though). Very good combo. Scarabs didnt have opportunity to recuperate, as 2dmg was in play with BA stratagem & char attacks. Term Socr with Magistered High Magister & Familiar is a brutal caster. Both Term lords in a crater easily survived latter turn bolt rifle shots (no sniper Intercessors for some reason). Used "no-perils" stratagem once, very nice to have.
Good and eventful game.
Nice! Always good to hear more peoples experiences with the new Cults.
However, not sure what happened with the 14" charge. I'm guessing you meant that he moved 14" with the 3d6, but Magnus etc were in 12" range to be charged?
Yes, Magnus and Scarabs were within 12", but he needed that 14" to bring four of his fists against Magnus. Bare 11" for successful charge would have 1 or 2 fists and mayby 1 - 2 sworsds tops against Magnus, and even less for scarabs.
Posted this in the list forum but I figured I’d come here for all of you fine sorcerer’s arcane knowledge as well. I Played a lot of Daemons in 6th and 7th but I’m a relative newb in 8th I’ve always loved Tzeentch but Chaos Daemons are just plain boring if half decent from what I can tell and want to do the mind bullet and psychic trickery thing again. So I’ve turned to Thousand Sons. Let me know what you think.
++ Total: [88 PL, 1,251pts, -1CP] ++ BBC
Created with BattleScribe
Idea is to use Risen Rubricae and DMC to apply early pressure with the Rubrics and Tzaangors along with all of the characters who should keep up fairly well with 12” movement + advances and possibly warptime somewhere. Turn 2 Termiators come down and keep up the pressure. Thoughts? I worry that the list might be too too heavy and trying to be pulling off too much chicanery in lieu of more bodies, but it seems half decent in my head. All C&C welcomed and appreciated.
Hey guys seriously contemplating getting a force of Thousand Sons however I am wanting to only utilize Rubric units. Do you think it is possible to run a pure Rubric Army and still be decently effective?
I have to take a different stance on our PA. While it could have been better we got a good amount of really solid things. Sadly alot of it are from two or three cults but it has really changed how I play and my lists. I feel my army of pure 1ksons got a pretty big power boost from PA. From DSing My leviathan to Risen Rubrica my army has gotten a TON more options. The extra power per turn per cultist sorc is almost worth the price of admission in and of it self (my lists tend to be smite heavy). But I have been having good fun dropping a 20 strong squad of rubrics on a juicy target and being really tough to remove.
Also, I am not a tournament player but for casual games I am very happy.
Table wrote: The extra power per turn per cultist sorc
what do you mean by that? Each psykers knows the cult spell in addition to their regular spells but they dont get to cast an extra spell. and only smite is castable more than once anyway.
Table wrote: The extra power per turn per cultist sorc
what do you mean by that? Each psykers knows the cult spell in addition to their regular spells but they dont get to cast an extra spell. and only smite is castable more than once anyway.
Yes, Mistyped. Since I play smite heavy armies having the extra powers to cast instead of smite is always welcome. Ive always been critical of the 1ksons spell access as I feel fully half of our spells are not worth casting. Giving us three powers (or more) that are absolute beasts is quite nice. I normally try to replace my mini smites with actual spells as mini smites kinda suck in contrast to even the worst powers. Up until now our aspirings are limited to change. Now they get as many options as detachments you have in your army.
Now, what I hate about PA is how alot of the cult powers only work on that specific cult. It was to restrictive and wouldnt break the army to remove that rule. But this is talked about alot so I dont feel the need to compound on this.
So I don't know if anyone other TS players noticed this but the new Look out Sir rules makes characters need to be within 3" to get protection, which is perfect for our splash damage spells. I was actually moving away from Magic to Duplicity, but I think I am going to move back in 9th. Although it hurts that if you want to use more than one cult you need to spend CP on another detachment, but then again, I think we are gaining CP now without having to worry about double battalion, or filling out with Cultists.
The Faction Focus on the Thousand Sons dropped today. One big stumbling block that people are picking up on is that including Magnus in the army via a Supreme Command detachment nets you CP, but it also means that he has to be your Warlord. This automatically locks the army out of a lot of PA options, since Magnus can't be assigned a Cult.
I’m a bit disappointed in the psychic secondaries if I’m honest. There are only 3, 1 of which we can’t even complete as it requires your army having 0 psykers. The other 2 require Psyker Characters and if they perform the action then they can’t cast any other powers.
One of them can be completed within 3 turns (if you don’t get denied), but, 3 turns of having a character cast no powers is painful. Best option would be a standard Sorcerer or a Shaman (likely a Shaman due to the new detachment setup), but that leaves you spending 90+ points (as we don’t know the new cost).
I really don’t rate our ability to consistently score highly on mission secondaries.
Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.
Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.
Kdash wrote: Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.
Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.
Unless the all smite rule gets changed, it won;t matter, we will be tabling armies left and right. Don't think people realize what 4x Gaze of Magnus can do when you can begin him in reserves.
Kdash wrote: Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.
Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.
Unless the all smite rule gets changed, it won;t matter, we will be tabling armies left and right. Don't think people realize what 4x Gaze of Magnus can do when you can begin him in reserves.
The problem with that plan is screens and not having first turn.
First off, if you don’t take Magnus as your WL (due to wanting Cult relics and WL traits), then this is going to start off by costing you 6CP. 3CP for the detachment and then another 3 to put a power lvl 21 unit into reserve.
You then need to add on the CP costs of things like additional relics, additional WL trait and key stratagems, by which point you’ll be out of CP – even if you keep 4CP back to cast an extra power with Magnus each turn, you’re only giving yourself 2CP to play with for the whole game.
Magnus is probably going to be between 475 and 500 points after the new edition hike. If you don’t get the first turn you run the very real risk of losing 1/3rd of your on table points, maybe even more in certain matchups, before you can even retaliate. Chances are, before you even get to bring Magnus onto the table you’re going to be pretty low on units. If you start Magnus on the table, he might survive, but that isn’t a guarantee.
If you do get 1st turn and start him on the table, then he will absolutely do an insane amount of damage, but, against an opponent that knows 4D6 smites (maybe 5 or 6D6 if you’re lucky) is coming their way, they are going to stay back and hard screen until he is removed.
It opens up options, but it’ll be a massive risk to take against lists that will likely be setup to be MSU spam or have large amounts of anti-tank to deal with vehicle spam.
I hope tzaangors will get Astartes Chainswords. The ones on the conversion sprues look cool, but are strictly worse than just taking the fantasy swords out of the box.
kodos wrote: with the points change and the new smite rules it is more like the best army in the game by now
Psychic focus is gone*. Sons pay smite tax like everyone else now. You got maybe 4 smites tops and then you're done. And what exactly is left for us to deal with armored targets?
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Psychic focus is gone*. Sons pay smite tax like everyone else now. You got maybe 4 smites tops and then you're done. And what exactly is left for us to deal with armored targets?.
so 1 psyker is casting smite 4 times, which leaves the rest of the army doing nothing?
reserve rules changed and flanking is a thing, I did not made a list yet but just a brief overview (as day1 BRBFAQ is a thing, as are errors with the leaks) but we got the units we can work with
Let's not discuss the absence of Psychic focus because there's no way that they won't carry it over one way or another into the new matched play rules.
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.
If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.
And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.
If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.
And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.
Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.
All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.
As in the Daemonforge strat to re-roll hits and wounds? I feel like it's somewhat wasted, especially if you're going to be baby sititng them with a character.
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.
If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.
And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.
Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.
All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.
They're flamer weapons so they probably won't get blast.
Kdash wrote: I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.
In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.
Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.
Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.
If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.
And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.
Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.
All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.
They're flamer weapons so they probably won't get blast.
They do not "auto hit" though, so they're likely separate to other flamer weapons.
For anyone interested, I did an analysis on my YouTube channel yesterday on how to play Chaos in 9th Edition based on all the new points changes and FAQs:
It's not clear to me how Guided by the Whispers is supposed to work with the new errata. Does it just basically give your Warlord an additional 6 inches of movement in the psychic phase (unless they're under another rule that prevents them from Overwatching)? That seems...really good.
Brian888 wrote: It's not clear to me how Guided by the Whispers is supposed to work with the new errata. Does it just basically give your Warlord an additional 6 inches of movement in the psychic phase (unless they're under another rule that prevents them from Overwatching)? That seems...really good.
No the original rule triggers when doing Overwatch. The FAQ allows the HQ to still move even if it has no gun. So you pay 1 CP to "Overwatch" and then get to move. If they block the ability to Overwatch then you can't use it.
Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.
Played a bunch of 9th ed games over the weekend. Using Cult of Duplicity and the Dark Matter crystal to get two Rubric squads onto objectives turn 1, surrounding them with Horrors and backing them with teleporting Scarab terminators on turn 2 and playing "Raise the Banners" was really strong.
As for Psychic Focus - I'm putting my money on that being a copy/paste error ... but time will tell I suppose ...
What do we think of Vortex Beasts now that objectives are so important? Too fragile or is an aura mortal wound dealer a good thing when you know the enemy has to crows around certain areas.
Kdash wrote: First off, if you don’t take Magnus as your WL (due to wanting Cult relics and WL traits)
That just recently got fixed in the updated errata for Ritual of the Damned. If Magnus is your WL you can still take a Cult relic (and use Magister to give another character the Cult's WL trait).
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demontalons wrote: What do we think of Vortex Beasts now that objectives are so important? Too fragile or is an aura mortal wound dealer a good thing when you know the enemy has to crows around certain areas.
I don't think it'll survive for 6 rounds, but I can see it putting in some real work in conjunction with the Cult of Magic's splash damage capabilities.
Kdash wrote: First off, if you don’t take Magnus as your WL (due to wanting Cult relics and WL traits)
That just recently got fixed in the updated errata for Ritual of the Damned. If Magnus is your WL you can still take a Cult relic (and use Magister to give another character the Cult's WL trait).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
demontalons wrote: What do we think of Vortex Beasts now that objectives are so important? Too fragile or is an aura mortal wound dealer a good thing when you know the enemy has to crows around certain areas.
I don't think it'll survive for 6 rounds, but I can see it putting in some real work in conjunction with the Cult of Magic's splash damage capabilities.
Games are only 5 rounds now, and terrain changes mean it will be super easy to hide it and pump out mortal wounds. So probably not a bad choice.
Games are only 5 rounds now, and terrain changes mean it will be super easy to hide it and pump out mortal wounds. So probably not a bad choice.
I know it's a points-sink, but I'm thinking about trying two of them to try and buff summoned Screamers. The Screamers really fast, and given that we're likely to see a ton of assault Intercessors, I think they're a good potential counter unit (wish they were cheaper). The Vortex Beast can make it so the Screamers bypass the Power Armor save completely. Bringing two should allow one of them to survive long enough to have an effect and at the very least it's a distraction Carnifex. Hopefully allows the Rubrics to last a little longer since, theoretically, they wouldn't have to survive as much shooting.
With cults and the extra CP is Ahriman the must have that he used to be? An exalted sorceror is 100 points and can know the same number of spell (if you include the cult spell) so you’re losing out on +1 to cast and 2 extra denies but gaining 50 points and the ability to take a relic and warlord trait.
I never went anywhere without Ahriman in 8th but I’m wondering if he’s not an auto include anymore?
Ahriman gets about five or six relics/warlord traits worth of stuff over a normal exalted. He has:
a one better invulnerable save
a one damage on average better melee weapon
knows one more spell
has one more cast
has two more denies
has plus one to cast
has plus one to deny
Terminator Sorceror with familiar,and the +1 to cast warlord trait and the +1 to cast relic from magic? Is he worth it or are there better combinations out there? Is the +1 MW warlord trait from magic too good to pass up?
So what we saying about Magnus? Is he back on the menu? If your opponent is gunny, the guy can now go in reserves and emerge T2 to ensure he's rocking -1 to hit 3++ before your opponent can nuke him off the board. That was his achilles' heel...
grouchoben wrote: So what we saying about Magnus? Is he back on the menu? If your opponent is gunny, the guy can now go in reserves and emerge T2 to ensure he's rocking -1 to hit 3++ before your opponent can nuke him off the board. That was his achilles' heel...
Competitively, I still think he's a gamble. Yes you can ensure that he gets at least 1 round to try and do something by putting him into reserves, but that is also a significant CP cost and a good chunk of your army points off the table. The new terrain & cover rules do not help him at all. The meta is still going to be bringing Eliminator spam, triple Riptides, Eldar flyer spam, Custodes bike spam, Knights etc. Which can gun/melee down Magnus in 1 turn even under -1 hit and 3++. I think people will switch to putting his cost in points into stuff that can complete objectives efficiently.
Magnus is fine in the right list - the problem is that the best list for Mag just isn't TSons. We are early in ninth but I saw an RTT winning list with Magnus, Morty and a bunch of GD type of 'monster mash' jam. For what its worth I agree with you these type of big unit lists buy a bit into the coinflip mentality - I guess strategic reserves helps with that slightly as does the obscuring terrain.
Also, are we still seeing eldar flyer lists? They can't stack negative to hit modifiers (well they can but it caps -1), issues with secondaries and primaries etc.
Are we still seeing trip tide? Their cost went up - Tau meta still TBD but its not the same shoo-in... Tau plays i've seen are looking more at 6 commander or triple yavarra (assuming taunar gets nerfed ofc)
Knight lists are still meta? This is more of a gatekeeper army then meta I think.... although we haven't seen much since the latest PA books for knights.
Its still early in ninth so maybe but initial indications are what you should be expecting from comp play has shifted...
My personal view is that the true meta list to play around looks closest to Alex Harrison's list - this is similar to a list every SM player will be cooking as the comp is basically spoon fed (Gravis armor units):
https://www.40kstats.com/vanguardseries
I'm wondering with everyone jamming middle and all the gravis armor if the mutalith vortex beast has a sweet spot... The idea of just durable mortal wound spam came up when the model first came out - and with the new obscuring rules and rush to hold objectives in the center (not to mention the push for SM multi wound models [intercessors, eradicators etc.] - beast swings at -2 2) - if the beast couldn't work... The defiler is getting a lot of hype but points per wound and damage output the beast isn't so diffferent - it just lacks the range option.. 3 of these and ahriman can slide into most lists on the cheap - maybe throw in an extra HQ for the sweet TSons psychic with cult of magic... It costs 3 CP but reasonable mortal wound output as a result... Not sure its a slam dunk but I'd be inclined to give it a whirl, if only the beast models weren't so expensive... anyone have experience?
Changecaster + 30 Pink Horrors (Some reinforcement points left for some Blue Horrors)
Played against Tau with 2 Commanders, 1 Ethereal, 3 Riptides, 3 Crisis, 3 x 5 Firewarriors, 1 x 8 Marker Drones and 2 big squads Shield Drones.
He took the kill psyker and kill characters secondaries obviously, as well as the one where he needed to keep the 3 Riptides (most expensive models) alive till the end of the game.
My take were Engage on all fronts (get units in 3/4 table quarters, psychic ritual and raise the banners.
My plan was to use the "Risen Rubricae" strategem to get the 20 Rubrics on one objective and advance with the Horrors on the other one, while buffing them with my psykers and hold my two objectives with the Cultists and characters.
The Shaman was tasked with the psychic ritual and the 3 Enlightened squads with getting into the two enemys table quarters and help out where needed.
Scarab Occult was for counter attack on the Crisis or get me another unit to raise banners or get into a table quarter.
I have to admit, the matchup was really good for me, with little to no chance to prevent my 15 points from psychic ritual and good units to dominate the middle objectives and table quarters. Had only 3 CP at the start of the game, but with the extra CP this would work out. The "Anti-TS secondaries" are easy 30 points for the enemy as well tough.
I infiltrated the Rubrics on the right middle objective and got the first turn, advanced the Horrors on the left middle objective and my Cultists raised 2 banners on my homebase objectives.
2 Enlightened advanced, so i got 3 points for the quarter secondary. My psy was mostly buffs on the Rubrics and Horrors, with 1 Prince and Changecaster buffing the Horrors and the rest babysitting my Rubrics while chilling near the objectives.
The Shaman found his sweet spot between the Horrors to start some rituals. The magic cult DP abused some poor drones positioning and managed to get over 10 mortal wounds on multiple squads. The Rubrics went crazy with fussilade strat and shooting 80 2+ shots rerolling 1s, killed most of the drones and crippled 1 riptide badly.
The Horrors did also some great shooting with the buffs, with S4 and flickering flames they can wreck a lot of stuff.
Tau first turn poured a lot of fire in the Horrors and Rubrics, but with my buffs and Blue Horrors popping out i just lost 8 Rubrics and about the same in Horrors. 3++ with -1 to hit is nothing the Tau like i guess.
My second turn 1 raised two more flags, had the Enlightened still alive for the secondary and my Shaman proceeded his ritual unharmed.
Killed the remaining Firewarriors, all but two drones and damaged the second Riptide badly.
In return my Rubrics got shot down to the last man with just the Aspiring Sorcerer standing, minor Horrors losses and the Crisis tried to kill characters, but the Riptides SMS failed to kill enough cultists. Lucky me, screening almost gone now.
My third turn i finished the ritual, scored good with the other secondaries, killed 1 Riptide with a DP and almost a second one with the other, the Crisis and the last drones. Oh ond my Aspiring Sorcerer brought back his 2 Soulreaper Cannon buddies for some dakka - nice.
Now he had just the Ethereal, 2 damaged Commanders and 2 almost dead Riptides left.
His third turn his Zipcommander killed my warlord, his two Riptides tried to kill my hourglass Prince with an 3++, but he survived with 1 wound left.
Now it was just about finishing it, 4rd turn the Commander and the two Riptides died, with all 6 objectives under my control.
Except a second character kill he did nothing important, and turn 5 i tabled him with me winning by a final score of 100:46 This game just went perfect, and it was my first 100 points score in 9th edition. Ok there was some luck involved, but still, i am quite happy!
So my overall impression from this game and the ones before:
1. I love those squads of 3 Enlightened! Had 2-3 of them in every game and never regret it. They are fast, perfect for engage secondary, can do some damage on the run and are not that bad to finish something of in CC.
2. The shaman is great for psychic actions, especially if the enemy has nothing he can do about them. Not gonna lie, won`t take the ritual secondary against all armies. To bring 30 Horrors and a lot Rubrics helped a lot though, and even if he dies you can always finish the ritual with one of the other psykers. Not optimal, but heck, 15 points are worth it imo.
3. 20 Rubrics are fantastic - if you have the first turn or are sure you can protect them. Had games where i warptimed instead infiltrated them - this is great if the opponent allready closed in on an objective so 9" distance from units prevent you from using DMC or duplicity. Only downside is they are far to expensive to use them for actions. Played 3-4 squads of 5 as well, more flexibility but not really worth buffing, so less damage.
4. The new detachments are tricky to navigate. I love my Magic Daemonprince with devastating sorcery, but i want Duplicity or Time as well. Also i am really convinced about the Pink Horrors, they are fantastic on objectives but they need that patrol for the strategem and (psychic) buffs. Cheapest way to get all 3 is 6 CP, but that means 4 TS characters tops in 2 Patrol Detachment, or upgrading to an Battalion for another one.
Alternative would be summoning, if you use the first turn to summon 30 Horrors and an DP, but i am not fully convinced and against some enemies it might backfire.
Those 3 CP with infiltrating don`t leave much room for strats, but at least Gaze of Fate helps with Psi.
Only thing worth mentioning is if you go for a Battalion with 3 HQ the opponent can only get 24/30 secondary points for character kills and each surviving character takes 8 more points away.
Might try this, so far a had 2 or 3 detachments each game.
What are your experiences with this?
Has anyone tried the super caster?
Terminator Sorceror with familiar,and the +1 to cast warlord trait and the +1 to cast relic from magic? Is he worth it or are there better combinations out there? Is the +1 MW warlord trait from magic too good to pass up?
Well, most our powers are WC 5,6 or 7, with a few being harder (Doombolt, Death Hex) With an average roll of 7 i personally don`t care about stacking to much. But with Ahriman and 2 Princes and /or Sorcerers i get 7 powers a turn with +1, with the +2 strategem for key psychic powers and the Gaze of Fate reroll for the occasional peril or failed test with good reroll chances. (like a 1,4).
And yes, that MWWL trait is too good to pass up, at least for me. I love to give it to a prince, fly forward, do my thing and let Ahriman warptime him back to safety. (Or into CC that is.^^)
I've been having a fresh look through the cults, and it looks to me like Thousand Sons have a new strong pick: Cult of Scheming! It reads like it was written to win 9e missions:
Grand schemer turns any Cult unit (not model) within 3" of your warlord into obsec, or doubles the number of models it counts as if they're already obsec. That right there is a huuuuuuge deal in 9e. It opens up some of the strong options from the codex in a new way: Chaos Spawn, for example, come in at 115pts and with a full 5 bases of them, they are a top-grade threat in CC. Accompanied by a grandschemer, they're also now obsec. Big deal. Likewise Obsec scarabs is a beautiful thing. Finally, the warlord itself loves this, meaning a Prince can fly about and cap objectives in a pinch. Bascially whichever objective that Prince flies to, when it arrive your chances of grabbing it go up dramatically, even when alone.
Secondly, we have seeded strategy, a nice easy WC6 power that allows any scheming unit to withdraw and still shoot and charge, a power that makes ultramarines look lead-footed. It's a really solid utility power and it allows for some great movement and charge based shenanigans. The range is 30" too, so you can quarterback this onto pretty much any unit that needs it. Suddenly nothing in you army can be tagged in CC anymore. Only flaw is that RAW it doesn't allow that unit to cast if it falls back; we might see an FAQ on this sometime.
Finally, the relic any strat of your choice into 0cp. This isn't faction locked, so big strats like fight again on a Bloodthirster, or endless cacophany on some Oblits are nice picks for this.
What do you think? I'm pretty stoked and plan to try it out in my next Monster Mash/Sons list...
I'm wondering with everyone jamming middle and all the gravis armor if the mutalith vortex beast has a sweet spot... The idea of just durable mortal wound spam came up when the model first came out - and with the new obscuring rules and rush to hold objectives in the center (not to mention the push for SM multi wound models [intercessors, eradicators etc.] - beast swings at -2 2) - if the beast couldn't work... The defiler is getting a lot of hype but points per wound and damage output the beast isn't so diffferent - it just lacks the range option.. 3 of these and ahriman can slide into most lists on the cheap - maybe throw in an extra HQ for the sweet TSons psychic with cult of magic... It costs 3 CP but reasonable mortal wound output as a result... Not sure its a slam dunk but I'd be inclined to give it a whirl, if only the beast models weren't so expensive... anyone have experience?
Spent the week painting up TWO Vortex beasts. Playing some garage hammer this weekend. Going to try the idea I suggested earlier of putting them in my opponent's face fast as possible and using them to buff Screamers. Will report back ...
So, no new FAQ's or TS errata. Mega-smiting 3 (or 4 with strat) times per turn with Magnus is a thing? 3d6 only should yield approx 11 mortal wounds. Rest of the casters just buff Magnus and use our other destro spells. Third smite would be cost 7, not impossible for Magnus as +2.
Has anyone used Noctilith Crowns with their Thousand Sons? There seems to be an obvious symbiosis between them and our Psyker heavy playstyle, and I was wondering at the benefits of having a couple of them in the third detachment slot when the second is a Knight detachment.
Rulebook and GT book FAQ`s are out, along with the Munitorum one and a power rating update for those interested.
Just 1 smite per psyker / phase as expected, but sadly no adressing of Smite WC increase with TS / GK... Nice one.
Biggest bummer for me is psychic ritual needs to be done by the same psyker 3 times. Stupid. At least in some matchups this was a easy to-go for me, now it got a lot more risky.
Heavy flamers going up to 12 inches could be an indicator flamers as a whole are going up, if true would be incredible for warpflamers rubrics.
Terminators also going to 3 wounds so eventually our scarab occult will as well. Looks like power swords are going to be +1S as well, another buff to scarab.
Hopefully because we have an older codex we are in line for a new one sooner than later.
The problem with the noctlith crown is we want our psykers to be close to the action and it can’t move.
demontalons wrote: Heavy flamers going up to 12 inches could be an indicator flamers as a whole are going up, if true would be incredible for warpflamers rubrics.
Terminators also going to 3 wounds so eventually our scarab occult will as well. Looks like power swords are going to be +1S as well, another buff to scarab.
Hopefully because we have an older codex we are in line for a new one sooner than later.
I guess this will be just the heavy flamers. But i`ll enjoy it guessing wrong! Still nice for the scarabs. Those 3 wounds would be epic as well, maybe then Oldmarines and Rubrics get 2 wounds finally. One can dream.
carldooley wrote: Has anyone used Noctilith Crowns with their Thousand Sons? There seems to be an obvious symbiosis between them and our Psyker heavy playstyle, and I was wondering at the benefits of having a couple of them in the third detachment slot when the second is a Knight detachment.
demontalons wrote: The problem with the noctlith crown is we want our psykers to be close to the action and it can’t move.
I kinda like it. Especially with the importance of the center objectives and our good range on psychic powers this might work.
With Rubrics, Scarabs and stuff holding the midfield they would get a nice buff.
With some cultists nearby they would finally get an invul as well.^^
carldooley wrote: Has anyone used Noctilith Crowns with their Thousand Sons? There seems to be an obvious symbiosis between them and our Psyker heavy playstyle, and I was wondering at the benefits of having a couple of them in the third detachment slot when the second is a Knight detachment.
It seems to work well for me. But I have a specific use for it. Cult of Time spell, plus Cult of change relic, plus the strat that lets you restore models on a 9+ cast means I'm usually bringing back 3 SOT per turn.
demontalons wrote: Heavy flamers going up to 12 inches could be an indicator flamers as a whole are going up, if true would be incredible for warpflamers rubrics.
Terminators also going to 3 wounds so eventually our scarab occult will as well. Looks like power swords are going to be +1S as well, another buff to scarab.
Hopefully because we have an older codex we are in line for a new one sooner than later.
The problem with the noctlith crown is we want our psykers to be close to the action and it can’t move.
Where is this actually coming from though?
Had a couple of weeks off so i've not been keeping track of things.
Also, if this stuff is legit rumours, then i don't expect it to be rolled out in one go, but via the new codices, so, don't go planning a list around it all until we have the rules.
Those are army specific rules, which means you refer to the codex. Not the BRB. When our codices come out the rule will be there.
You sure about that? Because it's not in the codex now. I was hoping this was just a simple copy/paste error at first, but after this latest FAQ, I'm not so sure. I still hold out hope, BUT, if GW was going to give that back to us, and knowing it's not in the Codex AND they removed it from the rules, one would think they'd have mentioned it in our army specific FAQ. On top of that, IF it was a copy/paste error, they've had plenty of time to realize it, and fix it, and still haven't. There have also been a lot of rumblings amongst some of the playtesters that hint at it not coming back. I fear we may be on the safer side at this point to assume it's not.
If it doesn't, what do we think our powers look like then? I feel like I'll still cast it a few times because we actually need it, but it's not something I'm likely to bother with after casting maybe twice. Since the other powers can only be cast once, I can see a lot of spell casters not doing any spell casting each turn. Guess it frees someone up for Ritual?
I have a feeling we are up for a pretty substantial codex restructuring. We need an army wide rule for being mono Tsons.
I expect them to flesh out the cults more fully, perhaps each cult will get a psychic tree as well or maybe a mini tree of 3 per cult. I personally think aspiring sorcerers need their own tree of powers aimed at buffing rubrics and minor de buffs.
If they include passive buffs then maybe the smite rule gets put in with cult of magic as an example.
Honestly though the smite rebuff hasn’t really affected my army that much. We have plenty of ways of getting pluses on our casters.
Forgot to mention - my group ran into time constraints over the weekend so we played a smaller sized game. Going to test out the double Vortex Beast list another time.
The problem with the vortex beast is if you leave it near your army it will probably cost you the game if it explodes, and you can't reroll explosions in 9th. But it also isn't a great target to throw forward at your enemy because it does very little damage in combat, dies easily, and is very expensive for how little of a threat it is unless it explodes in the middle of the enemy army, which again is totally uncontrollable. And the buffs also bizarrely only last until the end of the turn, not until your next turn, which makes them very anemic.
It's a fun model to use in a fluffy game but its randomness and points inefficiency make it not very competitive.
The problem with the vortex beast is if you leave it near your army it will probably cost you the game if it explodes, and you can't reroll explosions in 9th. But it also isn't a great target to throw forward at your enemy because it does very little damage in combat, dies easily, and is very expensive for how little of a threat it is unless it explodes in the middle of the enemy army, which again is totally uncontrollable. And the buffs also bizarrely only last until the end of the turn, not until your next turn, which makes them very anemic.
It's a fun model to use in a fluffy game but its randomness and points inefficiency make it not very competitive.
I have a theory that I'll be able to use them to buff my screamers to counter the massive amounts of Primaris infantry I tend to have to deal with. They can buff Screamers to the point that Primaris can't make saves. Since you have the option to just pick the power you want, I'll just pick that one. Then, for 1 cp, you can randomly roll again to get a different buff. Since you can just pick the power you want, it doesn't matter as much that it only lasts through the turn. I just need maybe one or two turns of that to allow my Screamers to churn through the Primaris. Then, I don't really care if they explode. They won't be anywhere near me.
Plus, they're huge. Positioned correctly, they make great road blocks. My current plan is to create a screen of Vortex Beasts and Demons in my opponent's face as fast as possible while my Rubrics secure objectives behind them. Don't get me wrong, I KNOW they're going to die. I just feel like I can use them as fairly substantial speed bumps while the rest of army claims what I need it to claim. I actually think this could work, but then who knows. This edition is ... weird.
When our codex drops we will get the extra wounds. They will only be updating everyone’s wargear at the space marine release.
Also do any of these wargear changes actually effect how we were running our armies? The biggest one to me is the 12 inch flamers as we have multiple ways to deliver a rubric squad within 12 inches and with veterans of the long war with a 10 man squad you are causing about 18 wounds with average rolls. 30 inch bolters are nice as well but mostly for terminators as we can set them up in one spot now and just let them flood the battle field with bolter shots.
Marine armies will be even smaller than they are now and elite which I think we can handle just fine with our mortal wound output and buffs, Im more worried for when a horde army gets their codex and all of a sudden youre facing 6 orks per rubric.
Kdash wrote: Well, at least it is now confirmed that when the Codex drops, all marine units in our book will get +1 wound, and a points increase.
2 wound Rubrics and 3 wound SoT (with str 5 swords) is going to be super interesting depending on the points cost.
Assuming that same ratio of increase you can expect Rubric Marines to cost between 23 and 25 points for an extra wound. Which sounds good on paper, but they will still be useless in Melee, and tarpitting them with chaff won't be hard. Not to mention people weren't really shooting small arms at Rubrics anyways. Plasma was the name of the game, and overcharged plasma doesn't care about the extra wound. Overall to my eye this is a nerf from a points efficiency perspective.
SOT, assuming the same change 48-50 points for, over charged plasma no longer kills them. More durable against D6 damage weapons. Better chance to wound T4, T5, T8, T9. Might be a push but seems like a fair trade.
Flamers going to 12" will almost certainly result in a points increase. Going from no DS shooting to easily mow down 10 T4 models with 9 flamers needs to be addressed.
If regular flamers get a point increase you may be right. Perhaps that’s why combi plays flamer and melta are all the same.
Our helbrutes May actually be worth it now though. TL hvy bolter, spend a cp for inferno bolts and you’re now at ap-2 and you can double tap for another cp. good way to clear sm units now
Yea I am also worried about the 2nd wound making Rubrics to expensive. There is already a lot of D2 weapons out there, and there is about to be more. If they also make "All is Dust" for D1 and D2 weapons that might help, but at 23-25 ppm they will be to overpriced to use if the enemy has any significant D2 weapons. If they are like 21, maybe even 22 points, I think they will be usable. And the 12 inch flamers will be awesome, but there is no way that anyone will realistically be able to field 10 of them without huge holes in their list. I mean even at 21 points per Rubric, and assuming a very conservative 10 points for the flamer, that would still be 310-ish points for that unit. And it will probably be more like 24 points per Rubric plus a 12 point flamer for 360-ish points. That is a lot of points for models that can be gunned down petty easily by Plasma, AC, Knight weapons, Battle Cannons etc. It sucks cause Rubrics were finally to a point that they were playable at all but probably the highest levels after decades of being mediocre to terrible (I have played since 2nd). Just hope GW realizes in the new meta that 2W might not be as good as they think.
Edit: Also did anyone else notice the new FAQ where they straight say they are not bringing back Psychic Focus (at least until codex maybe). That also hurts Rubrics a bit.
If they stay on the 20 percent then Rubrics will cost 21/22 points base, thats reasonable given their invulns and ap-2 weaponry.
Im not so sure youre going to see tons of D2 weapons. For one thing the marines are geting more expensive and theyre going to be limited by how many guns they can bring. If they load up on too many D2 weapons theyre going to drown against Orks,GSC,Nids once those codexes drop.
Regardless A pure flamer squad I think will be a staple as long as it comes in around 320 points, we can launch it and melt pretty much anything we point it at and for Tsons thats a rare thing to be able to do. Plus at 2 wounds and the invul strat, coupled with all is dust theyre incredibly hard to shift. Add in some support and you can delete a flank in a turn.
Personally Im looking at getting some raptors as an Aux force, 2cp but they can be warptimed, buffed with a MVB, and can take 3 melta, which will be very helpful because we have a hard time with opening alot of tin cans.
That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
grouchoben wrote: That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
Can you explain your reasoning? The way that I read Malicious Volleys is that so long as you are within 12 inches of the target, you can shoot twice with your bolters. The preceding paragraph says that if ANY apply, not ALL apply. If all have to apply, then Rubrics can never use it, as they aren't Helbrutes, Bikers, or Terminators. By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
grouchoben wrote: That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
Can you explain your reasoning? The way that I read Malicious Volleys is that so long as you are within 12 inches of the target, you can shoot twice with your bolters. The preceding paragraph says that if ANY apply, not ALL apply. If all have to apply, then Rubrics can never use it, as they aren't Helbrutes, Bikers, or Terminators. By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
You can only use Infernal Fusillade if you remain stationary. (which makes it 4 shots per model)
You do get normal rapid fire within half range if you move.
grouchoben wrote: That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
Can you explain your reasoning? The way that I read Malicious Volleys is that so long as you are within 12 inches of the target, you can shoot twice with your bolters. The preceding paragraph says that if ANY apply, not ALL apply. If all have to apply, then Rubrics can never use it, as they aren't Helbrutes, Bikers, or Terminators. By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
You can still double tap for rapid fire range, but the Infernal fussilade strategem for quadro-tap can only be used, if the Rubrics / Scarabs did not move this turn.
And all our tellyport options (Duplicity power, Dark Matter Crystal, Webway Infiltration Strategem) result in them counting as moved.
The only way would be to use the Risen Rubricae Strategem to infiltrate them and hoping you get the first turn. Did that a few times and had some devastating shooting phases.
Would be so cool if we get a strategem like marines did so they do not count as moved.
By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
I know that I am not a great player, I dont even think that I am a good player. For some reason or another I always play some wierd list that no-one ever has faced. Which is really fun when you go to a tournament, because no-one has any idea how your list is supposed to work. So both you and your opponent can have a good laugh at the utter confusion.
Lately I have been trying out a list with 50 rubrics…. It was insane, one of my regular opponents (imperial guard) ran up with his infantry, as soon as they came to an invisible line the unit just died. Ok, his tanks killed all my rubrics by turn 3, but I had killed his 100 infrantry and killed most of his non-tanks, he only won by 3 points, so it was fun.
So now I have this idea, that 3 defilers are a good idea. I´m I crazy? The can now move and shoot without -1 to hit, and if they have a defiler scourge the can kick out quite few attacks. And if you take Cult of Time you can teleport up one defiler per turn and plop them down outside 9” shoot and then try and charge. Take that as a distraction!
grouchoben wrote: That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
Can you explain your reasoning? The way that I read Malicious Volleys is that so long as you are within 12 inches of the target, you can shoot twice with your bolters. The preceding paragraph says that if ANY apply, not ALL apply. If all have to apply, then Rubrics can never use it, as they aren't Helbrutes, Bikers, or Terminators. By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
You can still double tap for rapid fire range, but the Infernal fussilade strategem for quadro-tap can only be used, if the Rubrics / Scarabs did not move this turn.
And all our tellyport options (Duplicity power, Dark Matter Crystal, Webway Infiltration Strategem) result in them counting as moved.
The only way would be to use the Risen Rubricae Strategem to infiltrate them and hoping you get the first turn. Did that a few times and had some devastating shooting phases.
Would be so cool if we get a strategem like marines did so they do not count as moved.
By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
Correct.
Edit: Dammit, to slow.
So we aren't at loggerheads, how many shots can a model with an infernal boltgun, that doesn't move, and is within 12 inches of its target able to make with the stratagem and Malicious Volleys? 4 or 8?
KhazModan wrote: I know that I am not a great player, I dont even think that I am a good player. For some reason or another I always play some wierd list that no-one ever has faced. Which is really fun when you go to a tournament, because no-one has any idea how your list is supposed to work. So both you and your opponent can have a good laugh at the utter confusion.
Lately I have been trying out a list with 50 rubrics…. It was insane, one of my regular opponents (imperial guard) ran up with his infantry, as soon as they came to an invisible line the unit just died. Ok, his tanks killed all my rubrics by turn 3, but I had killed his 100 infrantry and killed most of his non-tanks, he only won by 3 points, so it was fun.
So now I have this idea, that 3 defilers are a good idea. I´m I crazy? The can now move and shoot without -1 to hit, and if they have a defiler scourge the can kick out quite few attacks. And if you take Cult of Time you can teleport up one defiler per turn and plop them down outside 9” shoot and then try and charge. Take that as a distraction!
So how stupid is this?
Lol I run my tsons with lots of rubrics too, typically 40-50. Always a good time. I also alway run 1 defiler with my rubrics, and use cult of duplicity for teleporting defiler. But I only use 1, I find its enough with the proper alpha strike list.
I take deamon prince with the teleport crystal, my dp warlord with aetherstide, and a defiler with twin las and a scourge.
Warlord dp runs up the field t1 and then uses warptime to move again. Aetherstride allows advance and charge as well as reroll charges. Dp with Crystal casts weaver of fate onto defiler, then teleports defiler with spell, then teleports up with other dp and defiler. Finally defiler gets demonforged used on him to try and pop a tank. Then we charge the flank and try and do as much dmg as possible. Its an incredibly fast smash attack that distracts from all the rubrics moving up and grabbing objectives. Doesn't always work (if it did it wouldn't be fun) but when I pull it off in a game vs someone who hasn't faced it before they always kinda freak out and go "but tsons are supposed to be slow i thought"
Seems like in the near future rubrics will get a second wound and the warpflamers will go to 12".
After all this is said and done (and suppose they are even getting done for free, no points increase at all), they will still be worse than Flamers of Tzeentch.
So we aren't at loggerheads, how many shots can a model with an infernal boltgun, that doesn't move, and is within 12 inches of its target able to make with the stratagem and Malicious Volleys? 4 or 8?
Important disclaimer: Malicious volleys will NEVER allow a model to shoot more attacks than the weapon profile. It just says that the model can shoot the big profile also outside 12" if specific things occur at the moment. Malicious volleys is not unlimited ammo and a license to kill.
A model with malicious volleys shooting within 12" is EXACTLY the same as a model without malicious volleys shooting within 12". The only difference malicious volleys does applies outside 12".
An inferno boltgun guy will be shooting 2 shots at maximum every time he shoots. With fussilade he can shoot twice, so 2x2 =4.
Lately I have been trying out a list with 50 rubrics…. It was insane, one of my regular opponents (imperial guard) ran up with his infantry, as soon as they came to an invisible line the unit just died. Ok, his tanks killed all my rubrics by turn 3, but I had killed his 100 infrantry and killed most of his non-tanks, he only won by 3 points, so it was fun.
If i had 50 Rubrics painted, i`d play them.^^
Those buggers take forever to paint.
That -2 AP is really great, mowing down guard, ranger and stuff like that and even marines in cover just get a 4+.
Also with the new missions i think spamming Rubrics & Scarabs can be quite viable. Especially getting 20 on the mid objective(s) infiltrating puts some early pressure on the opponent.
Heck, if i had the models i would play Ahriman, 2 DP and 80 Rubrics just for the look of my opponent.
So now I have this idea, that 3 defilers are a good idea. I´m I crazy? The can now move and shoot without -1 to hit, and if they have a defiler scourge the can kick out quite few attacks. And if you take Cult of Time you can teleport up one defiler per turn and plop them down outside 9” shoot and then try and charge. Take that as a distraction!
So how stupid is this?
Not stupid at all! Defilers are fantastic. Tanky, nice dakka and enough hard hitting CC to clean mid objectives from transporters (we will see those a lot more hanging around midfield in 9th edition) or small elite squads. We got great strategems and psychic powers for defilers. Daemonforge, flickering flames, diabolic strenght and warptime make them quite dangerous with even more stuff to buff them.
Sadly i have only 1 defiler but i will add 1-2 as soon as possible. Their price went up fair - as did the forgefiend for that matter. Double hades fiend for 135 points is still ok imo if you need to cut some points and want to kill a few primaris.
Here's what sadness looks like:
Seems like in the near future rubrics will get a second wound and the warpflamers will go to 12".
After all this is said and done (and suppose they are even getting done for free, no points increase at all), they will still be worse than Flamers of Tzeentch.
This post was made by the disappointment gang.
If you want lots of dakka just go for pink horrors.
More wounds, more range, don`t trigger deepstrike abilities if you use denizens of the warp and they can sit on objectives and block them from enemy models.
Sure they miss the AP-1 which is a pain against Marines in cover but you`ll get a lot more mileage out of them.
Also Warpflamer Marines are not that bad in comparison. 9 Flamers will kill 2,6 Primaris in cover, 8 Flamer Rubrics for about the same points will kill ~ 4 (adding the minismite and warpflame pistol) You could push that even more with adding extra Rubrics and VotlW.
Even if Rubrics get 8 ppM more expensive, they still do about the same damage.
On top you get better armour, Psi, better CC, All is dust and basicly everything better except the native 4++ of the flamers.
I agree that the extra wound and points increase might not be good for us.
I never thought I'd be in a position to say this but yeah - if my Rubrics get two wounds, I'm probably shelving the army. lol Such weird times.
I've never played my Tsons as a soup army, but I DID combine a Supreme Command Detachment to my Battalion (of 30+ Rubrics). With Supreme Command gone, combined with the Smite nerf, my army was already struggling. If we get the points increase that would naturally correspond with getting the additional wound, my Tsons list just becomes (literally) unplayable ...
My group is putting 9th to the side for a while until it levels out, but we did have some games this weekend, and I did get to run the two Vortex Beast list. 2000 pt games and I went 1 -1 on the weekend.
First game was against Iron Hands, so you know where the loss came from
Second game was against Ultras, but it was an unusual list. Mostly Assault Marines and nowhere near the amount of Aggressors (or tanks for that matter) one would expect so that likely heavily contributed. In that game, everything went off perfectly for me. I got the Beasts into his face very early, and my summing and spell casting consistently went off without a hitch. Buffing the Screamers with the Beasts made them an absolute nightmare for the Assault Marines and it took him too long to chew through everything (I had first turn), so by the time the Vortex Beasts and Demons were no longer impeding him, the Rubric squads had run up a decent lead on objectives.
That said, I admit I was playing against a less-than-optimized marine list so still pretty inconclusive.
Tycho wrote: Second game was against Ultras, but it was an unusual list. Mostly Assault Marines and nowhere near the amount of Aggressors (or tanks for that matter) one would expect so that likely heavily contributed. In that game, everything went off perfectly for me. I got the Beasts into his face very early, and my summing and spell casting consistently went off without a hitch. Buffing the Screamers with the Beasts made them an absolute nightmare for the Assault Marines and it took him too long to chew through everything (I had first turn), so by the time the Vortex Beasts and Demons were no longer impeding him, the Rubric squads had run up a decent lead on objectives.
That said, I admit I was playing against a less-than-optimized marine list so still pretty inconclusive.
Sounds good!
The first turn is still pretty important, although the fokus seems to shift from first strike to first move a little bit with this edition.
Had a lot games where the first player got midfield first and established dominance without giving up on the board control for a few turns.
Have been on both sides and i think about lists that want (or don`t mind) to go second to flip the middle by going all in against the part of the opponents army that came out in the open.
Thousand Sons got lots of movement tools / tricks and can deal damage in 3 phases. For example shooty armies like admech can clear a few units from objectives, but have problems to reach / conquer them, even with dedicated units.
To be fair, i don`t think TS are the only army that can do this, bit i feel like we have a lot of different tools to get the job done more smootly.
I have found going 2nd to be beneficial, especially with certain primaries like grind them down (kill more). But since going 1st means a lot of movement but not as much shooting anymore (at least what I have found in my games) letting my opponent come to me is big. Obspec is huge if your going that route though, you want your opponent close enough to be able to punch but you also want to be durable enough to hold the objective without worrying about a guardsman coming by and taking it from you. Rubrics can hold well, deamon princes / hellbrutes / maulerfiends / defilers can punch well.
So far my win rate going 2nd is probably in the 40% area. Not amazing but not the detrimental game crushing effect going 2nd at the beginning of 8th was.
Of course if your opponent builds his list for going 1st and not 2nd then yeah, a balanced list that can adapt to 1st or 2nd will have a worse time than the alpha strike "oh i went 2nd, I lose probably " type of list.
grouchoben wrote: That's not possible on the turn you DS/teleport/DMC, as you count as moving. Whereas every flamer profile we've seen leaked has been shunted up to 12".
Can you explain your reasoning? The way that I read Malicious Volleys is that so long as you are within 12 inches of the target, you can shoot twice with your bolters. The preceding paragraph says that if ANY apply, not ALL apply. If all have to apply, then Rubrics can never use it, as they aren't Helbrutes, Bikers, or Terminators. By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
You can still double tap for rapid fire range, but the Infernal fussilade strategem for quadro-tap can only be used, if the Rubrics / Scarabs did not move this turn.
And all our tellyport options (Duplicity power, Dark Matter Crystal, Webway Infiltration Strategem) result in them counting as moved.
The only way would be to use the Risen Rubricae Strategem to infiltrate them and hoping you get the first turn. Did that a few times and had some devastating shooting phases.
Would be so cool if we get a strategem like marines did so they do not count as moved.
By my reading, vehicles with combi-bolters can use it too, yes, provided they are within half range?
Correct.
Edit: Dammit, to slow.
So we aren't at loggerheads, how many shots can a model with an infernal boltgun, that doesn't move, and is within 12 inches of its target able to make with the stratagem and Malicious Volleys? 4 or 8?
Rubrics
No Moving –
Outside of 12” = 2 shot each
Within 12” = 2 shots each
Moving –
Outside of 12” = 1 shot each
Within 12” = 2 shots each
No Moving + Strat -
Outside of 12” = 4 shot each
Within 12” = 4 shots each
SoT
No Moving –
Outside of 12” = 4 shot each
Within 12” = 4 shots each
Moving –
Outside of 12” = 4 shot each
Within 12” = 4 shots each
No Moving + Strat -
Outside of 12” = 8 shot each
Within 12” = 8 shots each
D6Damager wrote: I agree that the extra wound and points increase might not be good for us.
Maybe they will change "All is Dust" to reduce incoming damage by 1 to a minimum of 1 instead of improving the save.
Everyone is worried about blast weapons, but I think people will instead be shoehorning as much D2/D3 as possible into their lists.
It's a guarantee that it won't be good for Rubrics. As it is right now people are figuring out that you don't need to kill the Rubrics, just tie them up in CC with a cheap OBSEC unit that out numbers the unit for 2-3 turns. That's a win for the opponent they end up with more VPs and shutting down a 115-250 point unit with 50-150 points. If they change AiD to -1 damage then I would expect a price drop since Rubrics would become Marines with AP-2 guns and no CC options.
SOTwill be better off. No longer getting one shot by Plasma, and our ability to heal on top of restoring units will mean we can start with a 10 man squad and end with a 10 man squad. Again, if they change AiD to -1 damage i would expect a huge points spike. Their needing to be hit by 4+ damage to die instantly would push them into only d6 damage can kill them with 1 shot and even that is only a 50/50 chance.
Overall I think if they keep the points increase to a minimum then Rubrics will be very bad at just about everything, but very good at scoring VP but will need a screen at all times. SOT will be very good at shooting units off objectives, but won't have the speed or OBSEC needed to secure them.
Had a game yesterday against T`au.
He had 2 Commanders, 1 Ethereal, 3 Riptides, about 30 Drones, 3 Crisis Suits (with 4 drones & 2+ Relic) and some troops.
I had 3 detachments:
Duplicity Cult Battalion with Ahriman on Disk, DP, Exalted on Disk, Tzaangor Shaman, 2 x 10 Cultists, 20 Rubric Marines, 5 Scarabs and 1 Hellforged Contemptor with 4 LasCas.
Magic Cult Auxiliary detachment with Magister DP (Devastating Sorcery & Arcane Focus)
Tzeentch Daemon Patrol detachment with Fluxmaster and 30 Pink Horrors.
The Scouring mission had 5 objectives with 1 in the middle and the 4 others 6" from our deployment zones.
His Secondaries were to keep his 3 Riptides alive and obviously killing characters & psykers. I took Raise the banners, Psychic Ritual & Domination.
I got the first turn and jumped my fully buffed Rubrics in a -1 to hit forest to one of the "opponents" objectives, while my cultist raised banners on "my" two objectives and the Horrors advanced towards the middle objective while screening all characters. My fluxmaster started the Psychic ritual and I killed some drones and troops with smites and the Rubrics. His turn my buffed Rubrics tanked most of his shooting with their 2++ / 3++ but i lost the cultists and 2 Riptide hits one-shotted my Contemptor. :(
My second turn i moved the Horrors on 3 objectives and the rubrics killed the remaining Drones & Firewarriors with Infernal Fusillade + damaged 2 Riptides.
Wrapped my characters with Horrors to be safe from zipping Cammander and deepstriking Crisis.
His second turn he deepstriked his Crisis behind my Horrors and together with the Riptides he killed 25 of them (Thank good they had a Warp Surge 3++ so they could save my characters)
Turn 3 i finished the Psychic Ritual, raised more banners and had maxed out Primary and Secondary points so far. My Terminators deepstriked in front of my characters to help the Horrors screen them a bit longer. The Rubrics jumped again and helped a Prince to kill the Crisis and a few of them killed the first Riptide with the support of smites and the Terminators.
He managed to kill 1 Prince with his Zip-Commander, finished off the Horrors and killed 3 Terminators so my character screening was gone. Managed to do enough invuls so no more characters died.
Turn 4 i killed another Riptide and got in CC with the last one, he could not do much in his turn and turn 5 i tabled him.
Total score was 100:33 for me.
Had some games with that list now and absolutely love the resilience 20 Rubrics and 30 Horrors with 3++ each bring on the table while being quite killy with their shooting as well.
I spammed infernal fusillade and VotlW as much as i could, but i think about skipping the Contemptor and add more Scarabs and / or a defiler since he get`s blown off the table as soon as he gets out of cover to shoot. (And his explosion is fatal for TS...) Scarabs would add firepower and models for objectives while the defiler would be a bit more tanky and killy in CC.
Those 3 detachments and pre battle strategems go quite heavy on CP, might skip on the Magic cult prince but i love his output and ability to reliable snipe 4-5 wounds characters... If i switch him into the CD patrol i could give him the 3++ relic though but loose a cast / turn and the TS reroll.
Oh and i will keep playing my Fluxmaster instead Changecaster & Exalted on disks to go for 12" move psykers. The flexibility, especially paired with Duplicity & DMC is fantastic.
Had the idea to summon the Pink Horrors and Fluxmaster turn one, but if i go second that puts my characters at risk with less screening and i can`t use Warp Surge on them.
Oh damn, they FAQ`d Warp Surge. When did this happen? Have just been using them in 9th edition and used CD in 8th mostly as Brimstone CP farm.
Well, that sucks. But in that case you can summon them if you can`t use the strat anyway to safe command points.
grouchoben wrote: The change happened quite a while ago, mid-8e if I remember correctly. GW didn't like Mr 2++ bigbird
Yeah, a nice choice for summoning, but they won't have obsec as they're not part of a daemons detachment at that point.
Oh you mean if you combine the impossible robe with warp surge?
Good catch with ObSec. Normally it would not be that important if they just flood the objective, but i had it quite often that they advanced turn one to barely reach a objective in which case ObSec would be mandatory.
I have an old(ish) TS army that's been sitting around for awhile, I didn't keep up on the changes the faction got going into 9th and through PA. Me and a couple of my mates are about to run a 'tournament' between the armies we've all got. As the guy who has the most armies, my friend is going to use my TS as his second army to make 8 in the tournament.
So I need to build as good a list I can for/with him and try to get the rundown on how they play in 9th. None of us are expecting them to perform, but it'd be nice to give them a chance (and you never know what they could do).
Anyway, these are the models I have for TS- fully painted too, used to be my pride and joy :
Magnus
Ahriman on disc
Exalted sorcerer box (1 disc, 2 foot)
Demon prince with talons
30 rubrics
30 tzaangors (oh the joy of the tzaangor bomb)
20 cultists
10 occult terminators
9 enlightened with bows
Tzaangor shaman
Rhino
Predator
Land raider
So, is there a decent list hidden anywhere in there? I've also got some khorne zerkers/aos stuff that could be allied, but they're probably no good.
I know that rubrics are ok, princes are still great and a brick of 10 terminators is ruthless. This correct?
And with the changes in PA, which would be best for an army like this? And what do they actually all do?
Well while no top tier army i`d say TS can certainly hold their ground.
You will give up quite some points for the abhor the witch (and most of the time assassinate) secondary, so the list should be able to score good on primaries and secondaries as well.
The good news is, TS got many tools and units to zip around the table, take objectives and hold them.
Our PA book was really good with the different Cults offering nice stuff (mainly Duplicity, Magic and Time Cult) and a few really fantastic strategems.
I would go for something like this:
Cult of Duplicity Battalion:
Ahriman on Disc (still one of the best HQ`s)
Daemon Prince with wings & talons (Dark Matter Crystal relic)
Exaltet on disc (for the extra speed & flexibility, which is great in 9th)
3 x 10 Rubrics (1 can infiltrate with Risen Rubricae, 1 can drive in the Rhino and the other can use Warptime or Sorcerous Facade)
10 Scarab Occult Terminators (good output in shooting and close combat, also great target for psychic buffs)
1 Tzaangor Shaman (New detachments make it hard to get many psykers, as an cheap elite psyker he is quite valuable)
1 Rhino
This is about 1650 points and a solid core to play with, so with the remaining 350 you could go for 4 variants:
1) Kick the Rhino and reduce 1 of the Rubric squads to add Magnus. He is still one hell of a psyker and if the opponent has lots of dakka you could put him into strategic reserves for 2 CP so he survives turn 1 and can then get bully buffed with 3++ & -1 to hit.
2) While they got quite a price increase and suffer from blast, Tzaangors still do their thing and can as well clear an objective as hold it afterwards. T4 with 5++ that can be further buffed and is a solid unit with ObSec and 280 for a full squad with Brayhorn can use Webway Infiltration or Sorcerous Facade and get off that 8" charge. If the Shaman can buff them they become even better and they help you screen your characters together with Rubrics. Enlightened got the worst points increase, but they can help scoring secondaries and get on objectives so 1 squad of 3 would work good in that list, maybe even a second one if you reduce the Tzaangors.
3) If you really want to go psyker heavy you could add another patrol detachment with the 1-2 other exaltet and either 1-2 minimum Tzaangor squads or 1-2 x 10 cultists. Depending on what you take you could add 1-2 x 3 Enlightened for secondaries as well.
4) Adding soup is certainly an option, but not mandatory. Best take would be a Daemon detachment with Nurglings (they are fantastic to grab objectives early on) or maybe horrors.
If your buddy is not that used to play TS and you wanna go for a tournament i`d skip Magnus and go for one of the other options.
The Rhino gives the option to drive a squad Rubric Marines around but while transports with durable troops are good in 9th overall, i would actually kick it because it`s the only vehicle in that list and i wouldn`t bother with the Land Raider or Predator either.
The more troops you got the longer will the characters be able to get screened and to minimise the opponents secondaries they should be kept safe as long as possible.
Since TS no longer keep the smite warpcharge at 5+ you don`t want to go for more than 5 smites. Also there are a few powers you really want to take so with just 4 psykers it gets kinda hard to do many mortal wounds in addition to the most important buffs / debuffs.
Warptime (extra move), Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit), Weaver of Fates (+1 invul), Prescience (+1 to hit), Temporal Manipulation (heal D3 wounds), Gaze of Fate (1 free reroll, especially important for rerolling 1 of two dice with charge rolls or psychic tests) are your buffs you really want to take.
Death Hex (take a units invul away) is always a good take, Diabolic Strength (+2 S & +1 A) is a great buff to get your Prince to 9 S9 attacks when charging / getting charged.
Doombolt (halves 1 units movement, prevents advancing and does D3 mw) is a nice to have gimmick and is one of the 4 psychic powers that can be used to snipe units / characters. The others - Infernal Gaze (3D6, each 4+ is 1 mw) and Tzeentchs Firestorm (9D6, each 6 is 1 mw) are always a good take, especially as smite alternative to do damage and bypass the increasing smite warpcharges.
You get 8-9 casts per turn with your characters + 3-4 casts with the Aspiring Sorcerers, but only from the change discipline and without bonus. If you go for the right relics and WL traits you could get a +1 on 7-8 of these casts. While there is no perfect way of choosing and allocate the powers, i personally go for this most of my games:
Ahriman: Warptime, Prescience, Death Hex or Doombolt
Warlord Exalted Sorcerer Glamour of Tzeentch & Weaver of Fates
Prince: Gaze of Fate & Diabolic Strength
Shaman: Temporal Manipulation
Those are my main detachment psykers, in addition i take a Magic Cult Daemon Prince that has an extra WL trait & relic (Devastating Sorcery & Arcane Focus) for +1 to psychic tests and 1 extra MW each time he does MW in the psychic phase. I run him with Infernal Gaze & Tzeentchs Firestorm, that way he does 4-5 MW on a character each turn or just goes for the Cult Psychic power + Smite which adds up to 10+ MW quite easy if the opponent has a few units too close together.
If you don`t have a second prince you can change the first one for an exalted if you wanna go that route.
So here is my suggestion how i would run Thousand Sons with the models you got:
Duplicity Cult Battalion:
Ahriman on Disk [Warptime, Prescience, Death Hex]
Exaltet Sorcerer [Warlord: High Magister, Weaver of Fates, Glamour of Tzeentch]
Daemon Prince with Wings [Relic: Dark Matter Crystal, Gaze of Fate, Diabolic Strength]
3 x 10 Rubric Marines [Soulreaper Cannons, Boon of Mutation, Doombolt, Tzeentchs Firestorm]
29 Tzaangors with Brayhorn 10 Scarab Occult Terminators [2 Soulreaper Cannons & 2 Hellfire Missile racks Weaver of Fates]
Tzaangor Shaman [Temporal Manipulation]
3 Enlightened
Magic Cult Auxiliary Detachment:
Exalted Sorcerer on Disk [Magister: Devastating Sorcerery, Relic: Arcane Focus, Infernal Gaze, Tzeentchs Firestorm, Astral Blast]
You could reduce the Tzaangors by 7 to take another 3 Enlightened for more flexibility and maybe split them in 2 squads of 11 Tzaangors to sit on objectives or do the same with cultists that are cheaper but less durable. But i like the Tzaangors in Reserve with Webway Infiltration. One squad Rubric Marines can infiltrate on an objective with risen Rubricae and they have quite firepower if you use Infernal fusillade on them, especially when combined with Prescience, reroll 1 and veterans of the long war.
With the teleport power of the duplicity Cult that can be used on all units, the teleport Relic Dark Matter Crystal, the Webway Tzaangors, the deepstriking Terminators, Warptime and fast psykers that list can be played very flexible and threat all corners of the table. Also it does damage in all 3 phases and has good units to flip and hold objectives. Key is to keep your characters alive as they will probably give away lots of secondary points while being important for your plans.
Hope that does help, there are other ways to run you models as well but i feel like that might be a good take, especially for someone new to TS and trying to get most out of the primaries & secondaries.
All is dust!
Grotrebel wrote: Well while no top tier army i`d say TS can certainly hold their ground.
You will give up quite some points for the abhor the witch (and most of the time assassinate) secondary, so the list should be able to score good on primaries and secondaries as well.
The good news is, TS got many tools and units to zip around the table, take objectives and hold them.
Our PA book was really good with the different Cults offering nice stuff (mainly Duplicity, Magic and Time Cult) and a few really fantastic strategems.
I would go for something like this:
Cult of Duplicity Battalion:
Ahriman on Disc (still one of the best HQ`s)
Daemon Prince with wings & talons (Dark Matter Crystal relic)
Exaltet on disc (for the extra speed & flexibility, which is great in 9th)
3 x 10 Rubrics (1 can infiltrate with Risen Rubricae, 1 can drive in the Rhino and the other can use Warptime or Sorcerous Facade)
10 Scarab Occult Terminators (good output in shooting and close combat, also great target for psychic buffs)
1 Tzaangor Shaman (New detachments make it hard to get many psykers, as an cheap elite psyker he is quite valuable)
1 Rhino
This is about 1650 points and a solid core to play with, so with the remaining 350 you could go for 4 variants:
1) Kick the Rhino and reduce 1 of the Rubric squads to add Magnus. He is still one hell of a psyker and if the opponent has lots of dakka you could put him into strategic reserves for 2 CP so he survives turn 1 and can then get bully buffed with 3++ & -1 to hit.
2) While they got quite a price increase and suffer from blast, Tzaangors still do their thing and can as well clear an objective as hold it afterwards. T4 with 5++ that can be further buffed and is a solid unit with ObSec and 280 for a full squad with Brayhorn can use Webway Infiltration or Sorcerous Facade and get off that 8" charge. If the Shaman can buff them they become even better and they help you screen your characters together with Rubrics. Enlightened got the worst points increase, but they can help scoring secondaries and get on objectives so 1 squad of 3 would work good in that list, maybe even a second one if you reduce the Tzaangors.
3) If you really want to go psyker heavy you could add another patrol detachment with the 1-2 other exaltet and either 1-2 minimum Tzaangor squads or 1-2 x 10 cultists. Depending on what you take you could add 1-2 x 3 Enlightened for secondaries as well.
4) Adding soup is certainly an option, but not mandatory. Best take would be a Daemon detachment with Nurglings (they are fantastic to grab objectives early on) or maybe horrors.
If your buddy is not that used to play TS and you wanna go for a tournament i`d skip Magnus and go for one of the other options.
The Rhino gives the option to drive a squad Rubric Marines around but while transports with durable troops are good in 9th overall, i would actually kick it because it`s the only vehicle in that list and i wouldn`t bother with the Land Raider or Predator either.
The more troops you got the longer will the characters be able to get screened and to minimise the opponents secondaries they should be kept safe as long as possible.
Since TS no longer keep the smite warpcharge at 5+ you don`t want to go for more than 5 smites. Also there are a few powers you really want to take so with just 4 psykers it gets kinda hard to do many mortal wounds in addition to the most important buffs / debuffs.
Warptime (extra move), Glamour of Tzeentch (-1 to hit), Weaver of Fates (+1 invul), Prescience (+1 to hit), Temporal Manipulation (heal D3 wounds), Gaze of Fate (1 free reroll, especially important for rerolling 1 of two dice with charge rolls or psychic tests) are your buffs you really want to take.
Death Hex (take a units invul away) is always a good take, Diabolic Strength (+2 S & +1 A) is a great buff to get your Prince to 9 S9 attacks when charging / getting charged.
Doombolt (halves 1 units movement, prevents advancing and does D3 mw) is a nice to have gimmick and is one of the 4 psychic powers that can be used to snipe units / characters. The others - Infernal Gaze (3D6, each 4+ is 1 mw) and Tzeentchs Firestorm (9D6, each 6 is 1 mw) are always a good take, especially as smite alternative to do damage and bypass the increasing smite warpcharges.
You get 8-9 casts per turn with your characters + 3-4 casts with the Aspiring Sorcerers, but only from the change discipline and without bonus. If you go for the right relics and WL traits you could get a +1 on 7-8 of these casts. While there is no perfect way of choosing and allocate the powers, i personally go for this most of my games:
Ahriman: Warptime, Prescience, Death Hex or Doombolt
Warlord Exalted Sorcerer Glamour of Tzeentch & Weaver of Fates
Prince: Gaze of Fate & Diabolic Strength
Shaman: Temporal Manipulation
Those are my main detachment psykers, in addition i take a Magic Cult Daemon Prince that has an extra WL trait & relic (Devastating Sorcery & Arcane Focus) for +1 to psychic tests and 1 extra MW each time he does MW in the psychic phase. I run him with Infernal Gaze & Tzeentchs Firestorm, that way he does 4-5 MW on a character each turn or just goes for the Cult Psychic power + Smite which adds up to 10+ MW quite easy if the opponent has a few units too close together.
If you don`t have a second prince you can change the first one for an exalted if you wanna go that route.
So here is my suggestion how i would run Thousand Sons with the models you got:
Duplicity Cult Battalion:
Ahriman on Disk [Warptime, Prescience, Death Hex]
Exaltet Sorcerer [Warlord: High Magister, Weaver of Fates, Glamour of Tzeentch]
Daemon Prince with Wings [Relic: Dark Matter Crystal, Gaze of Fate, Diabolic Strength]
3 x 10 Rubric Marines [Soulreaper Cannons, Boon of Mutation, Doombolt, Tzeentchs Firestorm]
29 Tzaangors with Brayhorn 10 Scarab Occult Terminators [2 Soulreaper Cannons & 2 Hellfire Missile racks Weaver of Fates]
Tzaangor Shaman [Temporal Manipulation]
3 Enlightened
Magic Cult Auxiliary Detachment:
Exalted Sorcerer on Disk [Magister: Devastating Sorcerery, Relic: Arcane Focus, Infernal Gaze, Tzeentchs Firestorm, Astral Blast]
You could reduce the Tzaangors by 7 to take another 3 Enlightened for more flexibility and maybe split them in 2 squads of 11 Tzaangors to sit on objectives or do the same with cultists that are cheaper but less durable. But i like the Tzaangors in Reserve with Webway Infiltration. One squad Rubric Marines can infiltrate on an objective with risen Rubricae and they have quite firepower if you use Infernal fusillade on them, especially when combined with Prescience, reroll 1 and veterans of the long war.
With the teleport power of the duplicity Cult that can be used on all units, the teleport Relic Dark Matter Crystal, the Webway Tzaangors, the deepstriking Terminators, Warptime and fast psykers that list can be played very flexible and threat all corners of the table. Also it does damage in all 3 phases and has good units to flip and hold objectives. Key is to keep your characters alive as they will probably give away lots of secondary points while being important for your plans.
Hope that does help, there are other ways to run you models as well but i feel like that might be a good take, especially for someone new to TS and trying to get most out of the primaries & secondaries.
All is dust!
Wow! thank you man. This is far more detail than I thought I would've gotten, and it's definitely helped me understand the faction now a lot better.
I like the look of the list you gave me, it seems strong. Turns out my mate does have a second prince, so he's going to use that. Made a couple of little changes and I think this is what I'm going to use:
Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)
Cults of the Legion: Cult of Magic
Detachment CP [-2CP]
+ Stratagems +
Relics of the Thousand Sons (1 Relic) [-1CP]
+ HQ +
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch [10 PL, -1CP, 200pts]: Arcane Focus, Devastating Sorcery, Infernal Gateway, Magister, Malefic talon, Tzeentch's Firestorm, Wings
++ Total: [108 PL, 8CP, 1,998pts] ++
So I added that second prince, and due to this dropped the third squad of 10 to a 5 man. The full squad of tzaangors left me with a little room, so I dropped some from there and opted for the second enlightened squad. They're super fragile but they seem great for playing objectives- Didn't realise they had assault weapons! It also means that the tzaangor squad is that beautiful multiple of 9- bound to swing the victory to tzeentch.
What is the way to play with this army though? how do I use the threats of the scarab occult and tzaangors effectively whilst also character screening? And finally, starting with 8CP, how do I ration this? what are the essential stratagems I need to keep in my mind?
The first matchup is against BA and running 15 death company and 16 sang guard. Might be a tough one, especially as my mate has never played TS, but I think MW surplus will seriously thin those squads, and inferno fire will wither the DC to nothing real quick.
I'm thinking of taking the list for a spin myself soon too, It seems really cool to play. Thank you again for the great advice.
I really like that list, that second prince adds a lot extra utility. Only minor things are the 2 missing Soulreaper Cannons for the Scarab Occult Terminators, that S5 AP3 is a neat bonus, especially against Marines. Also the Exalted Sorcerer is on foot, with the other units being so flexible and teleporting around i found that 6" extra movement + fly to be quite worth it. That would be 15 extra points for the Termis and 20 for the Exalted - thats 6 Tzaangors though or 2 just for the Soulreaper Cannons.
Screening is quite challenging if you split your army and try to get to all objectives and hold your own as well. They work great against Gunlines but keeping your characters alive will be a tough task. Personally i take 30 Pink Horrors for that, they live long enough to keep my characters safe for 1-3 turns, then my princes go forward while Rubrics and Scarabs pose as multiple threads.
In this list this will be kinda tricky, especially against those sneaky Bloodies that can reach those poor Sorcerers quite easy and charge after redeploy turn 1 or deepstriking.
Those 25 Rubrics might be enough to screen turn one, but i doubt they can keep that up forever. I would consider deploying the Tzaangors to wrap the characters + at least 1 Rubric squad in this matchup so they can do their thing. They can still be teleported by the Duplicity power or with the DMC later on.
The army can take down the 30 models DC + SG without breaking sweat, but they can whipe a squad Rubrics plus characters as well.
The Enlightened, the Shaman and the small Rubric squad can also help to screen until you dealt with the threads, they just need to be kept at distance long enough.
As soon as the DC & SG is dealt with you can jump the Tzaangors and the 10 Scarabs are coming down turn 2 or 3 wherever you need them.
If you deepstrike your Scarabs try to safe the Gaze of Fate reroll for their charge. The command reroll rerolls both dice, but you want that Gaze reroll for a result like 1,6.
Try to get Prescience on them as well or get a Prince near them. That 3+ S4 can be very swingy and if they make the charge you want that it hurts. ^^
Remember they get +1 to hit for both shooting and CC.
8 CP is tough but TS can manage it, since you will get another 5. I often start with 6-7 and just go for the most important strategems.
The good thing about TS strategems is, that most of the good ones cost just 1 CP so you can stay kinda flexible which ones to use and you get to keep using them in later turns as well.
The most important ones are:
Pregame:
Webway Infiltration (1 CP / 3 CP): Deepstrike Infantry, good option for Tzaangors (not in this matchup though)
Risen Rubricae (1 CP): Infiltrate 1 unit Rubric Marines, fantastic to grab midfield objectives but since you do this before rolling off it`s kinda risky. I do this a lot with 20 Rubrics.
Psychic Phase:
Cabalistic Focus (1 CP): +2 cast if caster has 2 other Psykers around. Great to pull of key powers
The great Sorcerer (1 CP): 1 extra cast, best used on someone with +1 or on that Magic Cult Prince for maximum MW`s
Chaos Familiar (1 CP): Exchange 1 psychic power for 1 from any discipline. Great tool if a key psyker died and you can choose from any disciple. Situational but can safe your ass.
Sorcerous Infusion (1 CP): Heal D3 wounds after a 9+ cast or bring back 1 Rubric / Scarab if there are no wounded models in the unit. Can be used by characters on themselfes. Neat bonus, especially when the sorcerers start hurting themselfes or when this gets you back a 40 points Termi.
Adept of the Immaterium (1 CP): prevents perils, good for wounded characters or on Asprining Sorcerers. Use this for 6,6 peril and use the command reroll for 1,1 perils.
Shooting:
Infernal Fusillade: (1 CP) Shoot twice with Rubrics / Scarab Occult if they did not move. This is bonkers but hard to pull off. Risen Rubricae is a high risk high reward move with this, especially on large squads. Getting 80 shots with full psychic buffs is devastating for anything that is not T8 2+. Even 10 Rubrics can hurt quite a bit.
Veterans of the long war: (1 CP) The classic, +1 to wound, gets even better on large squads and if you combine strats & psychic powers.
Close Combat:
Cycle of Slaughter (2 CP): Tzaangor unit fights a second time. Especially good combined with VotlW (because this only works 1 phase you can / have to cast it again in the combat phase) and / or a Shaman nearby for +1 to hit.
Others:
Indomitable foes (1 CP): Rubrics or Scarabs chosen as target get +1 invul. This can be combined with Weaver of Fates for a neat 3++ and also works with All is Dust, which means against attacks that have 1 dmg but AP 2 or better (power swords, non-overcharged plasma, some indirect weapons) you get an 2++. Combined with Glamour (-1 to hit) this can make a unit Rubrics / Scarabs quite tanky.
Those are the most relevant strategems for this list, there are a few others that can be used as well but are highly situational, too expensive or just not worth the CP at all.
With the exception of Cycle of Slaughter they are all just 1 CP so you can have a good go before CP run out.
Infernal Fusillade is the one that gives the largest damage boost, especially if you stack strats & psychic powers. Don`t use it on 5 Rubrics though.
The healing / prevent perils strategems can somewhat be accomplished by casting Temporal Manipulation, only use those if you would loose that psyker otherwise or have 2+ Psykers to heal. They all have enough wounds to tank at least 1 peril. Special note on Aspiring Sorcerers: If you kill them with peril that is basicly 2D3 MW on your own squad, since his MW spill over and his unit is in 3" to himself so gets another D3 MW if he dies. For that reason use reroll, Gaze of Fate or the anti-peril strat on them, you don`t want to loose 120 points of Terminators for rolling perils. Little trick that you can pull off is allocating the D3 wounds to his unit not the sorcerer, so he survives. GW clarified this is possible in the FAQ.
Will you change army lists or play the same all the time?
Yeah, I dropped the 6 tzaangors to get the disc + the double soulreaper. I forgot that a soulreaper on termies is only a 7pt upgrade, and they're probably far more consistent across a game than banking on infernal fusillade for the fire twice (this strat is bolters only, right?)
And yes, lists aren't going to change throughout the tournament so this isn't optimised for BA- plus I should've had the list sorted before I knew matchups lol It'll only matter if the TS progress haha!
I also just realised how good gaze of fate is now that it can be used for so much more than a CP reroll- what a fantastic power.
I hadn't quite grasped the seemingly obscene flexibility of the TS this edition.
For secondaries in the BA matchup;
good idea for while we stand we fight? That'd be ahriman and the two princes who want to get their feet wet but not necessarily fully stuck in, so maybe playing cagey and taking that would be good. However then it would be a very binary game for the BA coming down to either killing those psykers or not, getting abhor the witch+assassinate+denied while we stand we fight points.
How is raise banners in a 6 objective game? The enlightened and the 5 man can sacrifice their shooting without taking too much of a hit. Possibly good
Engage on all fronts is very attractive, although do we get in 4 quarters and stay there? Using the duplicity power to pop into a corner if needs be is a nice flexibility. Or is domination stronger for the TS here?
Against this BA list, assassinate is a given. He's got 5 or 6 characters and they can all get MWd to death.
Finally, mental interrogation/psychic ritual is quite nice on the shaman, no? He doesn't sacrifice powers by doing a psychic action. Given the abundance of characters in my face from the BA, it's probably best for interrogation right?
So against the BA, mission and map dependant, I think I'd take assassinate, mental interrogation, and then engage/WWSWF/banners.
Again thanks so much for the help, kind of jealous my buddy is getting to use this list now
Yeah the strat is bolters only. Don`t forget, the Terminators get to double tap at 24" at all times, even if they moved so they rock 4 shots even without the strategem. Since deepstriking counts as having moved you won`t be able to fusillade them before turn 3-4. But still that extra S and AP is always worth it.
Yeah Gaze of Fate is fantastic. Last game Ahriman failed Prescience 3 times when i really needed it and the reroll safed his casting. That free reroll is just so damn good.
Concerning secondaries, while we stand sounds like win or loose, thats for sure.^^ Might be worth a try but keep in mind they all pack quite a punch in CC, so for me that means i want to get at least 1 prince in CC from turn 2-3, otherwise you could just go for an Exaltet and safe points. With Death to the false emperor a Talon prince gets about 9-10 attacks that shred Primaris.
I play my TS very objective heavy so i end up with engage + raise the banners a lot. It`s very easy to get at least 15 / 30 points and most of the time i end up with 20-25.
Unless there is a great mission secondary or an easy take like bring it down or assassinate i always go for the safe bet.
Engage is kinda a get-there-and-die thing, at least if the opponent knows what he is doing. 3 Enlightened or 5 Rubrics are not that hard to take down, but if Scarabs or the larger squads join later they hopefully survive. 3 quarters 5 turns is an easy 10 points in my oppinion with the realistic option to score a bit more if you get to 4. Last two turns depends on who is winning, if i table him it`s a no brainer with raise the banners combined, if it`s the other way around it doesn`t matter anyway. I had more games with a score of 90:30 than a close ~60:50 score - most of the time it swings in one direction.
Domination and raise the banners depend heavily on the mission and number of objectives. 5 is great for domination, 6 is great for raise. 4 is kinda meh to max out.
The Shaman is my dude if it comes to warpcraft, but sometimes i use my Changecaster / Fluxmaster for that as well.
But to be honest i just go for psychic ritual if the opponent has no means to deny it or rush the middle. (Tau, Admech) I guess the BA will bring Mephiston or some other Psyker? In that case it can be denied and i would`t bother. A few bad rolls and you get no points. Also if the Shaman dies that means 1 other Psyker looses his whole turn just to do psychic actions.
But if you wanna go there, mental interrogation will be the best take.
Just my 2 cents, but I always preferred line breaker over engage on all fronts. Ts cult of duplicity can easily get units into the opponents back line by t2 or 3, your typically wanting to put pressure on the opponents "safe" backfield objective anyways, and you get more vp for that a turn than engage on all fronts.
Also deploy scramblers is super easy. It doesn't have to be the same unit that does it so you could theoretically pull it off t5 easily. The final overlooked one is deploy teleport homers. Its more board dependent but I have had a few games where after seeing the board and deployment zones it became a good choice. T2 teleport a small, almost destroyed rubric squad behind obscuring terrain out of the way and do that for 4vp if they live until next turn? And more than 1 unit can try for it at a time, you can spike and get a lot of 2ndary pts for a small amount of investment. And if your opponent does send something to get rid of the small squads then they are not focusing that power on your bigger things. Like i said, its a more board dependent choice, i only take it if I see places to hide mid to late game, but it also helps for linebreaker so can be a useful option to consider.
Yeah those secondaries depend heavily on the mission, deployment zones and of course the opponent. All three Battlefield Suppremacy secondaries have their pros and cons but all three are managable for TS. Some goes for the Shadow operations, where Raise the Banners is a safe play to chip away some points but the others will max out with 3-4 bold turns.
The downside on Linebreaker is you need two units in your opponents deployment zone and using Sorcerous Facade means you need to stay 9" away from enemy models.
I play against tank heavy Guard and castling Admech a lot though, against Knights or Custodes it`s something else entirely.
Three turns on this will give you 12 points though.
Domination is horrible with 4 objectives, especially if each player has basicly two directly in front of the deployment zone. It`s good on 5 objectives and against low model count armies or armies that care about killing more than board controll.
Engage needs 2 units in the opponents half of the battlefield to max out but leaves a bit more room to breath and is something you can reach with advancing Enlightened or porting cultists at the edge of the table. Downside is one bad turn can prevent maxing out.
Deploy Scramblers is an kinda easy one but maxes out at 10. If this had an extra condition to max it out or at least get 12 points i would consider it more often.
Teleport Homer is a huge gamble against some armies plus indirect fire with AP is not rare and can still wipe those Rubrics.
Also you can only start the same action once per turn so this is quite easy for the opponent to intervene and it`s not possible to get more than 4 points from this in 1 turn.
But yeah i agree, some of those can be really good in some matchups / missions plus they depend heavily on what kind and amount of terrain you use.
To put pressure at the enemys backyard is a good point though.
There is no best take for secondaries and I would go for the one that suits your army and playstyle best. I have to admit i lack the balls to try pulling of something like linebreaker consistantly but felt quite comfortable with throwaway scoring on engage / Raise the banners.
The stress of picking Psychic Ritual from time to time is all my nerves can handle.
Well, on the other hand, you could do the deamon ball blitz strategy. It still works just fine.
Make your warlord a deamon prince and give him Aetherstide.
Take a squad of tzaangors with the brayhorn for+1 to charge.
Finally take a defiler or maulerfiend (i prefer deffy).
T1 you advance/warptime your dp onto a flank, with reroll charges and advance+charge he will definitely be able to t1 alpha strike. Now you dark matter crystal the tzaangors onto the same front. Finally you teleport deffy up to that front as well. This works best when hitting a single flank, if you go in the middle your giving up all 3 units to your opponents entire army. But if you do a flank there is a great chance you will be able to overwhelm it and / or be outside some range of your enemy's guns.
Hit the flank hard, you should get 2 of the 3 in if not all 3. This sudden blitz maneuver has won me a lot of games because it doesn't have to play that way. On the table you can easily not do that and play a more standard tson force with no changes to the list. But when you do hit your opponent super hard like this it will make them try and deal with the threat you suddenly shoved in his face very quickly or get swept away.
It also gets you linebreaker or engage on all fronts pretty easily.
Finally you can swap those things out to what you like. Heck you could do it with 3 deamon princes (which would also be funny) for smite / strike shenanigans.
Ritual is a risk, but if you're running a 20-man Rubric blob and a Shaman it does give you options. Obviously not one to take into a load of snipers though.
The one i'd likely drop the most though would be Banners, in favour of either the mission specific one or one of the killy ones, based on my opponents army.
So the FAQ`s to bring Marines & Chaos in line with the new changes are here.
Most important stuff: Scarabs get S5 power swords, (Heavy) Flamers get 12" range, Meltas get the 2+D6Dmg treatment Marines got as well, Multimelter is 2 shots now (Hellbrute likes this), Heavy Bolter is D2 now (neat), Demolisher Cannon D6 Blast, Reaper Autocannons get AP2, plasma cannon & pistol just overheat on unmodified 1s, Force sword gets +1S and Force Staff +1S as well (All sorcerers get S7 instead S6 now, sweet!).
Sadly Warpflamers are still 9" and no 2 wound Rubrics for now. Still a nice buff and no point increases with this update.
Also some other changes if you soup other Chaos stuff but mostly its bringing all those weapons on par.
Ok after digesting the faq and spending a day raging at the chaos gods for not letting us have 12 inch flamers I’m ready to digest.
The biggest changes for us seem to be multinelta changes and heavy bolter. Multinelta because we lack anti tank and this gives us some really good AT firepower. I think the best chassis for multinelta are contemptors, hitting on 2s and moving 10 inches allows for a threat range of 32 inches with warptime to get the melta rule. Plus if the dread has a fist you want it up close and personal anyway.
The heavy bolter I think goes great with our helbrute, if you have the CP I think it’s worth it to give it inferno bolts for -2ap. You can then stick it somewhere and between prescience and fire frenzy you can get 12 ap-2 D2 str 5 shots off. That’s going to put a big hurt in anything but particularly t4 units.
Power swords are a nice boost to SOT and against t4 gives them a good boost, with prescience and veterans you’re hitting on 2s and wounding on 2s at ap-3. Still at only D1 you’re not going to do a lot against marines so make sure they don’t hVe ap-2 weapons.
Sadly that’s all that seems relevant to us. We have to wait til we get our codex to really achieve our true power.
im a old 40K player getting back into the hobby after a decade long remission. I'm currently collecting Admech, and just starting custodes, but im looking further afield to where next. I'm looking for something Not Imperial, and im currently getting drawn towards the Thousand Sons. I have a few questions:
1) which books are needed to play them? codex: Thousand sons is obivous, and i understand their PA book was "ritual of the Dammed", but do you need the regular Codex: chaos space marines, or Chaos deamons? or are the rules for the relevant stuff all on Codex thousand Sons?
2) Tzaangors. these are the same models form the Age of sigmar range, yes? i see they offer a "upgrade sprue" of chainswords and pistols, is that worth getting? it feels like the option of shooting isnt really worth a +50% real world cost increase (£27.50 for a box of Tzaangors, £16 for 2 upgrade sprues", and it kinda limits your ability to also feild them in AOS (should you wish to), so do people do it?
edit: additional question:
3) forge world stuff. do the Tsons have any access to that? I know that a lot of FW stuff is sorta-imperial, sorta chaos, but i dont know if stuff like, say, the tsons compemtor dread is 40K legal or just 30K becuase of the Rubric or not.
im a old 40K player getting back into the hobby after a decade long remission. I'm currently collecting Admech, and just starting custodes, but im looking further afield to where next. I'm looking for something Not Imperial, and im currently getting drawn towards the Thousand Sons. I have a few questions:
1) which books are needed to play them? codex: Thousand sons is obivous, and i understand their PA book was "ritual of the Dammed", but do you need the regular Codex: chaos space marines, or Chaos deamons? or are the rules for the relevant stuff all on Codex thousand Sons?
2) Tzaangors. these are the same models form the Age of sigmar range, yes? i see they offer a "upgrade sprue" of chainswords and pistols, is that worth getting? it feels like the option of shooting isnt really worth a +50% real world cost increase (£27.50 for a box of Tzaangors, £16 for 2 upgrade sprues", and it kinda limits your ability to also feild them in AOS (should you wish to), so do people do it?
1. That is really it. It depends on whether or not you want to soup. Personally, I went with War Dog Knights and a despoiler for allies.
2. It depends on how you want to play them. The most cost effective way to get the upgrade sprues is to get the Start Collecting boxes in multiple, even if you end up with multiple Ahrimans.
Ok, thanks for the answers.
I keep hearing people on this forum talking about "soup". am i right in understanding this to mean "taking a non battle forged force from multiple allied factions to min-max up the ying-yang while loosing the detachment abilites you get for being battle forged?"
I believe taking a non battle forced army is illegal for matched play, so no you can´t soup say a DG Blight spawn in your otherwise TS list. What people mean by soup is taking 2 (or more) battle forged detachments alongside each other. So you'd have say one TS patrol containing Ahriman and some rubrics and then a second patrol with a Deamon Prince of Nurgle and some Plague Marines. This way both patrols keep their rules and you have a legal army.
A common example I do is souping in a Tzeench Demons patrol alongside my Thousand Sons battalion. Soup doesn’t have to be min-maxing; sometimes it’s fluffy instead.
I am almost finished painting the models I have for my main army, and while I'm waiting for the codex, I wanted to start a crusade vs a friend of mine.
I really love the aspect of Rubrics, and happens that I have the beginning of a 1000k sons KT in a box. 10 Rubrics and 10 Tzaangors. What should I get ro have a fun entrance to the army? I don't care about being competitive, but I know I'm going to love Psiquic shenanigans.
I was thinking in an HQ (obvious) and a Chaos Rhino.
I'm fairly new to the TSons, and I almost have built up my force to a full 2K points. I'm essentially only missing another squad of SOT to fill out the rest of the list, as I'm painting each unit as I build.
I had my largest game yet the other day, against Harlequins, and won literally by a single point *Cue maniacal laugh*.
Now, I truly believe that I only won because he played Midnight Sorrow instead of Soaring Spite for his masque form. Because he could not advance and fire his fusion pistols, I was able to deploy outside of the range of the fusion for the start of the game (he took first turn) so my Rhinos x2 and my MVB were both safe to start the game. His jetbikes were also shuriken cannons instead of haywire due to points, so my rhinos and MVB ended up overperforming. If he had played soaring spite, and had used haywire on his bikes (both of which would be expected at 2K) he would have statistically destroyed both Rhinos, and assuming a bit of luck would have dusted the MVB in shooting, and then charges with the bikes would have killed something else.
So, now that I got that bit out of the way, I have a question. How do you guys tend to play against armies that are so fast like that, and can put out such a strong alpha strike as TSons?
I've played Orks exclusively since 7th edition, so this is new territory for me, and I want to make sure I don't miss something obvious.
I know all the meta builds for TSons, so I'm not looking for army construction advice (I know the MVB isn't really competitive) but more for deployment and general tactics talk centered around dealing with any army that is fast, aggressive, and killy like the Harlequins. It seems like a pretty bad match up for TSons on paper, but maybe I'm missing something.
Or perhaps it really is just as simple as pump out mortal wounds until they're gone?
I received a TS start collecting box for my birthday yesterday, have already bought some extras to bulk out the force a bit, and have put together a rudimentary list, hoping for some feedback before I buy anything else:
HQ Ahriman on Disk
Exalted Sorcerer on Disk
Exalted Sorcerer
Elites Hellbrute - Scourge and Twin Las
Hellbrute - Scourge and Twin Las
5x Scarab Terminators - Hellfire Missiles and Soulreaper
Overall this comes to 1677pts (approx.). I feel that perhaps this could do with some more Heavy Support; I've always loved the Defiler and it's considerably more competitive than it was before so hoping to keep this in the list. I'm unsure as to wherever it's worth taking some Fast Attack, as according to BS the only choices that aren't FW are Tzaangor Enlightened and Spawn, neither of which leap out as particularly effective.
I personally really enjoy Spawn and their potential. They can be a pain to use well, but when they work, they really can pull their own weight several times over.
As for more heavy support etc, more Termies i guess. We don't have a great deal of options now that we've lost FW access. Could always run more Defilers but that'll be up to others to advise on, as i'm not well versed in using them.
For me, it's bodies, bodies and more bodies and then play around the missions.
Well, upgrading the sorcerers to princes is the easiest way to add more punchiness. a prince and easily bully a weak unit off an objective on his own (even a small marine unit), and our princes are pretty nasty overall.
Also, spawn are suprisingly effective. they are not very great, but against a wiser opponent, he might be aware of the Fated Mutation stratagem, and just how nasty they become under it-and they are VERY cheap for what they do-making them yet another decent bully unit.
Basically, if you plan to march up the board and try to fight things off objectives, princes and spawn cant really fail you.
do you guys prefer to run your Tzaangors with the big swords or with pistols and chainswords? i'm planning on getting the start collecting box to, y'know, start collecting the Tsons, and im wondering about if theirs a noticeable difference between the two on the board?
So im running a Tzeentch demons/tsons list and im curious how I should finish the list off. The tsons side has the following:
Ahriman, DP w/wings, exalted sorcerer
3x units of 5 Rubrics
5x Scarab Termies
Forgefiend
Ive been considering swapping around the exalted and termies for a second DP and another unit of Rubrics. Would this be worth it or are the termies good atm?
ok, im still really new to the current version of the rules. what are the rules for mixing two allied factions like this?
As I understand it, it can be done as both share the "TZEENTCH" keyword, so they can be used in a matched play army (as "CHAOS" isnt allowed as shared keyword). The two forces must be in valid force org detachments, and you play a CP tax for the detachment that doesnt have your warlord in it. Only one has a warlord in it, and thus only one army has its warlord trait and free relic (but you can pay CP for a relic in the other detachment). Both detachments get their respective detachment bonuses (ie their factions OBSEC rule and whatever special faction rule they have, like "BROTHERHOOD OF SORCERERS" or "DAEMONIC LOCI"), but those rules only apply to thier own part of the army.
Heavy Support Defiler - Twin Lascannon and Defiler Scourge
Tzeench Daemons
HQ Kairos Fateweaver
Elites 6x Flamers
Troops 10x Horrors
Fast Attack 3x Screamers
Heavy Support Burning Chariot
Not wanting anything ultra-competitive, just want a nice varied selection of units that can hold their own.
Now the SC box has a Burning Chariot, which can either be built as Changecaster + Burning Chariot, or Exalted Flamer + Fateskimmer. Before I start building this kit, what would be the best option? I'm thinking leaving the Exalted Flamer on foot so he can be protected by the Flamers, what would you guys suggest?
Do you guys put Soulreaper cannon and Hellfire Missiles on the same model? No that much abilities in the game for the enemy to target specific models?
Recommended spell for Scarab Terminator Sorcerrer? Warptime?
Xyxel I don’t think the rules allow that based on the wording of the codex.
As for spell I like duplicity or time. For non-cult I use weaver/or glamor to protect selves or just throw a smite out.
Valkyrie I have a similar list is use and I have had some luck with it prior to Covid. You are probably not going to win the LVO with that but should be ok in friendly pick up games. May I suggest using an exhaled LoC though instead of Kairos. The new table is really good for the LoC.
But remember when the new dex drops you will likely lose a “mono-codex” rule to bring daemons.
It`s a 100% legal to put both weapons on the same model and i would absolutely do that as it means the weapons surviving 1 more casualty.
@Xyxel:
As for the psychic power, i mostly go for glamour / weaver / temporal manipulation as backup powers or Firestorm because it can snipe stuff like characters or units hiding behind chaff.
Remember you can only take powers from the discipline of change with them, so they sadly can`t have warptime themself.
You get the relevant cult power on top of that for free, which gives them some extra flexibility.
As xeen said time & duplicity are both great cults and their powers work well with Scarabs.
@Valkyrie:
Honestly, none of the options are really competetive and with the codex Death Guard out it seems like souping will take away certain traits, so it does not matter to much.
Only exception is the exalted LoC which is really good like xeen said.
So overall, especially if you don`t want to go fully competetive i`d go for the options with the best looks and have fun with a nice looking army with lots of different stuff.
Also it seems summoning is gone, unless they keep that mechanic in the future CD codex, so i will stop any Tzeentch daemon projects for now and wait until TS and CD have their books.
Kinda sad because i have close to 1000 points Tzeentch daemons and was planning to add more of them. :(
Yea. Not much will be competitive against DG for awhile. I hope our book is at least half as good. I would love Magnus to be viable.
I agree that I would not worry about competitive builds until the new dex and just focus on what you like.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yea. Not much will be competitive against DG for awhile. I hope our book is at least half as good. I would love Magnus to be viable.
I agree that I would not worry about competitive builds until the new dex and just focus on what you like.
Ok, so im planning to branch out into the Tsons later this year, after i finish getting my custodes sorted. My current plan is the following 1k list as a base, then expand on that if i find i like the Sons playstyle.
As a basis for getting to know the Tsons, and a reasonable 1k list to expand upon, what do you guys think? im concerned that it might not have enough AT firepower but i dont know how important that is at 1K as i dont have much actual game experince (got back into the hobby over lockdown....)
One question ahead: Do you plan to go for a fun army or do you have a more competetive approach?
Right now they are midtier and have mostly been used as souped in Psykers for chaos lists in 8th edition, but 9th seems to favour mono-armies more so its really hard to say where they will end up.
Overall it`s hard to give good advice, as we will get a new 40k codex about every month (depending on things happening with the pandemic / Brexit) 2021.
No way to tell when TS will get their 9th edition codex, but there are some things that will probably be similar to the DG changes.
Mainly 2 wound Rubric Marines, 3 wound Scarabs and other stuff (streamlined weapon profiles, strategems) that will get a similar change as the last 9th edition books got.
For now we are kinda left behind as we haven`t gotten the 2 wound Marine treatment yet, have no 9th edition rules like the 9th specific secondaries and still suffer a bit from the "kill psykers" & "kill characters" secondaries thatr are auto-takes against us most of the time.
On the other hand we had a really good psychic awakening book with grat upgrades, relics, new powers and strategems that allows us to go for lots of trickery.
We only lack some decent melee units to conquer enemy objectives that have good staying power as well.
Generally i`d say 10-20 Rubrics, 1-3 Sorcerers and 20 Tzaangors is a good start. If you plan on camping the Tzaangors i would rather go for 5 Rubrics, if you want to play 1 - 2 x 20 later on you can start with 10 allright.
Depends largely on the final rules but if i had to guess they are a safe bet. (Like poxwalkers in DG armies that got quite good.)
Would go for the Tzaangor blades not the pistol option tough.
In your list i`d skip the Icon of flames - they are bad now and unless they will give some kind of psychic boost in the future they won`t be worth it.
Antitank is what TS can`t do properly with each platform having it`s own pros & cons.
Maybe some Forgeworld alternative or a LasCannon Predator instead of this one?
Defilers have seen some play, they are not bad right now as they are great in melee, kinda resilient (more than the Pred) and their shooting is okayish.
Personally i use a Sphinx-based defiler with battle cannon & twin lascannon + a relic contemptor with 2 twin Lascannons for antitank.
Ahriman is such a beast, you`ll want to play him every game so personally i`d do him first.
Prince with wing is also great, but will probably be limited to 1 per detachment with our codex (like DG do now) so i`d think about adding one as well.
For 1k my go-to would be:
Ahriman on disc
Sorcerer
10 Rubrics
5 Rubrics
10 Tzaangors
5 Terminators
Preditor or defiler or Forgeworld bot.
After that i would add 5 more Scarabs, 5-15 more Rubrics, 10 more Tzaangors, 1 more Sorcerer (3 in the box so you could make 1 of them an Aspiring sorcerer, as i think you will only be able to play 1 Ahriman / Exalted Sorcerer per detachment in the future.), 1 Prince and maybe a Tzaangor shaman. (cheap psyker that can buff Tzaangors as well)
Depending on the style you want to go for you could finish of the 2000 points with Rhinos or more antitank depending on taste.
One question ahead: Do you plan to go for a fun army or do you have a more competetive approach?
Right now they are midtier and have mostly been used as souped in Psykers for chaos lists in 8th edition, but 9th seems to favour mono-armies more so its really hard to say where they will end up.
Overall it`s hard to give good advice, as we will get a new 40k codex about every month (depending on things happening with the pandemic / Brexit) 2021.
No way to tell when TS will get their 9th edition codex, but there are some things that will probably be similar to the DG changes.
Mainly 2 wound Rubric Marines, 3 wound Scarabs and other stuff (streamlined weapon profiles, strategems) that will get a similar change as the last 9th edition books got.
For now we are kinda left behind as we haven`t gotten the 2 wound Marine treatment yet, have no 9th edition rules like the 9th specific secondaries and still suffer a bit from the "kill psykers" & "kill characters" secondaries thatr are auto-takes against us most of the time.
On the other hand we had a really good psychic awakening book with grat upgrades, relics, new powers and strategems that allows us to go for lots of trickery.
We only lack some decent melee units to conquer enemy objectives that have good staying power as well.
Generally i`d say 10-20 Rubrics, 1-3 Sorcerers and 20 Tzaangors is a good start. If you plan on camping the Tzaangors i would rather go for 5 Rubrics, if you want to play 1 - 2 x 20 later on you can start with 10 allright.
Depends largely on the final rules but if i had to guess they are a safe bet. (Like poxwalkers in DG armies that got quite good.)
Would go for the Tzaangor blades not the pistol option tough.
In your list i`d skip the Icon of flames - they are bad now and unless they will give some kind of psychic boost in the future they won`t be worth it.
Antitank is what TS can`t do properly with each platform having it`s own pros & cons.
Maybe some Forgeworld alternative or a LasCannon Predator instead of this one?
Defilers have seen some play, they are not bad right now as they are great in melee, kinda resilient (more than the Pred) and their shooting is okayish.
Personally i use a Sphinx-based defiler with battle cannon & twin lascannon + a relic contemptor with 2 twin Lascannons for antitank.
Ahriman is such a beast, you`ll want to play him every game so personally i`d do him first.
Prince with wing is also great, but will probably be limited to 1 per detachment with our codex (like DG do now) so i`d think about adding one as well.
For 1k my go-to would be:
Ahriman on disc
Sorcerer
10 Rubrics
5 Rubrics
10 Tzaangors
5 Terminators
Preditor or defiler or Forgeworld bot.
After that i would add 5 more Scarabs, 5-15 more Rubrics, 10 more Tzaangors, 1 more Sorcerer (3 in the box so you could make 1 of them an Aspiring sorcerer, as i think you will only be able to play 1 Ahriman / Exalted Sorcerer per detachment in the future.), 1 Prince and maybe a Tzaangor shaman. (cheap psyker that can buff Tzaangors as well)
Depending on the style you want to go for you could finish of the 2000 points with Rhinos or more antitank depending on taste.
thanks for the feedback.
I was planning on getting the start collecting box to, well, start collecting, which has Ahriman in it, and use him as a regular exalted sorc for now (rather save the extra points for something else. a prince was also being considered as a expansion purchase.
I am aware that the sons arent super competivite at the moment but since im a basically a total n00b in regards to actual playtime in the last 5 editions, im not hughly worried about competing. that, and no matter if i loose, Tzeentch still wins!
Hello friends. I have a question for all of you Exalted Sorcerers.
I'm working on assembling some thousand sons. My playlists are fun and with friends, I was just wondering as to what the most effective anti tank units are in the list? If you were to play at 1,000 points, what Anti-tank unit would you absolutely have to have? At 1500? At 2000?
Rubrics & Scarabs can be AT with the stratagems: +1 wounding, with rapid fire, is almost guaranteed to shred T7 3+ 13ish W vehicle model in one salvo, if you have 10 scarabs or 20ish rubrics. You will loose effectiveness as you lose models, and this practically stops working if you cannot affored the stratagem. But on the other hand you can stay full infantry and use webway/teleport and moving strats easily, and combo this with exalted or prince to re-roll 1s.
ok quick question. do you guys think 2 x 10 rubicae is better or worse than 1x 20 rubicae? I'm playing with my planned list and I'm dithering over weather two squads able to work seperately or one big blob i can use tricks like risen rubicae on for maxium Tzeentchen fun.
Just landed a pair of Tsons Contemptor dreads. Wondering the best load out. Based on our lack of AT double lascannon seems like the route to go. Although they are a little more expensive than our las preds they don't suffer from being degraded and are easier to hid. What are peoples thoughts on them @ 190pts.
skycapt44 wrote: Just landed a pair of Tsons Contemptor dreads. Wondering the best load out. Based on our lack of AT double lascannon seems like the route to go. Although they are a little more expensive than our las preds they don't suffer from being degraded and are easier to hid. What are peoples thoughts on them @ 190pts.
The Volkites would be pretty decent, 16 S5(6?) shots with 2 damage an additional mortals isn't going to annihilate any vehicles, but can do some work in degrading them or getting those last few wounds off.
xerxeskingofking wrote: ok quick question. do you guys think 2 x 10 rubicae is better or worse than 1x 20 rubicae? I'm playing with my planned list and I'm dithering over weather two squads able to work seperately or one big blob i can use tricks like risen rubicae on for maxium Tzeentchen fun.
right now, I'd like to think that you are almost always better with a single massive unit on account that you can only get a single instance of a power off per turn. Running Duplicity, you have the choice of the redeploy power or whatever you chose to give to the Aspiring Sorceror, And the same for the others.
As for the cover thing? you can benefit when you lose enough models, yes?
Trying to help my friend build his 1kSons army, and need a TAC list build for him. I am building it as a birthday present, and I have three squads a rubrics and a few Scarab occult terminators, but not sure what else he might need. I thought about making him a Chaos Daredo Dread, but is that really their best bet? Any help is appreciated!
How do we feel about the ratio of Cultists/Tzaangors to Rubrics? I've played a few games with just Rubrics for my troops and they just seem too expensive for what they are.
Rubrics, like all Chaos Marines outside of Deathguard are just terrible value propositions until they get their 9th Ed update. Their cost for a one-wound model is just wrong and feels bad to invest points in.
The Cult of Time relic is good but recently Ive been looking at the capricious crest. It essentially saves us a CP on a reroll for a psychic test and auto passes it, we make alot of psychic tests and ive yet to not use it, but is resurrecting a demon prince one per game the better option?
Right now my favorite is the +1 to psychic tests from the cult of magic, but the pythic brazier from the cult of prophecy seems strong as well. The cult of time relic is awesome on a demon prince!
Well, its been confirmed that the tsons are getting a new codex soon (I'm guessing within 3 months). Are their any predictions as to what new content/rules/models etc we may see?
Me, I expect something that lets us break the standard psychic rules. Something like either removing the cumulative penalty for smite spsm, or maybe a bonus to psychic tests for every psyker in close proximity. Either way, i feel we should be doing as much damage in the psychic phase as in the shooting or fight phases. I'm ok with us having less capacity in those phases if we can make up for it with MW spam or widespread buff/debuff form psykers.
So someone posted the points cost in the N&R thread. Here is link https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/798531.page. I am very happy with what I am seeing so far. 21 points for a 2w Rubric is good even if they keep the exact same rules they currently have (I expect them to get better like most 9th edition things). 40 points for a 3w SoT is a steal. The points don't show anything for power sword or inferno bolter in their entry, so the 40 includes those. That is really only like a 2 or 3 point increase as you had to pay for the equipment previously. Dreadnoughts are only up 5 points, and presumable will have the -1 damage, so 135 for a twin LC and either ML or a CCW is great. 7 point Tgors! yes. 70 point Tgor Shaman, also yes! Hopefully the Enlightened will be improved, but so far I think this is good (I was expecting Rubrics at like 22 or 23 and SoT at like 45). Can't wait to see Magnus. Bought one right before COVID and have not even gotten a game in with him yet.
As for what our rules will be. Based on looking at some of the other 9th edition codex, they really have been taking the army theme up to 11. As ours is magic, I am expecting obnoxious levels of MW. Like crazy bad. I have a feeling people are really really going to hate playing against TS for that reason. Also games will be long with really long psychic phases (although they already do that). What are other fellow Sorcerers thinking?
I am pretty new to the hobby and for now I've pretty much only played 500 and 1000pts lists at my FLGS. But I've mostly played against Death Guard players and the Sot felt very lacklustre, especially compared to their Plaguelords. So I hope they'll get some love !
I don't really have a good point of reference for the changes in points yet, so I can't say much about it.
Still, I am very exited for our new codex ! Do you all think we'll have more new units ? Other then our new HQ, I mean.
I am pretty new to the hobby and for now I've pretty much only played 500 and 1000pts lists at my FLGS. But I've mostly played against Death Guard players and the Sot felt very lacklustre, especially compared to their Plaguelords. So I hope they'll get some love !
I don't really have a good point of reference for the changes in points yet, so I can't say much about it.
Still, I am very exited for our new codex ! Do you all think we'll have more new units ? Other then our new HQ, I mean.
unknown, but i'm gonna say unlikely. several armies have had a codex drop with just a single model released with it. I fully expect both the GK and the Tsons to be the same. they seem to be putting much more focus on making the existing ranges more playable and supporting diversified army lists. So, i'd expect them to put effort into making the less used parts of the Tsons more viable, than adding more units.
As for what our rules will be. Based on looking at some of the other 9th edition codex, they really have been taking the army theme up to 11. As ours is magic, I am expecting obnoxious levels of MW. Like crazy bad. I have a feeling people are really really going to hate playing against TS for that reason. Also games will be long with really long psychic phases (although they already do that). What are other fellow Sorcerers thinking?
the more i think about it, the more i think that rather than pure MW spam, they might try and focus our powers more on the "tricksy" side of things, with funky buff/debuffs, weird movement tricks, etc. the overall effect it to leave the opponent guessing and let the Tsons player approach full skaven levels of sneakyness, which i feel is more lore-appropriate than "living artillery" mages spamming force lighting MW spells.
- Daemon Prince drop. If he has still the same profile, it's a must.
- The one who leaked the DG news, also said that TS were gonna get a new apostol, so maybe that warp infernal (or whatever) is an apostol. Anyways, we don't need more HQ, so its not something so good.
- Tzaangors to 7p are very nice. Poxwalkers cost 5p and are 7+ saves. Tzaangors are F4 R4 6+ 5++ AP -1, Tzaangors are definetly good troops.
- Rubrics 21p for 2W are very good. If warpflamer is 12'', rubrics will be very strong.
- Cultist useless like Death Guard ones.
- Terminators for 40p are very good. Missiles dropped points, reaper cannon dropped points. We are an army with low damage so it will be a must.
- Tzaangor shaman 70p: Nice to have, but let's wait for the profiles.
The army will cost about the same for a lot more resistance. We still have to wait for the profiles. We need 3++ on characters because we have not the same surviving resources as DG. We have no FNP, no high R, no damage reduction... All is dust must be available for all the army (characters, enginees...) or we will still be super-low-tier.
What is also nice is the rubric box comes with ten flamers. So we will very likely keep the whole squad being able to take flamers. At 27 points that is 129 for a squad with 4 plus sorcerer. Likely also will be 12 inches. With deep strike or if duplicity is still a thing they are going to be really good.
Trend of Drukhari and Admech (latest two codexes) was to have massive number of attacks from relatively cheap units. I am speculating that thousand sons will counter that. So, I expect Rubric Marines to have 2+ save against 1 damage weapon, plus they will ignore all AP1 and AP2. Same for Occult terminators too.
So all those many many hits that Drukhari and Admech has now will face a flat 2+ armour save and translate to very few wounds actually getting through against Rubrics.
From N&R thread. Notice all vehicles get inferno bolters. Not game breaking but nice. Enlightened down to 6 model units. Sucks as I have 9. Oh well. Command stuff looks cool.
It'll only matter if the