gummyofallbears wrote: Thoughts on the changeling in a mixed tzeentch and mortals army? -1 to hit is very powerful.
I think this idea is pretty awesome to be honest. I'm not sure how much it is being used but it seems like the way to go. Considering I play Dark Angels as my primary army and the Dark Shroud has become a staple of nearly every list, I cannot see how it wouldn't be good.
How well do 5x Rubric Marines and Inferno Bolters work?
Granted it would be Smite spam but still...
I'm tempted to grab another box of Rubric Marines and get my collection up to 8x Bolters, 8x Flamers, 2x Aspiring Sorcerers and 2x Soul Reapers (maybe try and convert a third Aspiring Sorcerer instead of second Soul Reaper).
15 points for a warpflamer seems very steep to me, especially on a 18 point platform. Have you had success with units full of them? I just can't imagine nearly doubling the cost of the unit being an effective allocation of points.
heckler wrote: 15 points for a warpflamer seems very steep to me, especially on a 18 point platform. Have you had success with units full of them? I just can't imagine nearly doubling the cost of the unit being an effective allocation of points.
I'm tempted to run a unit of Bolters in the back (Soulreaper too, just because) and 2x5 Flamers in a Rhino.
I was going to run one flamer in each but then I think Space Marines would be doing that better. I like having squads kitted out with one thing only. Sure it may limit their role, but they excel at the role they were kitted out to do - and with everything hurting everything now, it's not as big a deal).
I shall have to get a game in with them once I've built them up and painted them. I am having just a little bit too much time taken away from me via my Orks.
When the Codex is released, maybe they'll get a decrease in points. I guess when the Chaos Codex is released we can look to that as guidance.
Warpflamers are expensive but they do the Lords work.
Units will NOT charge you, if they are in range. However, you will attract lots of attention. Put them in a Rhino or near your main lines so they can move to be wherever you need them to be.
IMHO, Rhino is best, they are protected from stray fire and in one turn they can be in some units face and throwing out huge amounts of firepower.
but with 3" disembark with 5" move and 8" range you are looking at 16" threat on that turn. well, I guess you could advance for another d6" of movement.
as far as the charging thing goes, I've noticed people go 8.5" away from flamer units and hope to roll an 8 to charge in.
heckler wrote: but with 3" disembark with 5" move and 8" range you are looking at 16" threat on that turn. well, I guess you could advance for another d6" of movement.
as far as the charging thing goes, I've noticed people go 8.5" away from flamer units and hope to roll an 8 to charge in.
Hmm...we've always played it as Flamers getting overwatch regardless of distance. People have justified it in my meta as running to opposition, rather than teleporting in.
heckler wrote: but with 3" disembark with 5" move and 8" range you are looking at 16" threat on that turn. well, I guess you could advance for another d6" of movement.
as far as the charging thing goes, I've noticed people go 8.5" away from flamer units and hope to roll an 8 to charge in.
Hmm...we've always played it as Flamers getting overwatch regardless of distance. People have justified it in my meta as running to opposition, rather than teleporting in.
Maybe we've played it wrong.
Logically, you are right.
Rulewise, you are wrong.
And you don't need to be 8.5 from the unit, just from the dude with the flamer, so charging from another angle makes it easy to get closer and charge without fear of the warpflame.
I decided that my old TS army is the first to get an upgrade for 8th.
New Codex should come soon but I don't expect any changes regarding models/equipment.
First question is, are Tzaangors and/or Magnus necessary for a tournament army?
Have no models for them and new Magnus is slightly to big for my liking to be carried around
model wise I have some Rhinos/Predators, 1 Dreadnought, 1 Forge/Maulerfiend, 2-3 Damon Princes, ~7 Sorcerer, 30 Rubics, 6 Termis
For a 2k army I thought about:
2x Damon Prince
3x5 Rubics with 1 Flamer
3 Rhinos
1 Hellbrute, Twin Laser and Fist
1 Forgefind (Hades)
1 Exalted Sorcerer on disc
2 Sorcerer on Disc
From what I understand, Magnus is pretty key; And not to just Thousand Sons. Alot of Demon armies are playing him as well with a bunch of demon princes etc. Smite spam sort of stuff. But one thing I have noticed is alot of people don't support him properly and they end up shipping him out into destruction territory fast. Most people have enough fire power and strength to take Magnus down in a turn if he's alone. Just remember that, and I would say it's better to not take Magnus then waste Magnus. In my opinion, if you are going to take Magnus you need to take things that will advance up with him or even faster than him. A helldrake seems particularly efficient. It can race up and with no help tie something potentially dangerous to Magnus up. A couple units of scarab termies could be super helpful, and a demon prince or two. That makes for a mightly flank attack turn one, and now you are possibly able to tie up multiple units while Magnus does his thing. Another key strategy people have been using for the slower lists taking Magnus is to include the Changeling, which is a good idea, to give a -1 to hit bubble around your army. This would go a decent ways to keeping him safe. But if you are going to fly him outside the bubble then it's effectively useless.
Arachnofiend wrote: So it's confirmed that Thousand Sons is not listed in the CSM codex, which means that we are definitely getting our own codex. What do people want to see for TS-unique stuff? I'd love to see some of the other Tzaangor models imported over from AoS, and getting the Osiron Contemptor Dreadnought would be a dream.
Pull the AS from Rubric Marines and make them thier own support unit.
Psyker Drednaught
TS psykers pick a coven and get an additional spell based on that coven.
Gove some viable options to improve the inferno bolters shooting.
There is no entry for aspiring sorceror in the points so it may be we just pay for him as a tson like the marines pay for their sergeants. Or it could be a mistake
Arachnofiend wrote: So it's confirmed that Thousand Sons is not listed in the CSM codex, which means that we are definitely getting our own codex. What do people want to see for TS-unique stuff? I'd love to see some of the other Tzaangor models imported over from AoS, and getting the Osiron Contemptor Dreadnought would be a dream.
Pull the AS from Rubric Marines and make them thier own support unit.
Psyker Drednaught
TS psykers pick a coven and get an additional spell based on that coven.
Gove some viable options to improve the inferno bolters shooting.
Yeah, I see at least two options for expanding the Thousand Sons forces for their coming codex (and given the rumors about how many new units the Death Guard are going to get, I think the Sons need some more forces as well, particularly given how much the psychic phase has been dialed back in matched play).
First, port over some more Tzaangor options from Age of Sigmar. Tzaangor shamans on disks of Tzeentch, stuff like that.
Second, mine the Horus Heresy for stuff. As you pointed out, Osirion Dreadnoughts and the return of the Prosperine Cults would be aces. I'd also love to see stuff like (or inspired by) the Khenetai Occult Blade Cabals and the Ammatara Occult Intercession Cabals in 40K. Also, GW should amend Magnus' datasheet so that he can't Peril. He was immune to Peril last edition, and he's almost effectively immune to Peril in Horus Heresy (he can Peril, but it's pretty rare).
Now that I have had enough time to go through some of the new leaks there are some things I would like to point out about these new Legion Traits.
Im going to focus on 4 legions in perticular. Black Legion, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and Word Bearers.
Black Legion: is extreamly good for Rubrics, the ability to have a mixed unit of WarpFlamers and Infererno bolters advance and still shoot everything is very good not to mention the increased movement. Plus thier artifact helps shore up our weakness with anti-vehicle options.
Iron Warriors: ignore cover forever. Extreamly good. Espically when the enemy is despertly trying to hide in cover because everything you shoot at them has -2 AP. The Relic is awesome since im not seeing a restriction on who you can put it on, so a DP with the exoskeleton will be a nightmare to deal with.
Alpha Legion: -1 to hit outside 12" means our already durable units become even more durable. And the ability to get even 1 unit in what will basically be perfect position is nothing to scoff at. Espically if we have first turn. A single 5 man squad with Warp Flamers can chew up and spit out a very large chunck of an enemy army and be a bullet sponge for 1 turn allowing the rest of your army to get onto position.
Word Bearers: Using Rubrics with pink horrors as fodder. 2 very large squads of Rubrics and 5 or 6 units of pink horrors. The very high leadership of the units coupled with the reroll will ensure you will almost never lose Rubrics to morale. On top of that your ability to bring large squads means you save a few points. The pink horrors are the real terrifying thing here. Since you get models back when ever you roll a 1 on morale checks AND you can roll morale checks even if you have no chance of losing any models AND you can reroll that is you dont get a 1 the first time AND you dont need points to replace those models as far as I know. If you know of a way to get a -1 to leadership rolls you could very relibly (55% of the time) get models back.
Word Bearers: Using Rubrics with pink horrors as fodder. 2 very large squads of Rubrics and 5 or 6 units of pink horrors. The very high leadership of the units coupled with the reroll will ensure you will almost never lose Rubrics to morale. On top of that your ability to bring large squads means you save a few points. The pink horrors are the real terrifying thing here. Since you get models back when ever you roll a 1 on morale checks AND you can roll morale checks even if you have no chance of losing any models AND you can reroll that is you dont get a 1 the first time AND you dont need points to replace those models as far as I know. If you know of a way to get a -1 to leadership rolls you could very relibly (55% of the time) get models back.
One thing worth noting is that in order to have legion traits, every model in the detachment must have the legion keyword. Should you want to run that many daemon units, you would either have to summon them since summoned daemons aren't part of the detachment which could be disasterous if they can focus your psychers quickly or you have to run a second detachment.
Should you go the summoning route I think anything more than three is pushing it. Also, running a second detachment with just daemons assuming you use csm codex means at lest one hq won't get legion benefits
Ahriman on foot
2x 5 man Rubric squad with Icon, 1 Warpflamer and Warpflame pistol
Hellbrute with Fist/Heavy Flamer and Scourge
Chaos Spawn
Comes to 34 PL. Goal is to Warptime the Helbrute into their expensive piece as fast as possible.
Other version is to reduce it back to 1 squad of rubrics, but up them to 10 men and add a soulreaper and another warpflamer, and have them ride in a rhino. Also up the chaos spawn to 2.
Arachnofiend wrote: So it's confirmed that Thousand Sons is not listed in the CSM codex, which means that we are definitely getting our own codex. What do people want to see for TS-unique stuff? I'd love to see some of the other Tzaangor models imported over from AoS, and getting the Osiron Contemptor Dreadnought would be a dream.
I want to have more classic TS and less damonic support
So classic Chaos Dread or Contemptor instead a Helbrute, Chosen, Lesser Sorcerer or Aspirants instead of another Tzaangor unit etc
Well, got 3 games in last night for the Konor campaign. Man did I bring the wrong and right list at the same time. First the mission:
Attacker and Defender. If you have the Chaos keyword, you are automatically the defender.
Victory point based:
- 1 VP for killing a unit. A bonus VP if the unit killing the last model in that unit has an innate 2+ or 3+ save. (I read this whole thing wrong and thought it was only for the attacker)
- 1 VP for the defender for each unit that has at least one model left, in their original deployment zone
- Slay the warlord
Strategems:
- Attacker had two, one that gave them +1" to their charge and saves for a turn, cant' remember the second.
- Defender had one. 1 CP, use it when an enemy targets a unit during their shooting phase. That unit gets +1 save, does not stack with cover.
List:
Ahriman
Chaos Spawn
Helbrute w/ Fist + H Flamer and Scourge
2x Rubric squads with Warpflamer pistol, Warpflamer, and Icon
His Deployment
My Deployment and first turn move
I made the list before knowing the mission of course. And having thought that I had to keep my units in their deployment zone, really left me without any shooting in games 1 and 2. First opponent was playing an old school IG army with 4 squads each having a grenade launcher and missile launcher. A command squad. Chimera with scatter laser, heavy bolter (I think), and missile. A Punisher Leman Russ with Lascannon and Plasma Cannon sponsoons. I managed to steal the initiative, warp times the helbrute up to the building in the center to keep him out of sight of that Leman Russ. Ran the Chaos spawn to said building and left him there as a distraction. He proceeded to target the helbrute, which I used 1 of my 3 cp on the +1 armor save strategem. He goes through his entire army and gets nothing for it. The Russ wipes the spawn out.
We made contact!
This continues for 2 more turns with the brute taking every shot and still standing. He tried to move the chimera to shoot my units in the back building, but 5 smites later it was down to a single wound and saw the chimera retreating.
Game 2, or "When's dinner"
Guy brought an Astral Militarum elite army with two of their transports. I didnt stand a chance. He had 3 times the number of bodies, twice the number of vehicles, his guns all had -2 ap, his first vehicle had heavy 20 shots plus auto cannons plus storm bolters, his second had heavy 2 missiles, auto cannons, other things full of guys with melta guns, AND he had a squad deep striking. How this was 35 Power Level I have no clue. But his trucks are only 6 power level. Basically it was over round 1. Helbrute rolled double 1s for saves and lost 4 wounds immediately, Ahriman periled for 3 wounds, he just stayed out of reach and it would have continued for another 3 or 4 turns with me doing nothing but making armor saves. So I scooped at end of turn 2.
Game 3 saw me against Footdar. Blob of Guardians with weapons platform, huge squad of Howling Banshees, Reapers, Rangers, Warlock, and Jain Zar. He goes first, manages to kill a Rubric with the weapons platform. I move up, warp time a squad to get into a center building, and smite the living hell out of that guardian squad as it was closest. He loses about 3/4 of them. He moves up, doesn't have any real shots, moves the guardians back. I repeat my process, move the Helbrute, warp time it, assault the remaining guardians. Smite the Howling Banshees squad and kill half of them.
Helbrute finishes off the guardians, Howling Banshees charge in and do 7 wounds. Helbrute squishes Jain Zar in a turn. Banshees finish off the brute. Rest of the game is me smiting the Eldar back to the stone age.
Next game is in 2 weeks and 10 more power level. Trying to figure out what to change in the list and what to add. Deep Striking Occult Termies? Zaangors? Heldrake?
Especially wonderful given the universally-available Chaos Familiar stratagem. For 1CP, an Aspiring Sorcerer can actually cast a useful power instead of a weakened Smite! This should dramatically increase the tactical possibilities for a Battle-forged Thousand Sons army.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Widied wrote: Another key strategy people have been using for the slower lists taking Magnus is to include the Changeling, which is a good idea, to give a -1 to hit bubble around your army. This would go a decent ways to keeping him safe. But if you are going to fly him outside the bubble then it's effectively useless.
Magnus with Weaver of Fates and the Changeling's bubble will be awfully, awfully annoying to deal with for any army that can't vomit out tons of Mortal Wounds at range (I say "at range" because if you let him get in close it's your ass).
Arachnofiend wrote: I'm pretty sure we can't use the stratagems in the CSM book? It's just the Hereticus discipline we have access to.
This may take an FAQ from GW, but I'll be shocked if we can't. I don't have the book in front of me; does it specifically prohibit Thousand Sons and Death Guard from using the universal stratagems?
I've put in the question to the 40K Facebook page. Let's see what happens.
...And looking at it, there's nothing saying that a Heretic Astartes detachment can't be Thousand Sons. The restriction is that you can't replace the <Legion> keyword with Thousand Sons, but the warlord traits, artifacts, and stratagems don't say anything about needing a <Legion> detachment, just Chaos Space Marines.
So.... We get to use the expanded Dark Hereticus, but (at least at the moment) nothing more? How about the upgraded Rubric datasheet, if there was a one in CSM codex?
I think the latest index vs. codices thing was that if you use Index, use only index, and if you use codex, use only codex. That would lock "real TS" out of any upgraded Rubrics, which would be... silly?
At the moment it seems I should get the CSM datacards for psy powers but not the dex.
If you're a 1k Sons army, you have to use the index. However you do have access to the Dark Hereticus powers.
I need to add 10 power level to my 1k sons, bumping us up to 45 for the next Konor missions. Not sure what to add. Right now I'm short on heavy weaponry, mobility, and deep striking. The current list has Ahriman, 1-2 squads of Rubrics, Helbrute, at the 35 power level. I can add Zaangors 10-30, I have a heldrake on the way, or I can add some daemons for summoning which I like. If I do, what daemons? The problem I had last weekend was in games where you have to chase down the enemy or they are a pure shooty list. The heldrake has a 30" movement but doesn't seem strong enough to take things 1v1? Chariot maybe? Screamers?
So, with the recent release of Codex: Chaos Space Marines, the price on the Demon Prince's Demonic Axe and Hellforged sword both dropped to 10 points, bringing them into line with the double claws, what is seeming to come out as best now? Or is it all preference?
Hello people, new TS (40k) player here. I am planning on using my 30k Thousand Sons in 40k as well, and I have some questions that I don't really think are properly explained in the index/BRB.
I am slightly confused on what units I can pick. Looking in the Chaos index, there is a specific army list for Thousand Sons. Are these the only units I can pick for my Thousand Sons army? If I understand the faction keyword system correctly, shouldn't I also be able to take any <CHAOS> unit as well?
What I'm thinking is a list something along the lines of this.
Magnus
Ahriman or Exalted Sorc
Some units of Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult
So this is fine, these are all in the Thousand Sons army list, but this is where I get confused.
I want a Changeling with me and maybe some other daemons, and I want some stuff from the FW index. Since I play TS in 30k I have my Rapier Laser Destroyers and my Xiphon flyer, and I want to use these in my army as well. So can all those Thousand Sons units and these non-Thousand Sons army list units be used in the same detachment?
If yes, I suppose all the <LEGION> units must be <Thousand Sons>, and then all Mark of Tzeentch. Have I understood correctly?
alleus wrote: Hello people, new TS (40k) player here. I am planning on using my 30k Thousand Sons in 40k as well, and I have some questions that I don't really think are properly explained in the index/BRB.
I am slightly confused on what units I can pick. Looking in the Chaos index, there is a specific army list for Thousand Sons. Are these the only units I can pick for my Thousand Sons army? If I understand the faction keyword system correctly, shouldn't I also be able to take any <CHAOS> unit as well?
What I'm thinking is a list something along the lines of this.
Magnus
Ahriman or Exalted Sorc
Some units of Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult
So this is fine, these are all in the Thousand Sons army list, but this is where I get confused.
I want a Changeling with me and maybe some other daemons, and I want some stuff from the FW index. Since I play TS in 30k I have my Rapier Laser Destroyers and my Xiphon flyer, and I want to use these in my army as well. So can all those Thousand Sons units and these non-Thousand Sons army list units be used in the same detachment?
If yes, I suppose all the <LEGION> units must be <Thousand Sons>, and then all Mark of Tzeentch. Have I understood correctly?
Just bring a second detachment that is Choas. So one TS detachment one Chaos Detachment you will need at least a couple of troops choices so probably brimestones there dirt cheap and can soak up wounds plus they will also benefit from changlings aura.
The Xiphon can be given the Thousand Sons legion, the Rapiers cannot. The Changling and other Daemons can't be Thousand Sons, but can still be included in the same detachment for now as they share the Chaos keyword. For the moment this doesn't change anything for you, but when the Thousand Sons get their own codex things will change.
Tuluth wrote: So, with the recent release of Codex: Chaos Space Marines, the price on the Demon Prince's Demonic Axe and Hellforged sword both dropped to 10 points, bringing them into line with the double claws, what is seeming to come out as best now? Or is it all preference?
I think it's more what do you want him to do. The second claw adds 2 attacks which makes him good at handling large numbers of models with low/mid T. The axe does better against High T models with good saves. The sword seems to be the happy medium not doing as well in specifc areas but overall doing about the same damage as the other two across catagories.
I think the claws are actually still better in most situations, and are definitely better if you account for Diabolic Strength. 3 extra attacks is huge.
Chrysis wrote: The Xiphon can be given the Thousand Sons legion, the Rapiers cannot. The Changling and other Daemons can't be Thousand Sons, but can still be included in the same detachment for now as they share the Chaos keyword. For the moment this doesn't change anything for you, but when the Thousand Sons get their own codex things will change.
Alright, but I could still bring everything, since they all have the <CHAOS> keyword, even the Rapiers? How would that change when the codex comes out do you think? Won't they still have the <CHAOS> keyword, which makes it work?
alleus wrote: Hello people, new TS (40k) player here. I am planning on using my 30k Thousand Sons in 40k as well, and I have some questions that I don't really think are properly explained in the index/BRB.
I am slightly confused on what units I can pick. Looking in the Chaos index, there is a specific army list for Thousand Sons. Are these the only units I can pick for my Thousand Sons army? If I understand the faction keyword system correctly, shouldn't I also be able to take any <CHAOS> unit as well?
Read the rules literally on that page. They state that only the units on that list may be given the Thousand Sons LEGION keyword. As daemons do not have the legion keyword, they are not able to be Thousand Sons, however you can still use them in your army because they share either the Chaos or Tzeentch keyword instead. This simply wouldn't be a Thousand Sons detachment when the new codex comes out.
Normal marines have the same problem. Daemons cannot take Legion keywords and so including any of them in your detachment will break your legion traits and stratagem access. So to avoid these problems, always treat daemons as an ally with their own detachment if you want legion benefits. Note that the Thousand Sons benefit for Troop Rubrics is tied to the keyword they take, not to having a Thousand Sons detachment, so you STILL gain this benefit in a mixed detachment.
Until our code comes out with legion benefits, we are free to mix daemons and any kind of marine all we want. The only restrictions are on what units are allowed to be the Thousand Sons legion, which benefits from Magnus/Ahriman/Exalted Sorcerers.
Right. I did not know that everything needs the Thousand Sons keyword in order to benefit from legion traits. I mean, we can't be 100% sure it will be like that, but looking at the Space Marine codex, that is the case.
Oh well, until the codex comes out my list will work, albeit not all units will benefit from Thousand Sons abilities. Hopefully the codex will have some nice stuff to compensate for not being able to take FW models.
alleus wrote: Right. I did not know that everything needs the Thousand Sons keyword in order to benefit from legion traits. I mean, we can't be 100% sure it will be like that, but looking at the Space Marine codex, that is the case.
Oh well, until the codex comes out my list will work, albeit not all units will benefit from Thousand Sons abilities. Hopefully the codex will have some nice stuff to compensate for not being able to take FW models.
You actually can run a number of FW models because they are granted the right to take the Thousand Sons keyword in one of the FAQs. To benefit from Thousand Sons legion rules, you only need a detachment where everything has the Thousand Sons keyword.
Hey all! I've recently decided on TSons as my second army as I love the models and the fluff. I've come up with a very rough 2K list to aim my purchases at, but I've had zero play with or against TS.
Magnus the Red
Ahriman on disc
Demon Prince with Wings + Sword
2 x 10 Rubrics with Soulreaper
10~ Tzaangors
5 Scarab Termies
Helbrute with ML and LC 2 x 3 Chaos spawn
Mostly just picked out the units I liked the look of. I don't seem to see the spawn used much but they seem like a great cheap option for T5 wound soaking and doing some decent damage if they get ignored.
Actually, as Thousand-Sons-Sorcerer pointed out, they all have their uses (well, mostly).
I've run some mathhammer some times ago for each one and the conclusion was :
_the Axe is better against high T multi-wound models or T4 models with 3 wounds. It also benefits more from Prescience.
_the Claws are better against hordes of 1W models and T4 models with 2 wounds.
_the Sword is... pretty bad. Maybe a little better than Claws against T4 models with 3 wounds but I can't remember.
Ok, so just a casual player here. So I understand this, when making an army, everything has to have one key word (Chaos for example) to be battle forged, correct? Then if I want the benefits of a Thousand Sons legion, they all have to have the Thousand Sons key word.
Hey guys, decided to start with 1000 Sons as well, after their nice models tempted me for years. With a new codex coming out soon even better.
The goal will be:
Ahriman
Exalted Sorcerer
Prince with wings
A lot Rubrics
2-3x Scarab Occult Terminators
Preditor
Forgefiend (based on a Khemri Necrosphinx)
Some Rhinos
Tzeengors / Demons to shield / screen
No Magnus because i don`t like the model and will play Ahriman anyway.
Did some research, this thread inkluded, which left me with some questions:
1. Is the list fluffy or have i missed something essential? Couldn`t find more infos but this seems about right and we play fluff > strenght.
2. Wanna buy a lord of change for the prince, is the model about the same size? Think the lord is a bit taller but the model is so awesome. Since i play in a mostly non competitive environment this would be no problem but sometimes i play tournaments so it`s good to know.
3. How exactly does the inferno bolter differ from a normal bolter? (Model wise) It`s basicly a normal bolter with some added magic / magic bolts so i can use normal bolters and paint them glowy?
Asking because i wanna mix the original rubric marines with conversion kit models and i`m not sure about the bolters jet. Plan was to pimp normal bolters with some egyptian stuff to get the look right. (The GW models seem to have mostly normal bolters with extra decoration.)
4. I don`t have any of the HH books and my research did not bring up answers: Is it possible and fluffy for an 40k 1000 Sons army to have some of the Forgeworld HH stuff? If yes, which and in what numbers? I really like some of the models but i want to stay fluffy here. Also which colour sheme would be the right one then?
nintura wrote: Ok, so just a casual player here. So I understand this, when making an army, everything has to have one key word (Chaos for example) to be battle forged, correct? Then if I want the benefits of a Thousand Sons legion, they all have to have the Thousand Sons key word.
At the moment, it doesn't really matter. The common keyword can be Chaos.
When the Thousand Sons codex comes out there will probably be advantages to fielding detachments of Pure Thousand Sons units. But no army wide benefits, so detachments of other chaos stuff will be fine.
1. Is the list fluffy or have i missed something essential? Couldn`t find more infos but this seems about right and we play fluff > strenght.
2. Wanna buy a lord of change for the prince, is the model about the same size? Think the lord is a bit taller but the model is so awesome. Since i play in a mostly non competitive environment this would be no problem but sometimes i play tournaments so it`s good to know.
3. How exactly does the inferno bolter differ from a normal bolter? (Model wise) It`s basicly a normal bolter with some added magic / magic bolts so i can use normal bolters and paint them glowy?
Asking because i wanna mix the original rubric marines with conversion kit models and i`m not sure about the bolters jet. Plan was to pimp normal bolters with some egyptian stuff to get the look right. (The GW models seem to have mostly normal bolters with extra decoration.)
4. I don`t have any of the HH books and my research did not bring up answers: Is it possible and fluffy for an 40k 1000 Sons army to have some of the Forgeworld HH stuff? If yes, which and in what numbers? I really like some of the models but i want to stay fluffy here. Also which colour sheme would be the right one then?
1: sure, looks fluffy for Ahrimans Coven.
2. The new Lord of change is Much bigger than a prince. Wouldn't recommend.
3: Its Just a fancy bolter.
4:The thousand sons still have access to all the HH vehicles (Although everything in Prospero got destroyed, there was a substantial amount of armour on the fleet which scattered).
Probably not in huge numbers, but they have access to it all
Colour wise , the wrath of Magnus book has different options, but most factions are now repainted blue, and the vehicles likely the same.
But one faction kept the pre heresy scheme is cool, so you can use that.
I also have my own Thousand Sons in my painting blog below. Im doing the standard Thousand Sons blue for the automatons, however, for the Sorcerers in my army, I'm painting then in their pre-heresy candy apple red. Makes it easier to pick out the psykers.
Yeah, pure 1k Sons is an elite army. No getting around that. Rubrics tech'd come in at over 200+ as do the terminators. And if you play Magnus... 2000 points gets eaten up quick.
Adding to my Thousand Sons army for a 45 PL game in a couple weeks. I already have Ahriman on Disc for Prescience and Warp Time. So should I take a Prince or Heldrake? The biggest issues I had last time were shooty armies just sitting back with ridiculous heavy 20 weapons and -2 armor lasguns....
Currently I'm still working on building up my Thousand Sons army as well, primarily using PL (since I'm not competitive enough to use points in pickup games). So far I've had the hardest time against Imperial Guard. Their massed firepower and vehicles seem to be a soft counter to a pure TS list. The Culexus Assassin (the anti-psyker one) is also FAR to cheap for the shutdown he brings (at 5 PL, not sure about points). -2 to psychic tests, can't be targeted by powers, can only be hit on 6+ in ranged and melee, can target whatever he wishes, and has an invuln save.
Currently I have available to me:
2x10 Rubrics (Soulreaper, bolters/flamers to outfit each squad entirely with that type, though I mix them)
2x5 Scarab Occult Terminators (Soulreaper & Missiles)
1x10 Tzangors (blades only)
3x1 Exalted Sorcerers (2 foot, 1 disk, and I like the models)
1 Rhino
In progress of being built:
1 Forgefiend (magnetized head and weapons so I can swap them out)
1 Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnaught (magnetized weapons, but have C-Beam, Melta, converted Chain fist)
1 Demon Prince (wings, double claws)
Currently I'm more biding my time until the new Codex comes out, and enjoying getting some games in. I am looking forward to getting the Contemptor onto the table and actually hitting a large unit with the C-Beam.
That Idea with the pre heresy paint scheme is nice.
I like the Pre Heresy Thousand Sons but the blue golden scheme is even better.
Going to give my Sorcerer Champions the Puppetswar Anubis head.
There are really amazing conversion sets out there and it seems the Codex is a rules only release with no new models anyway by what i`ve read so far.
@Rubrics & Scarabs: With so many anti infantary weapons running around and lots of units dashing out buckets of attacks they seem pretty durable.
Expensive units that get even better when targeting the enemy heavy fire fast.
@Smite Spam: What are your experiences so far with that?
Sure works only on the nearest unit but vs elite like all the other marines you will always hit juice targets.
Is perils a problem the command rerolls can handle?
Curious what we will see with the codex release.
An strategem to cast a power twice would be nice to give more flexibility.
For the moment there is at least some stuff in the new Chaos Codex to play around.
I looooove smite spam. One thing I'm curious about is do you need line of sight? It says nearest enemy unit, not nearest visible enemy unit. And what happens if you can't see the nearest but there's one farther away that you can see?
Smite actually doesn't do a whole lot of work for me. I think that's more because I tend to use my Exalted Sorcerer (I've been running with only 1) to cast actual spells; Prescience on SOT is very good, and Warptime is always powerful. Therefore my smites tend to go to the Rubrics & SOT, where they're not nearly as powerful, and actually more dangerous. I hate losing the aspiring sorcerer to a perils roll, because it then blows up more of his unit.
alleus wrote: Right. I did not know that everything needs the Thousand Sons keyword in order to benefit from legion traits. I mean, we can't be 100% sure it will be like that, but looking at the Space Marine codex, that is the case.
Oh well, until the codex comes out my list will work, albeit not all units will benefit from Thousand Sons abilities. Hopefully the codex will have some nice stuff to compensate for not being able to take FW models.
You actually can run a number of FW models because they are granted the right to take the Thousand Sons keyword in one of the FAQs. To benefit from Thousand Sons legion rules, you only need a detachment where everything has the Thousand Sons keyword.
Not all, but most.
Rapier for example cant be 1ksons
So, I'm trying to come up with a way to run Thousand Sons with Magnus in a casual setting. A strong list that can be countered by armies other than the top of the top.
Ahriman
Daemon Prince on foot with Talons
2x10 man Rubricae with 2 flamers and the Soulreaper in Rhinos
20 man Tzangor with CC 5 SOT with flamer
Predator annihalator
Magnus
Comes right to about 2k
Im thinking that is elite enough, with drawbacks and strengths to be a cool list. Thoughts?
So looking at the new Codex and one unit stands out like a sore thumb for me: Obliterators. My god, they've got a HUGE buff. They're now assualt 4. Double the shots for the same price.
1kSons have a real problem with anti-tank and these guys seem to be absolutely perfect for solving that problem, at 190pts, deepstriking, fairly tough, ranging from S7, -1, D1 to S9, -3, D3, with 12 shots per unit.
I know they're not 1kSons, but a seperate spearhead detachment, with a termi lord dropping in for the rerolls should solve a lot of our problems. THe only problem for me is converting them to look in line with our aesthetics... What do you all think?
I would disagree, facing magnus is very doable in a meta that isnt playing the top tier lists, but still builds strong narrative themed lists. I see where you are coming from though, he is tough, but only a quarter of the list, the rest is surmountable I believe. If it ends up being too strong when i test it, I will play it in tournaments and lose. Im trying to find a middle ground. Guilliman can be played casually but strong. Back him up with Tac marines instead of predators and suddenly he is robbed of alot of his strengths
Primarchs are not casual. They have no direct counters and they beat the stuffing out of everything. They're merely bombs that you drop on the field that attract bullets and generally the first player to lose his will be at the disadvantage. They're quite different from say a tank that is weak to lascannons or light infantry that are weak to flamers. Know what Primarchs are weak to?
Got new stuff of my Thousand Sons up in my painting blog in my sig. Take a look and lemme know of any ideas. Currently working on Helbrute, Ahriman, and Heldrake.
So, I got a friendly game in over the weekend, and got a chance to field some of my new units. We played the Week 4 Konor scenario, PL 60. My opponent fielded Harlequin.
Harlequin army:
1x Solitaire (Warlord)
1x Troup Master
1x Shadowseer
5x Harlequin Troupe
5x Harlequin Troupe
5x Harlequin Troupe
3x Starweaver
1x Visarch
All the Harlequin units had a 4+ invuln, which would prove amazingly annoying.
Deployment: 3 objectives were spread out along my side of the board in terrain. I deployed with DP on far left, Rubrics in the rhino near center, sorcerer at center in a tower (this was a mistake, as my units were outside his 6" bubble), SOT in the right third in cover, with the dreadnaught behind them. My opponent started with each Starweaver loaded with a harlequin troupe and a character each, and Solitaire on foot, and got first turn.
Opponent Turn 1: Opponent flew his Starweavers (Left, 2 and 3) up the field, and ran the Solitaire up to the DP, going for close combat. A little bit of shooting happened, with a wound off the DP. He then charged it, and did no wounds. I attacked back, and took off 4/5 wounds.
My Turn 1: I unloaded the Rubrics to be within 6" of the left Starweaver (for the flame pistol). Psychic saw smites go onto Left Starweaver and Starweaver 2. Prescience went onto the SOT. I had the rubrics shoot flame into the Left Starweaver, taking it down. It then exploded, taking out 1 rubric, killing 2 of the Harlequin embarked, taking one wound off the embarked Visarch, and taking the last wound off the Solitaire. Good work! Rubrics then continued to shoot, killing off 2 more of the harlequin. SOT then started shooting into Starweaver 2, taking it down (this one didn't' blow up). The Contemptor then unleashed the C-Beam Cannon, and it hit! If you're not familiar with this weapon, if it kills a unit, then it does 2d6 additional hits (so they hit automatically, if I'm correct) to the same unit, at S4 AP0 D1 (iirc). I rolled well and took out an additional 2 harlequin. The Rhino failed to hit anything. The DP then charged into the Visarch, taking him off the table before he could attack.
Opponent Turn 2: Harlequin were unloaded from Starweaver 3, then all units on the right side of the board decided to shoot into my SOT, taking out 4/5. They then charged in, taking the remaining one out. Nothing was within range to charge the Dreadnaught.
My Turn 2: Rubrics got back into the rhino, and moved more toward the center of the table , where the action was. The sorcerer came down off his tower. Smite killed off the remaining harlequin on the left of the board, and took off the last of a second unit. The C-Beam cannon and flamer failed to hit anything. The Dreadnaught charges in, fails to kill one (that 4+ invuln), and is cut down by the flurry of harlequin attacks.
Opponent Turn 3: The Shadowseer gets off its spell, and I promptly beat the roll-off. Movement takes the harlequin army into the sorcerer. Shooting goes into the rhino and sorcerer, taking the sorcerer low, and charges in and melee finish him off.
My Turn 3: Rubrics unload, in flamer range. Smite from the DP finishes off Starweaver 3 (it blows up, and hits the DP). The Rubric aspiring then casts smite... and perils on a double 1. He blows up, and takes 2 more rubrics with him. The explosion then does 2 damage to the rhino, 1 to each of the harlequin characters, and leaves the harlequin troupe at 2 members. Definitely the moment of the game (and way more damage than Smite could do)! Shooting then kills off the remaining harlequin troupe, leaving the characters. DP fails his charge. The rhino sits there as a box.
Opponent Turn 4: Two Smites kill the DP (Tzeentch was pleased at that). Shooting kills off a few more Rubrics, then a charge and melee takes out the rest.
My Turn 4: We're just having fun at this point. Rhino attempts to shoot; does 1 damage. Charges! Doesn't hit.
Opponent Turn 5: Shooting and melee finish off the rhino.
It's been a few days since this game, so some things are a little fuzzy.
All in all, a very fun game, where it seemed to go back and fourth a lot. The rubrics didn't move a whole lot this game (since it was a defensive game), so Tzaangor may have been a better choice than a Rhino. The C-Beam cannon proved very strong, and I'll likely take it in the future, though I do have a Melta option for the dreadnaught as well (magnets). My opponent was definitely scared of it. SOT weren't' as effective this game as usual, due to the strength of Harlequin ranged weapons, and that all my AP weapons don't matter at all against an army that only uses invuln saves. The DP was a beast, and made back his points with utility and (essentially) taking out 2 characters by himself. The Exalted Sorcerer once again proved not to be worth his weight, though I didn't have him positioned well enough to take care of his bubble. I don't think his reroll 1's on invun saves would've come in handy this game to be honest (I think I rolled a single 1 on those). I think expanded spell lists, as well as some TS only spells will help them. If it'll be enough to take them instead/in addition to Ahriman, we'll have to see.
I can see quickly one mistake you seem to have made. When a transport explodes and the occupants roll the bad result they are dead. Not 1 mortal wound, straight dead. So if the Visarch was embarked and he rolled badly, goodbye Visarch.
Nym wrote: I'm still building my TS army and I've been thinking a lot about Tzaangors lately.
How do you think a full unit (30) would fare with Weaver of fate cast upon them and a sorcerer (or Ahriman) closeby to re-roll 1s ?
They even seem a good target for Prescience actually, since 60 attacks that hit on 2s with AP-1 could break almost anything.
Thoughts ?
.58 save rate on a unit that costs 210 points. If you want to use it as an offensive weapon it's decent. If your looking for a tar pit Rubrics are better you can get almost a squad of 10 for the same points which will have either a 2+ or 3++ or 4++, depending on AP and Damage. If your looking for CC punch SOT are better for 17 points more. Tzzangors are good for dealing with hordes they have the number of attacks and AP -1 makes them very good for removong swaths of cheap models. Problem is the moment you stick them on the table your opponent has something to shoot at that dosen't get a 2+ save against damage 1 attacks. Having them on the table can be a huge boon but can also be a huge liabilty.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: If your looking for a tar pit Rubrics are better you can get almost a squad of 10 for the same points which will have either a 2+ or 3++ or 4++, depending on AP and Damage
Actually it seems to me that Tzaangors are much more resistant. Even without Weaver of fate in the equation, only an Exhalted Sorcerer's aura, they're somewhat equal, point-for-point.
Let's consider 10 Rubrics (225pts with just Inferno Bolters) against 30 Tzaangors (220pts with Instrument). Exhalted Sorcerer is around for both units.
Against AP0 and Damage 1, no Weaver of fates : 10 Rubrics die to 57 wounds.
30 Tzaaangors die to 49 wounds.
Against AP0 and Damage 1, with Weaver of fates : 10 Rubrics die to 57 wounds
30 Tzaangors die to 72 wounds.
Against anything with a higher AP (or Damage), the difference gets bigger and bigger in favor of Tzaangors.
Tzaangors without any buff output almost 4 times more damage than SOT for the same point cost.
You get 5,7 Tzaangors for 1 Scarab Occult Terminator. They do 1,9 wounds to MEQ while SOT deal 0,55.
What SOT do get however is utility, which Tzaangors lack.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: Problem is the moment you stick them on the table your opponent has something to shoot at that dosen't get a 2+ save against damage 1 attacks.
As shown above, it's actually better to aim these damage 1 attacks at Rubrics than it is to aim them at Tzaangors, especially if they come with an AP value of -1 or better.
I think one of the things you fail to consider is the concentration of force.
Bringing all 30 tazzangors into relevant range is not as simple as bringing 10 rubrics, or 5 SOT, due to the space they take on the field.
Having a bigger footprint allows you to influence a greater portion of the game table with the unit, but not with each individual model. an enemy squad may be able to easily engage just a portion of the gors at a time, engaging only a portion of the rubric or SOT though, is highly unlikely.
BoomWolf wrote: I think one of the things you fail to consider is the concentration of force.
That's a good point indeed. Even with 8th edition allowing us to run tightly packed units, 30 Tzaangors occupy at least a 6x5" square. A clever opponent might be able to exploit that.
Fortunately, pile-in moves allow most of these to reach combat if needed and less force concentration doesn't affect their ability to tarpit units.
Actually it seems to me that Tzaangors are much more resistant. Even without Weaver of fate in the equation, only an Exhalted Sorcerer's aura, they're somewhat equal, point-for-point.
Let's consider 10 Rubrics (225pts with just Inferno Bolters) against 30 Tzaangors (220pts with Instrument). Exhalted Sorcerer is around for both units.
Against AP0 and Damage 1, no Weaver of fates : 10 Rubrics die to 57 wounds.
30 Tzaaangors die to 49 wounds.
Against AP0 and Damage 1, with Weaver of fates : 10 Rubrics die to 57 wounds
30 Tzaangors die to 72 wounds.
Against anything with a higher AP (or Damage), the difference gets bigger and bigger in favor of Tzaangors.
First, 10 Rubrics will die to 60 wounds. And if I apply 2 CP for rerolls on saves that bumps the 10 rubrics up to 72 wounds.
Second, 30 Tzzangors die to about 45 wounds unbuffed, after you cast a spell and keep them inside an aura you can get them up to 72 wounds.
Third, your relying on a spell for a large portion of your surviveablity(.38 to .58 save rate) which if denied or fails means your as good as dead.
Forth, Your missing a very important factor with the Tzzangors. Morale, if you lose any more then 7 Tzzangors in a single turn, which is not hard to do, your losing what ever the dice roll is so even 2 over that and you looking at almost half the squad.
Nym wrote: Tzaangors without any buff output almost 4 times more damage than SOT for the same point cost.
You get 5,7 Tzaangors for 1 Scarab Occult Terminator. They do 1,9 wounds to MEQ while SOT deal 0,55.
What SOT do get however is utility, which Tzaangors lack.
Tzzangors put out 4 times the attacks
Yes Tzzangors are good for killing horde units which is what I said. They have a lot of attacks. They are not good for taking out large tough (T5-7) models with good saves (2+/3+). That is what I meant by punch.
Nym wrote: As shown above, it's actually better to aim these damage 1 attacks at Rubrics than it is to aim them at Tzaangors, especially if they come with an AP value of -1 or better.
Except its just not. Stock 1 rubric marine will die after 6 wounds. Tzzangors in comparison will fail 4 saves of those 6 wounds thats 28 to 20 points. Even after the spell its a 1 to 3 ratio, 20 to 21 points. Your adding 120+ points worth of support to the Tzzangors and saying that the Tzzangors are better. Except with 120 more points I could have a 15 man squad of Rubricae needing 90 wounds to bring down stock compared to the 72 wounds the 30 man Tzzangor squad needs with added support.
Erm, note that in a 10 Rubric squad, one is a sorcerer that has only the basic 5+ save. No All is Dust for that guy and his armor is still a 3+.
As for Rubrics vs Tzaangors, the advantage to taking Tzaangors is that they don't care about AP weapons while the Rubrics do, don't care about multi-damage weapons while the Rubrics do, don't care about being stuck in close combat like the Rubrics do, and they move slightly faster too thanks to speed and instrument.
In this edition of "BubbleWrap is King", having some melee-oriented guys protecting the Rubrics is worthwhile. People are going to bring AP anyway and the Rubric saves will start suffering next to the Tzaangors. Their job is simply to keep the melee Berzerkers and Assault Marines and Tyranids off the Rubrics while you smite spam everything of importance. When forced into combat, which can happen to slow moving Rubrics, the Tzaangors will clearly be superior with extra attacks, more models throwing attacks, and AP on their weapons. Plus Tzaangors are not Psykers which negates a lot of the anti-psyker crap that exists.
And don't forget the number 1 weakness facing Rubrics, which they themselves love to abuse: Smite spam. Kill a 7 pt model or kill a 20 pt model?
Giving your opponent an extra target to shoot at can be worth it to have these guys defending your main lineup. Throw +1 save and Warptime on them and they'll be locking things in combat easily with the fortitude of enhanced Brimstones and the lethality of enhanced CSMs for the price of enhanced Cultists.
Arkaine wrote: Erm, note that in a 10 Rubric squad, one is a sorcerer that has only the basic 5+ save. No All is Dust for that guy and his armor is still a 3+.
As for Rubrics vs Tzaangors, the advantage to taking Tzaangors is that they don't care about AP weapons while the Rubrics do, don't care about multi-damage weapons while the Rubrics do, don't care about being stuck in close combat like the Rubrics do, and they move slightly faster too thanks to speed and instrument.
In this edition of "BubbleWrap is King", having some melee-oriented guys protecting the Rubrics is worthwhile. People are going to bring AP anyway and the Rubric saves will start suffering next to the Tzaangors. Their job is simply to keep the melee Berzerkers and Assault Marines and Tyranids off the Rubrics while you smite spam everything of importance. When forced into combat, which can happen to slow moving Rubrics, the Tzaangors will clearly be superior with extra attacks, more models throwing attacks, and AP on their weapons. Plus Tzaangors are not Psykers which negates a lot of the anti-psyker crap that exists.
And don't forget the number 1 weakness facing Rubrics, which they themselves love to abuse: Smite spam. Kill a 7 pt model or kill a 20 pt model?
Giving your opponent an extra target to shoot at can be worth it to have these guys defending your main lineup. Throw +1 save and Warptime on them and they'll be locking things in combat easily with the fortitude of enhanced Brimstones and the lethality of enhanced CSMs for the price of enhanced Cultists.
In some cases yes but he is talking about using a 30 man squad as an offensive tool. I always run at least 2 squads in my armies but the serve as speed bumps for melee focused armies trying to get that Turn 1 charge off.
Dont get me wrong they can be quite useful but 30 man squads are just not viabke right now. Too much loss from morale not to mention it gives your opponet something to shoot his Lasguns/Bolters at which would otherwise be fired at units that would giggle and keep walking.
Its not that bubble wrap is king its that people haven't realized that there are multiple ways of dealing with the charges.
I've been struggling mightily against vehicle heavy lists and not sure what our best AV is. Anyone have good suggestions for what they've been using to deal with big tanks and superheavies, and how many of them I should be fielding?
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: First, 10 Rubrics will die to 60 wounds. And if I apply 2 CP for rerolls on saves that bumps the 10 rubrics up to 72 wounds.
A Arkaine pointed out, the Sorcerer doesn't have All Is Dust, hence the 57 figure. And I highly doubt spending CP to reroll Rubrics' saves is wise, considering how vital they are to our psychic phase.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: Third, your relying on a spell for a large portion of your surviveablity(.38 to .58 save rate) which if denied or fails means your as good as dead.
Good point. I always forget about denying. That's one thing I must keep in mind...
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: Forth, Your missing a very important factor with the Tzzangors. Morale, if you lose any more then 7 Tzzangors in a single turn, which is not hard to do, your losing what ever the dice roll is so even 2 over that and you looking at almost half the squad.
Hmm that's right. It's probably the biggest weakness here. Don't we have any mean to counter that ?
Nym wrote: They are not good for taking out large tough (T5-7) models with good saves (2+/3+). That is what I meant by punch.
Actually, Tzaangors are still 3 to 4 times more point efficient at killing T5-7 models with good saves. I'm affraid Scarab Occult Terminators are just bad, offensive-wise.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: Your adding 120+ points worth of support to the Tzzangors and saying that the Tzzangors are better.
I'm not really adding anything actually. The Sorcerer (Ahriman in my case) will be there wether I play Tzaangors or not. They're mandatory for us. It was just a question of "what's the best unit to buff".
Anyway thanks for your input, you convinced me. Denies affect all units the same so I don't thing it's that much of a problem, but as you said, Morale really kills these guys. :(
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Arachnofiend wrote: I've been struggling mightily against vehicle heavy lists and not sure what our best AV is. Anyone have good suggestions for what they've been using to deal with big tanks and superheavies, and how many of them I should be fielding?
If you stay "in faction", 2 Predators are probably the most efficient (and reliable) anti-tank unit we have access to.
If you don't care about staying "in faction", 2 units of Obliterators are incredible for roughly the same point-cost as a 2 Predators.
If I remember right, a Helbrute with Fist and Scourge is also *really* good at killing AV, but only in Close combat of course...
Arachnofiend wrote: I've been struggling mightily against vehicle heavy lists and not sure what our best AV is. Anyone have good suggestions for what they've been using to deal with big tanks and superheavies, and how many of them I should be fielding?
I prefer smite personally. The DP is also a good option hes quite good at punching things to death. Exalted sorcerers can also work well. This assuming you can get these guys in position to do thier job.
I have heard the Laspred is also pretty good espically if you can afford a buff bot lord to just stand near him.
Well holy crap our army just got way better... those new psyker spells are amazing. 3++ for Magnus now rerolling ones! He is going to be waaaaaaaaaay more resilient. Death Hex! Diabolical Strength for our Demon Princes... exciting times
Anyone give these a try yet? I'm excited to hear how they are doing.
In regards to the 'All is Dust' ability on Rubrics, at least according to the enhanced ibook Index: Chaos (as I don't have the new Chaos codex, and don't have the hard copy book on me at the moment), it reads
"Add 1 to the saving throws for the unit if the attack has a damage characteristic of 1. In addition, the -1 modifier to hit rolls for moving and shooting with a Heavy weapon does not apply to this unit."
I never specifically mentions 'Rubric Marines' in it at all, so I would argue that it applies to the Aspiring Sorcerer as well. In addition, the entire unit has the keyword 'Rubric Marines', and it can be argued that on older revisions that 'All is Dust' specifically mentioned Rubric Marines or Scarab Occult Terminators, that the ability specifically applied to the associated Keyword, and thus affected the entire unit, including the Aspiring Sorcerer.
Thoughts? Or has the wording changed again in Codex: Chaos Space Marines?
Tuluth wrote: In regards to the 'All is Dust' ability on Rubrics, at least according to the enhanced ibook Index: Chaos (as I don't have the new Chaos codex, and don't have the hard copy book on me at the moment), it reads
"Add 1 to the saving throws for the unit if the attack has a damage characteristic of 1. In addition, the -1 modifier to hit rolls for moving and shooting with a Heavy weapon does not apply to this unit."
I never specifically mentions 'Rubric Marines' in it at all, so I would argue that it applies to the Aspiring Sorcerer as well. In addition, the entire unit has the keyword 'Rubric Marines', and it can be argued that on older revisions that 'All is Dust' specifically mentioned Rubric Marines or Scarab Occult Terminators, that the ability specifically applied to the associated Keyword, and thus affected the entire unit, including the Aspiring Sorcerer.
Thoughts? Or has the wording changed again in Codex: Chaos Space Marines?
Your ibook isn't accurate to the hard covers (not surprising, countless errors exist between them).
The Index and Codex both clearly indicate it's for Rubric Marines only. "Add 1 to the saving throws for Rubric Marines if the attack has a Damage characteristic of 1. In addition, the -1 modifier to hit rolls for moving and shooting with a Heavy weapon does not apply to Rubric Marines."
So sorry but it's only Rubric Marines, not the Aspiring Sorcerer. This is sorted both by the lore where the Aspiring Sorcerer is NOT DUST, the other sorcerers in the same books all being NOT DUST, and the rule that follows this one on the Rubric Marines page which clearly shows that when they specify Rubric Marines, they mean Rubric Marines.
"Favoured of Tzeentch: All models in this unit have a 5+ invulnerable save."
Any time you see in the Wargear Options something refer to the unit name, they mean the unit mooks alone and not the Champion or Aspiring Sorcerer. The Chosen entry reflects this, stating what options are available to Chosen, which the Chosen Champion is not permitted to select, yet also having options that can be used by the Chosen Champion or by "any model" in the unit.
A Arkaine pointed out, the Sorcerer doesn't have All Is Dust, hence the 57 figure. And I highly doubt spending CP to reroll Rubrics' saves is wise, considering how vital they are to our psychic phase.
Yeah I always forget about that.
Nym wrote: Hmm that's right. It's probably the biggest weakness here. Don't we have any mean to counter that ?
Unfortunatly no. The only thing we have is the 2CP auto pass morale test.
Nym wrote: I'm not really adding anything actually. The Sorcerer (Ahriman in my case) will be there wether I play Tzaangors or not. They're mandatory for us. It was just a question of "what's the best unit to buff".
What I mean is if your going to look at units and how to make them more durable always consider whether the best thing to do is just bring more bodies.
Nym wrote: Anyway thanks for your input, you convinced me. Denies affect all units the same so I don't thing it's that much of a problem, but as you said, Morale really kills these guys. :(
If you want to run some, which you should have at least a couple units, you should run them in groups of 10, not 30. Have them share a Rhino with another unit to get them up close when neccissary.
Tzzangors are really good at bubble wrapping, eating other chaff units, and eating Charcters that get caught out in the open. Use them accordingly. They can also sit on a rear objective if needed. Not the best unit for that but not bad at it either.
Found this in the CSM tactia thread. Not much has changed. Except we can now take SOULREAPER CANNONS IN SQUADS OF 5!!!!!!
This drops the cost of bringing Soulreaper Cannons by 100 points plus they are now 15 points which means a 105 point drop in fielding a single Soulreaper cannon
Personally I will be exploring bringing 6 5 man squads with SRCs because I can.
Actually, it's not the only change to rubrics.
The sorcerer got cheaper too, though his smite is slightly worse (overpower when over 10 rather that 10 or more)
But it is not applied to us yet, at least not formally, as it's the elite CSM rubrics, not out troops.
Casually though, most people will probably agree to let you play your rubrics the new way.
I personally like a scourge/Hbolter setup.
Scourge makes it good enough in CC, the Hbolter gives some ranged ability and the fact crazed gunning isn't wasted, and the loadout in general is cheap enough.
Arachnofiend wrote: I've been struggling mightily against vehicle heavy lists and not sure what our best AV is. Anyone have good suggestions for what they've been using to deal with big tanks and superheavies, and how many of them I should be fielding?
Had two games this weekend for the Konor event. We were the attacker this time vs Imperials being defenders.
Mission was to get units off the table edge on their deployment side. Extra VP was awarded if it was a vehicle. They get an extra VP if they wipe out a unit of yours, if the last model killed was done by their vehicle.
I took:
- Ahriman on disc with Diabolic Str, Warp Time, Weaver of Fate, Smite
- Rubric squad of 5 with 1 warpflamer
- Helbrute with Fist + heavy flamer, Scourge
- Heldrake with Balefire flamer
- 30 man squad of Tzaangors
First game was against IG. He had a full platoon or more, plus a LR Vanquisher, LR Punisher, Chimera, and a full 3 Lascannon heavy weapons squad.
We only got 2 rounds in but it was a slaughter. Drake moved up the full 30" to get in the vanquisher's face. Ahriman moved up alongside the brute. Warp timed the Helbrute another 8". Rubrics and Tzaangors on the other half the map moved up and shot/advanced. Ahriman also Weaved the Tzaangors down to a 4++, and Diabolic Strengthed the Drake.
Shooting wise, didn't do much. Few casualties. Assault side, Helbrute made contact with an infantry squad, Drake made contact with the Vanquisher. Drake didn't do much, but it did force him to withdraw on his movement phase. It took a bunch of wounds from the lascannon squad. He did the 2 CP bonus for this mission which allowed one vehicle to fire everything twice while taking a -1 to hit. This looked like it was going to hurt. 40 Punisher shots, 2 lascannon shots, 12 heavy bolter shots, and 6 stubber shots later, I lost 4 Tzaangors. I already love these guys.
Round 2, Drake charged the vanquisher again. Helbrute wiped out the squad he was fighting. Ahriman warp timed himself and did 9 (!) wounds to the Punisher. Tzaangors got stuck in with another infantry squad. Rubrics finished off the lascannon teams.
Thousand Sons won 4-0. If we had gone another round, I'd have easily gotten 6 more VP.
Game two vs Footdar with a Prism tank, 2 quads of hawks, baharroth, and a few guardian squads. Same strategy.
Drake ran down a guardian squad but didnt' do much damage. Helbrute advanced. Ahriman buffed everything. Tzaangors took the middle of the field and Rubrics moved forward shooting.
He deployed his hawks, wiped out the Rubrics. Didn't do much else.
Second turn. Drake disengages, charges into the Prism tank. Ahriman kills off the guardian squad. Helbrute beats the snot out of some hawks. Tzaangors manage to make the charge into Baharroth. 32 attacks and 31 hits later (love that character re-roll), I do 12 wounds. I forgot they had the -1 Ap and baharroth only takes 4 wounds.
His other hawks and dragons hit the helbrute but he holds on. He shoots some Tzaangors but forgets to disengage his Fire Prism. From here the Beastmen kill Baharroth after I remember the -1 AP, they cause something like 21 wounds. Helbrute wipes out the dragons, leaving only a couple hawks. Ahriman disengages, smites the prism tank down, smites the other hawks out of existence. 2 easy VP. Drake kills his farseer finally. And Thousand Sons walks out with an impressive 11-1 win.
Thoughts on the army.
Ahriman. As good as everyone says he is. He is a force multiplier that can really wreck vehicles or anything with multiple wounds.
Helbrute. I still love this guy. He managed to craze finally while in combat. It was glorious.
Tzaangors. Wow these guys overperformed. They held off the punisher. Lost 10 to morale, and still survived. In game 2 they even managed to kill a phoenix lord.
Heldrake. Didn't really do much damage, however that 30" movement and the ability to tie things down was very valuable and cannot be under-stated.
Cant even believe this even needs clarifing.... But this is 40k......the aspiring sorc..is infact a rubric marine in the same way a sm sgt in a tac squad is still a sm...as he still has the rubric marine keyword...so unless they make aspirings their own datasheet with new keywords your sorcs get the all is dust rule as well...dont let some pedantic gakker try and screw you..theyve also played with rubrics on the stream before and applied the buffs to the sorcs so until they get their own sheet or FAQ them, enjoy your dust sorcs
The Aspiring Sorceror has the RUBRIC MARINES keyword, but the All is Dust rule doesn't reference the keyword so he gets no benefit. Remember if the rule isn't referencing something in bold it's not referencing a keyword, it's referencing a unit/model name.
Chrysis wrote: The Aspiring Sorceror has the RUBRIC MARINES keyword, but the All is Dust rule doesn't reference the keyword so he gets no benefit. Remember if the rule isn't referencing something in bold it's not referencing a keyword, it's referencing a unit/model name.
QFT.
If people let you get away with it Mesokhornee it's great for you, but neither RAW nor RAI support your interpretation.
And please refrain for insulting people who do not agree with you.
The ambiguity is in if it's refererencing the unit name or the model name. Nothing to do with keywords. In the face of it both interpretations are valid.
Looking at the other special rules I think model name is more likely.
I must be missing something about the whole Aspiring Sorcerer debate. He is a part of the unit. The unit has the All Is Dust rule so he has it because he is part of the unit. I dont understand why this is even a question.
Rubric marines are the poor souls turned into what is basically haunted power armour by the Rubric- they have no physical body. Sorcerers still have physical bodies, so why would they gain the benefit of not having a body?
The datasheet lists Rubrics and Sorcerers separately, and states that All is Dust applies to Rubric Marines, and Favoured of Tzeench applies to all models in the unit.. Anyone who tries to claim that All is Dust applies to the sorcerer doesn't know the fluff of their own army.
Plus anyone who tries to act like Rubric Marines = the champion too doesn't apparently know how Havocs and CSM work with their champions. No, you can't give your Champion a Lascannon.
The unit is the what has the special rule. When reading the data sheet it says:“This unit contains 1 Aspiring Sorcerer and 4 Rubric Marines.” further, the All is Dust rule states; "Add 1 to the saving throws for the unit..."
Erm, no, All Is Dust says "Add 1 to the saving throws of Rubric Marines". On the other hand Favoured of Tzeentch says "All models in this unit". The difference in wording is there for a reason.
It's dumb imo but Arkaine and the others have the right of it.
Now I see the issue-you all are talking about the Codex. I was reading the index-not the codex. Now I get the argument. I was wondering what the hell you guys were talking about.
Boski51 wrote: Now I see the issue-you all are talking about the Codex. I was reading the index-not the codex. Now I get the argument. I was wondering what the hell you guys were talking about.
No, even the Index says it this way:
All is Dust - Add 1 to the saving throws for Rubric Marines if the attack has a Damage characteristic of 1. etc etc heavy weapon stuff
As I've told people a thousand times now, don't use the digital copies as RAW. They contain countless errors including considering Axes as Flamers that autohit and many rules and abilities have different wordings in them for no apparent reason (that actually break the rules they're supposed to enforce).
Both the Index and the Codex say the same thing. All is Dust, by design and lore, is strictly for non-Sorcerer tin cans.
Had a 2000pts game against Necrons. Failed very badly, due to self-made mistakes and bad rolling.
However, when thinking about what didnt work, I stopped thinking about my casters and current limits on casting: I had Ahriman, DP, 2xsorc and one exalted. That means even if everyone smites I have 6 casts left. But due to bad positioning, and short range of spells, most of the time I really didnt get off any buffs where it would matter.
My conclusion is that more casters is actually bad, as there is not enough to cast, and if you have several casters, you still end up misplacing them. Unless matched play cast limits ease up in our codex (unlikely) or we get more useful spells than six (also not likely) I think only way to play "spell heavy" is to spam smite, and for that mini-smiting sergeants would seem more useful that real sorcerers.
Had a 2000pts game against Necrons. Failed very badly, due to self-made mistakes and bad rolling.
However, when thinking about what didnt work, I stopped thinking about my casters and current limits on casting: I had Ahriman, DP, 2xsorc and one exalted. That means even if everyone smites I have 6 casts left. But due to bad positioning, and short range of spells, most of the time I really didnt get off any buffs where it would matter.
My conclusion is that more casters is actually bad, as there is not enough to cast, and if you have several casters, you still end up misplacing them. Unless matched play cast limits ease up in our codex (unlikely) or we get more useful spells than six (also not likely) I think only way to play "spell heavy" is to spam smite, and for that mini-smiting sergeants would seem more useful that real sorcerers.
Br,
Timo
Quite the opposite. Unless you have a lot of command points, you dont want to use a lot of light smites for a couple reasons. If you perils, you likely kill your own guys since you only have 1 wound to start with. And it's also light smite, so you only do one wound and not d3 to start with.
With that said, Necrons might not be the best tournament tier army out there, but man are they tough. I had a 1500 point game chasing an ice cream truck, and I got tabled on the very last turn while most of his infantry made their way back on the field. But the best play of the game was Ahriman down to 2 wounds, flew over some immortals and landed next to his Warlord, heavy smite 3 times, and peril'd with double six's on the last one. He dealt himself 3 wounds, killed himself, killed the necron warlord, killed 2 immortals from one squad, another from another squad, 3 warriors, and a cryptek.
Nintura, can we spam Smite? I thought all the spells are once per caster only, with the provisio that everyone can smite once, even when other spells are once per turn -limited.
About exploding casters: that was actually my fail, one exploding Scarab Occult sorc killed himself, 1,5 dudes of his team, also, 1,5 dudes from next scarabs, 3 dudes from rubric team close by, and for 2 sorcs 3 and 1 would each. Rolled high on 5 x d3, basically ruining that flank of my army totally. No enemy in range. Lesson learned: when smiting, keep some distance if at all possible. And yes, re-roll was used for an earlier casting.
Chrysis wrote: You can't. Last sentence of the "2. Make Psychic Test" section of the core rules.
Im at work. What does it say?
As far as I know, you can spam Smite.
"A psyker cannot attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once in a turn."
In other words, at a per psyker level, each psyker can only attempt to cast any power once. The exception you're thinking about for Smite applies to the Matched play limitation on powers in a turn. In other words, multiple psykers can attempt to manifest Smite in the same turn. However, each psyker can still only attempt to manifest it once.
Chrysis wrote: You can't. Last sentence of the "2. Make Psychic Test" section of the core rules.
Im at work. What does it say?
As far as I know, you can spam Smite.
"A psyker cannot attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once in a turn."
In other words, at a per psyker level, each psyker can only attempt to cast any power once. The exception you're thinking about for Smite applies to the Matched play limitation on powers in a turn. In other words, multiple psykers can attempt to manifest Smite in the same turn. However, each psyker can still only attempt to manifest it once.
Ah ok. Ive never actually broken down the different games to play. So as an army, you can only manifest each power once, but each psyker can manifest Smite once.
nintura wrote: Ah ok. Ive never actually broken down the different games to play. So as an army, you can only manifest each power once, but each psyker can manifest Smite once.
In Matched play, yes.
If you do Narrative battles, there's no limit on powers per turn and all your psykers can freely cast all their spells. I recommend this for Armageddon sized games, anything over 2k.
Fate of Konor mission today. Specialty: Psykers. Except there's really no bonus with having a psyker... Anyway, 55 PL lists.
Ahriman on Disk
Daemon Prince with wings and 2x Talons
Squad of 5 Rubrics with icon, soulreaper and 2 warpflamers
30x squad of Tzaangors with Icon and instrument
Hellbrute with heavyflamer, fist, and scourge
Heldrake with Baleflamer
Plan is to escort and advance the Tzaangors with Ahriman and the DP, supporting the triangle with psyker skills. Get the helbrute up as fast as possible with Warp Time. Get the Heldrake into combat on first turn if possible, tying down something important and powerful. So far I've liked this strategy and the speed is something people don't expect from a Thousand Sons army.
Got 2 games in last night. Thousand Sons army is now 11-1 in 8th edition.
Last nights games were the Psyker missions from the Fate of Konor series. Chaos was the defender so I had 24" setup with plenty of defenses, however the attacker got the sustained attack rule from the book. 3 Objectives setup by the defender worth 3 VP each. Slay the Warlord in effect.
First opponent was the Astral Militum army that I scooped to back in week 2 I think, and the only person to give me a loss so far. Between Ahriman using Weaver of Fates on my Tzaangors, and giving them re-rolls of 1's for their saves, they covered 2 of the 3 objectives the entire game. The Daemon Prince, Heldrake, and Helbrute, just did disgusting things. Ended up winning the first game 10-0 with Slay the Warlord
Round two found me fighting Harlequins. This was a close one. He got first turn, annihilated the entire squad of Tzaangors in the first turn (the goats killed one squad of troops) along with all but 2 of my Rubrics. My return fire was equally brutal. Between Ahriman and the DP, I stripped two important units of their invuln save and killed both his psykers and his warlord. By the end of the 2nd turn, Ahriman was in his deployment zone and I thought I had all but tabled him. However, I forgot he gets his stuff back... Ended up seeing Ahriman die, but he bought at turn. I kept killing units and models but I was being pushed back and it became a race to who could get back to the objective markers first. I BARELY won with my DP flying back within 3" of the first objective and my Helbrute killing a 5 man squad of troops that were getting close. 4-1 but that was the closest game I've had yet this edition. I think all in all, over 100 models died that game.
The latest edition, the DP was absolutely beast with his claws. The AM brought a squad of marines to deep strike and the DP just turned them all to goo. Twice over the course of the game. 7 attacks hitting on 2s, re-rolling 1s, adding another attack on a 6 vs Imperial units, and I think over the course of the night, I only missed once.
I'm glad you're having more success than I am, haha. I actually got out-smite-spammed by a Renegades and Heretics list with 9 malefic lords the other day. I just couldn't deny enough smites to prevent them from ripping through my poor Rubrics. One of them peril'd and punched Ahriman to death.
lol wow. Well yeah, they are able to do that because they can spam the best units. We all know Malific Lords are really, really good. I'm not even sure what they are either. Anyone want to tell me?
On top of being 30 points a pop, when they suffer perils and survive (will always happen because they have 4 wounds) their stats get boosted up to daemon prince levels.
AdMech is arguably the worst army in the game right now, I'm not too concerned. Electro-priests have a serious problem with getting shot off the board before they can do anything (remember, AdMech doesn't have any transports).
Electro priests are brutal-but only if they get to you.
The short range on their weapons (12" variant and melee variant), coupled with the fact they are not fast, nor have a transport means they shouldn't get to you easily unless you go to them.
5++ 5+++ is decent, blocking 55% of incoming wounds without much to get around it-but its T3, so wounds are not hard to put on it. its a troublesome unit for US as we focus on quality fire rather than mass fire, but no more than nurgle daemons are.
The melee priests, as the article didn't mention, need to actually wipe a unit in combat the previous turn to have that 3++.
Also they mulch command points in rapid speed in order to pull off the crazy shenanigans that the previews present. one of said shenanigans requires cawl to be present.
If you manage to get hit by that on any meaningful targer, something went awfully wrong long ago.
Basically, priests are "win more" units. if you are already winning, they secure it. but they don't actually donate to getting you to the winning position to begin with, as they they excel at wiping out a backfooted opponent, not fighting against an opponent that can fight back.
Also, they are weak to anti-horde tactics (having only "decent saves", but you can't really get around them), and currently anti-horde is mandatory anyways as hordes are the biggest threat.
The dogmas seen so far, mars get more power out of canticles, in excage for having control over them, while garia are harder to kill (similar to IH)
Admech seems interesting, and rather good, but not overpowered.
nintura wrote: Anyone else getting concerned over these Mechanicus previews? These things are looking way to overpowered, especially these electro priests.
Would not surprise me. They were overpowered last edition too to push model sales. Necrons and Tau and Tyranids all had their days of being unholy to push model sales, and even Dark Eldar was once synonymous with Terror. Some of this stuff, point and efficiency wise, is far better than anything we possess and they can easily wipe Magnus off the field. They have the shooting needed to ignore our better saves and they stack multiple buff synergies to achieve maximum force multipliers. That's the AdMech way... synergy out the wazoo.
Enough with this stupid "overpowered to push sells" rhetoric
For every overpowered model, there were two who were utterly unplayalbe for the same army released at the same time.
It was never a marketing decision to make overpowered models, it was sheer incompetence.
BoomWolf wrote: Enough with this stupid "overpowered to push sells" rhetoric
For every overpowered model, there were two who were utterly unplayalbe for the same army released at the same time.
It was never a marketing decision to make overpowered models, it was sheer incompetence.
That argument doesn't even make sense... a codex doesn't matter if one unit is pushed and two more are not because everyone will play only the pushed in the first place. That's what we are seeing right now with Mal Lords and Astral Militarum armies.
Either way, I was just going off what the GW articles are saying. 80 hits? S5? Ignoring 1/3 of wounds? Of course I'm not talking about how they actually perform on the table top, I can only go by what I've experienced and that's what I'm reading in these articles.
Lets assume making units overpowered is indeed a marketing decision to sell more models.
Why on earth do you bother releasing 2-3 other kits at the same time who are UNDER powered?
The released the riptide, made one variant of it intentinally overpowered in order to sell more models.
And then released a useless sun/razorshark alongside it that is also big and fancy that wouldn't sell because it sucks? not compared to riptide, but in general it really sucked.
And some pathfinders too, though they were even then not the best marker sources to begin with, and honeslty not impressive and all their "new toys" were useless.
The logic that they make new things overpowered on purpose in order to sell makes no sense when you take into consideration every new model that was pure TRASH gameplay, because that model was therefore made in order not to sell?
Bringing up malefic lords is even more absurd, that thing HAS NO MODEL, you have to kitbash or convert or whatever, therefor having it "overpowered on purpose" promotes no sells at all.
The astra's "new hotness" are mostly old models, nothing that really pushes new sells (because who in his right mind buys platoons of conscripts now when the codex isn't even out and there is no telling if they'll even be viable in two months time)
As for the GW articles-its hype articles, naturally they show the units they hype in their absolute greatest theoretical performance, where all the stars aligned and everything is going just right.
"Ignoring 1/3 wounds" is equal to having a 5++ that every lesser daemon ha (some have better). hardly introducing anything groundbreaking-and its not the dogma alone but the dogma in combination of the existing rules, the dogma itself blocks 1/6, practically an improve version of the IH tactics. the IH tactics are widely regarded as terrible. so the upgrade makes it decent, hardly overpowered.
The 80 S5 hits-by an elite unit of 20 models, (said unit costs you 280 currently), accompanied by a unique HQ (who currently costs 250), and somehow all 20 models are within 12" of the enemy despite being regular walk speed, having no transports no mobility abilities and die fairly quickly even to bolters. (3 bolter hits per kill) the only way that's ever happening is if you actively help your opponent do it.
So, 80 S5 hits by using units totaling 530 points, and under conditions so impossible that if you ever did your opponent should quite wargaming forever.
Lets assume making units overpowered is indeed a marketing decision to sell more models.
Why on earth do you bother releasing 2-3 other kits at the same time who are UNDER powered?
The released the riptide, made one variant of it intentinally overpowered in order to sell more models.
And then released a useless sun/razorshark alongside it that is also big and fancy that wouldn't sell because it sucks? not compared to riptide, but in general it really sucked.
And some pathfinders too, though they were even then not the best marker sources to begin with, and honeslty not impressive and all their "new toys" were useless.
The logic that they make new things overpowered on purpose in order to sell makes no sense when you take into consideration every new model that was pure TRASH gameplay, because that model was therefore made in order not to sell?
Bringing up malefic lords is even more absurd, that thing HAS NO MODEL, you have to kitbash or convert or whatever, therefor having it "overpowered on purpose" promotes no sells at all.
The astra's "new hotness" are mostly old models, nothing that really pushes new sells (because who in his right mind buys platoons of conscripts now when the codex isn't even out and there is no telling if they'll even be viable in two months time)
As for the GW articles-its hype articles, naturally they show the units they hype in their absolute greatest theoretical performance, where all the stars aligned and everything is going just right.
"Ignoring 1/3 wounds" is equal to having a 5++ that every lesser daemon ha (some have better). hardly introducing anything groundbreaking-and its not the dogma alone but the dogma in combination of the existing rules, the dogma itself blocks 1/6, practically an improve version of the IH tactics. the IH tactics are widely regarded as terrible. so the upgrade makes it decent, hardly overpowered.
The 80 S5 hits-by an elite unit of 20 models, (said unit costs you 280 currently), accompanied by a unique HQ (who currently costs 250), and somehow all 20 models are within 12" of the enemy despite being regular walk speed, having no transports no mobility abilities and die fairly quickly even to bolters. (3 bolter hits per kill) the only way that's ever happening is if you actively help your opponent do it.
So, 80 S5 hits by using units totaling 530 points, and under conditions so impossible that if you ever did your opponent should quite wargaming forever.
Because you are forgetting two things.
First: GW is under a new CEO and has been doing much better
Second: GW is a model company. Not a rules/games company. They do what they can with what they have, and what they have is only a handful of writers and game testers. This is why they are reaching out to the community now and allowing other organizations to playtest the rules.
Just for reference, 20 Noise Marines only fire 60 S4 times. Total. These tech priests are getting 80 S5 HITS. The noise marines also cost nearly 400 pts while the tech priests are 280.
Noise Marines are the creme de la creme of Chaos units for shooting yet they will still get outshot by this blob. They have other abilities, longer range, and resilience but still can't match this unit's firepower even on a per model basis, let alone on point cost efficiency.
I wouldn't call it stars aligning for a unit that has extremely potent weapons to be limited to a shorter range to use those weapons. They are cheap enough that you can field hordes of them to make up for the ones that die.
First: GW is under a new CEO and has been doing much better
Second: GW is a model company. Not a rules/games company. They do what they can with what they have, and what they have is only a handful of writers and game testers. This is why they are reaching out to the community now and allowing other organizations to playtest the rules.
Thats...just proving my point that it wasn't intentional but sheer incompetence in rule writing....
Arkaine wrote: Just for reference, 20 Noise Marines only fire 60 S4 times. Total. These tech priests are getting 80 S5 HITS. The noise marines also cost nearly 400 pts while the tech priests are 280.
Noise Marines are the creme de la creme of Chaos units for shooting yet they will still get outshot by this blob. They have other abilities, longer range, and resilience but still can't match this unit's firepower even on a per model basis, let alone on point cost efficiency.
I wouldn't call it stars aligning for a unit that has extremely potent weapons to be limited to a shorter range to use those weapons. They are cheap enough that you can field hordes of them to make up for the ones that die.
Only with the 250 point cawl hanging around, not on their own.
Also, noise boys shoot at 24", the priests at 12".
So, this combo costs more than just slinging noise marines, and the marines are harder to kill, have superior range, superior (limited) melee stats
12" range difference in a unit that can only more 6" and has NO WAY AT ALL to move faster is a pretty darn big issue.
A unit can have 1000 shots per model, it matters not if it can't ever actually get to shoot.
This is not such an extreme case, but having 20 priests within 12" of an enemy unit should be difficult enough even if the opponent has made no effort what-so-ever to either remove them (and it's easy) or avoid them (also easy)
It IS starts aligning to actually manage to pull off the scenario described in the article, because the sheer incompetence required by the opponent to reach it is astounshing. the enemy needs to actively move closer to the squishy unit with powerful short range weapons while also not actually killing it.
The only plausible scenario for that is that you have a melee-only army, and that you don't have anyhting that's fast moving (or big enough not to care the priests throwing tons of shots because its only S5 and no AP.
You don't even need 20 noise boys. 10 noise boys will, in any realistic scenario, beat this setup, because the noise boys will have about 4 rounds of shooting where the priests just advance forwards trying to get in range while the noise shuffle backwards and shoot. a noise lad will land 2 hits, netting 1.33 kills on average. Even if you assume the noise boys only had 2 free rounds of shooting-by the time the priests get within range, they are all dead.
Yes, 10 noise marines will kill off a 20 man priest squad in 2 shooting rounds. the only way you don't get 2 shooting rounds before they shoot is if you move towards them other than getting within 24" for the first time-they don't even have a theoretical way to close the gap in time.
And the 10 noise marines are cheaper than 20 priests. far cheaper.
If we took moral casualties into the picture, I'd wager you'll need about 6-7 noise marines (didn't calculate)
Not a single "shooty" unit in the game will lose in a shootout to the priests unless not armed properly (such as being a melta squad) due to the limited effective range of the priests.
Heck, nearly every army's basic infantry would.
When it comes to choppy units, its a dance of sorts. they are VERY good at breaking a unit that got too close, but if you get within range that you can pull off a charge next turn yet they can't get into range, they have to move back and you get to keep the pressure next turn.
Maybe they'll be good as assault deterrents, maybe they'll be good as part of a greater strategy
But on their own? they are practically worhtless.
If the new admech codex feature transports, things may very well change.
Arkaine wrote: Just for reference, 20 Noise Marines only fire 60 S4 times. Total. These tech priests are getting 80 S5 HITS. The noise marines also cost nearly 400 pts while the tech priests are 280.
Noise Marines are the creme de la creme of Chaos units for shooting yet they will still get outshot by this blob. They have other abilities, longer range, and resilience but still can't match this unit's firepower even on a per model basis, let alone on point cost efficiency.
I wouldn't call it stars aligning for a unit that has extremely potent weapons to be limited to a shorter range to use those weapons. They are cheap enough that you can field hordes of them to make up for the ones that die.
Only with the 250 point cawl hanging around, not on their own.
Also, noise boys shoot at 24", the priests at 12".
So, this combo costs more than just slinging noise marines, and the marines are harder to kill, have superior range, superior (limited) melee stats
12" range difference in a unit that can only more 6" and has NO WAY AT ALL to move faster is a pretty darn big issue.
A unit can have 1000 shots per model, it matters not if it can't ever actually get to shoot.
This is not such an extreme case, but having 20 priests within 12" of an enemy unit should be difficult enough even if the opponent has made no effort what-so-ever to either remove them (and it's easy) or avoid them (also easy)
No one's disagreeing with anything you just said, I said the same things above.
However, a unit having lower cost and shorter range with superior firepower is by no means horrible. Berzerkers have EVEN MORE firepower but can only "shoot" from 1" away with their chainaxes. That unit of Zerkers will still cost 340 points and outkill the priests, yet it requires getting even closer than they do at a higher point cost for their abilities and stats. For Berzerkers to pull off good results, they require Exalted Champion and Dark Apostle with them. For them not to get shot off the board, they require a delivery mechanism that is similarly expensive.
But priests are discount horde warfare, a mere 14 points per model and can fielded in numbers. They are undoubted going to lose a few but they can make up for it with redundancy. Delivery mechanisms aren't in high supply but Ad Mech doesn't necessarily need to bring the fight to the enemy. They can sit back and wait for the enemy to come to them while hiding. Or use these guys as a scare tactic, discouraging any melee armies (of which there are many now) from attempting to close the gap on you and suffering the wrath of your priests.
You're only looking at it from the perspective of playing like World Eaters or Chaos in general, not playing like Ad Mech usually does. If I sent my Berzerker horde into his back line and tried to slaughter his stuff, I'd have to deal with priests waiting to say hi to them. These priests can act as defenders of your more important big robots by slaughtering anything that comes near them.
The problem with priests isn't that they are short range.
Its that they are short range, without any means of transportation or mobility of their own and not durable.
Priests, like zerkers, require a delivery mechanisem to be useful, but they simply have no options.
Zerkers in comparison are somewhat tougher, but more importantly-you have multiple ways to fling them forward at high speed, or have them start closer to the destination.
HAD priests have a way to get around, they might have been useful. but they just don't have any options.
They cant "make up for it in redundancy", because most horde-type units they want to mulch can actually kill them from a safe distance. redundancy hardly helps when your target of choice is even cheaper, and likely to kill you before you get to it.
They can serve as assault deterrents, but that's hardly a game-winning move. and most assault armies feature enough units that can close the gap and launch the charge from a greater threat range than the priests has.
Do you read anything anyone else says? you're just repeating things as your own...
Here's an idea, field more of them. Run them down field and swarm the noise marines. yes, you get shot, but you also get to advance. And you WILL be at a point where you get in range. Your models are cheap enough that you can field far more than they can. And lets not forget the average troop in ad mech are faster than most others. You can easily tied down whatever your target with these while your priests advance and catch up to take the center field.
We should perhaps bring this back to a discussion about Thousand Sons ;p Anywho, I have gathered my forces for my 1k sons army. Now to put it together and play some games! Some interesting talk here about a mix bag of successes and not successes.
I see alot of online batreps where Magnus isn't even in the list. As some of you have pointed out, relying primarily on Ahriman. Is there a shift away from Magnus and his hefty cost (both monetarily and points wise)?? He seems to have gotten alot scarier in my books with the ability to give himself a 3++ with rerollable 1's. He in theory should be a tough nut to crack.
My 2000 point build/plan is to have a small portion of the army with ahriman and rubrics in a rhino moving up the mid field with 20 tzangors and a hellbrute. Then lead a quick targetted alpha strike (hit one flank hard) with Magnus, 2 units of terminators, Helldrake, and demon prince in an attempt to threat overload. I'm hoping to tie things up with the helldrake, anything that could pose a serious threat to Magnus, then let his 3++ do some work. Hopefully the primarch panic will buy time to let the other units do some serious damage. Thoughts? Anyone try anything similar? I've watched a couple batreps where people fling Magnus forward of the rest of the army. He usually takes whatever he hits out, then dies in return of the opponents entire army. This is what I want to avoid. Hoping the strat makes sense and works the way I think it might haha.
So, reading up on the Death Guard codex, I'm a little concerned about what the TS codex will look like, but I have some thoughts about that.
First, the biggest concern is this: The Death Guard do not have access to the Dark Hereticus discipline. This would be devastating if the same held true for the TS; Magnus without Warptime is a sitting duck.
A second, and related, concern, is the amount of effort GW as put into creating new Death Guard models, far outstripping what the TS got at the end of 7th edition. These include the Deathshroud Terminators, models specifically designed to keep Mortarion alive as he advances up the field sans Warptime. If the TS lose access to Dark Hereticus, there's (currently) nothing in the TS army that can perform a similar function for Magnus.
This leads to a third concern; how, exactly, will a TS codex work, when the only dedicated TS models are Rubric Marines, Exalted Sorcerers, Tzaangors, and Magnus? Even including Horrors and Flamers, that's really not much to justify a full codex.
So, as I see it, there are two (not necessarily exclusive) options. First, GW puts the effort into creating new TS models as they put into the Death Guard. I don't know if there's economic interest in this, but there's at least fictional justification. In the wake of the destruction in the Fenris system, Magnus had drawn the Planet of the Sorcerers into reality and it is now orbiting Prospero. Being one of the only Legions with access to their original homeworld could justify the TS getting a lot of new models (i.e., they recover lost power on Prospero). New models expand the options available to the TS, similar to how the new Death Guard models, for example, make grenades interesting and potentially effective for the Death Guard. I'm thinking Osiron Contemptors, the two-sword assault TS termies (their name escapes me), etc. Tzaangors can also be expanded upon, relatively cheaply, by dipping into the AoS Tzaangor options like Shamans.
The second option is greatly expanding the options available to TS via rules. This means (1) making casting easier for the TS than anyone else, perhaps as the Legion Trait (particularly important for Aspiring Sorcerers, given the current Perils danger they present versus the relatively limited psychic output they have), and (2) giving the TS many, many options for psyker powers, so that while the army may be small, they have a TON of flexibility on the table. This could include, for example, a stratagem that lets TS sorcerers cast the same non-Smite power more than once in the same phase in Matched Play modes, so that different sorcerers can Warptime in the same phase, for example. This, of course, contemplates giving the TS access to Dark Hereticus, as well as a Tzeentch-specific psyker table.
It'd be great if we got a few more units; we could really use a more efficient means of taking heavy weapons on infantry, for example. Maybe as a combined release with Craftworld Eldar since Magnus still has to get out of the Webway iirc.
Widied wrote: We should perhaps bring this back to a discussion about Thousand Sons ;p Anywho, I have gathered my forces for my 1k sons army. Now to put it together and play some games! Some interesting talk here about a mix bag of successes and not successes.
I see alot of online batreps where Magnus isn't even in the list. As some of you have pointed out, relying primarily on Ahriman. Is there a shift away from Magnus and his hefty cost (both monetarily and points wise)?? He seems to have gotten alot scarier in my books with the ability to give himself a 3++ with rerollable 1's. He in theory should be a tough nut to crack.
My 2000 point build/plan is to have a small portion of the army with ahriman and rubrics in a rhino moving up the mid field with 20 tzangors and a hellbrute. Then lead a quick targetted alpha strike (hit one flank hard) with Magnus, 2 units of terminators, Helldrake, and demon prince in an attempt to threat overload. I'm hoping to tie things up with the helldrake, anything that could pose a serious threat to Magnus, then let his 3++ do some work. Hopefully the primarch panic will buy time to let the other units do some serious damage. Thoughts? Anyone try anything similar? I've watched a couple batreps where people fling Magnus forward of the rest of the army. He usually takes whatever he hits out, then dies in return of the opponents entire army. This is what I want to avoid. Hoping the strat makes sense and works the way I think it might haha.
Im not playing Magnus solely because we are a casual group doing the Konor campaign games. However, once the super heavy mission comes around (we are behind by a couple weeks, it's over but we are still going through the motions), I'll certainly be putting him in.
First, TS will lose dark hereticus, but will gain at least one complete spell list of their own.
So why exactly it would be devastating to magnus? he'll lose warptime, but will gain a whole new book. maybe it will be even better for him for all we know.
Also, its entirely possible that we have more than one spell list, one of the few things that make TS unique is the different "cults" within it, 5 subsides with each their own outlook on psyker powers. the system exists in 30k and might see something akin to it in 40k.
Second, giving an "easier casting" ability to a TS army has a case, the GK codex already does exactly that. no reason to believe the TS won't at least have something of the sorts.
You also forgot Ahriman in the model list, he's a thing.
And the fact that exalted sorcerers is a good spot to create multiple character types rule-wise. 7 of the DG new units are a single-model character thing, and exalteds are exactly where the "psychic might" aspect can be expanded upon.
HOWEVER, do not expect even for a second we will be nearly as complete as the DG are. the DG are the "wallpaper villain" of this edition, we are not. they got a hell lot of lose to make them a proper "showcase" army-we are not the showcase army.
As it comes to models, the very best we'll get is a single dual-kit. don't expect anything crazy.
The twin-sword dudes, the Khenetai, are not terminators.
And I find it hard seeing them having a purpose in a TS army to begin with-being slow moving rubric is a bad starting point for an assault unit.
The Ammatara would be much preferable, being snipers (that chaos is general currently has none of) and all. however they didn't even get 30k models yet, and they are in recon armor that doesn't really fit rubrication.
Osirion Dreadnaught would be awesome, but highly unlikely.
Ditto Castellax-Achaea.
GW doesn't seem to directly port from 30k to 40k after all. even the deathshroud are not the same. (neither are the SoC, though that's explainable by the rubrication)
I mean, I seriously doubt he'll get something better than warptime simply because warptime is that damn good. He will retain Weaver of Fates though, judging by how the Nurgle spell is on both Dark Hereticus and the Contagion list.
Terminator Sorcerer-is there any value in one?
If so, how would you equip him? a combi of sorts? (melta maybe? we are slightly short on AT)
I happen to have a BaC terminator captain sitting around that I got from a fried, and nothing to do with him besides making a termisorcerer (double-work as a termi preator in 30k games I guess, if I'll ever actually get to play 30k)
It gives a 5+ invuln to a unit that usually doesn't have one and lets you deep strike. The main use is using him to cast prescience on your SOT's, I think. I agree that the combi-melta is the way to go, we need any anti-tank we can get our hands on and the other options aren't terribly useful.
I was JUST LITERALLY looking at this as an option for SOT's. I like the idea of deep striking 9" away, using Warptime to move them up, Prescience on the squad, then shooting and assaulting things into oblivion. A 10 man units of Termies sounds like it should be devastating. Anyone able to do the math on this?
Is it just me or is the best current way to run tsons to do a small detachment from the index with out exalted sorcerer and anything tsons special there in that detachment (I have been trying with supreme command with 2 exalted sorcerers and my old lord of change as a deamon prince) then run alpha legion from the codex as vanguard detachment for the rubric marines at the cheaper entry level for the soul reaper cannons? Plus you can see the alpha legion ability like a powerful spell cast before the game started or something if you need a fluffy reason for it.
Finally you do the same for any heavy or fast detachments you want, just grab another sorcerer or a basic chaos lord and grab those points. Just give everything the mark of tzeench for weaver of fates target ability. This idea has allowed me to keep my sorcerer on a bike legal and still stay tzeentch like. (Been running him with chaos spawn in the fast attack detachment, they do really well because my opponent always ignores them for bigger targets in the field)
Also the power "weaver of fates" allows us to cast it on any tzeentch heretics astrades model. You can give the mark of tzeench to a predator with quad laz, and if you put it in the second detachment with alpha legion as its legion that makes it -1 to hit and get a 5+ save if I am reading this right. That's one crazy tough pred nut to Crack.
Is it though? Weaver increases an invulnerable by one or gives a 5+, so if your getting hit by sometime with high str and high damage like laz cannons or missile launchers weaver can make a bigger difference than agonies. Agonies is better when dealing with low damage, high number of wounds like bolter fire or assault cannons.
Not saying agonies won't get used more, but I think using weaver on high toughness units like predators or hellbrutes could be more useful.
Having said that I am afraid that all the Tsons legion trait will be is something invulnerable related and with the number of mortal wounds out there making those a non issue our tsons won't be as tough as nurgle like they should be.
They're actually all useful. Weavers is better on tanks for the anti-armor weapons, Agonies is better on infantry for the anti-horde weapons, and Miasma is better on Characters because they eventually roll poorly when saving.
Well, have a rather sucsseful 1600 point game today, thought I might as well share.
We played under CSM codex point costs and weapons choices for rubrics, so points are slightly off compared to what battlescribe would say.
My list was:
Foot Ahriman
Foot Exalted (staff)
Rubrics (axe/boltpistol sorcerer, 7 bolters, soulreaper)
Rubrics (axe/boltpistol sorcerer, 7 bolters, soulreaper)
Scarabs (staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with both the soulreaper and the missiles)
Scarabs (staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with both the soulreaper and the missiles)
Helbrute (twin heavy bolter, scourge)
Helbrute (twin heavy bolter, scourge)
Horrors (11 blues, 3 brimes)
Horrors (11 blues, 3 brimes)
My opponent was my usual necron opponent, this time he brought (about)
Szearus
Overlord
18 warriors
10 warriors+ghost arc
10 warriors+ghost arc
sentry pylon (melta cannon)
tomb stalker (with gloom)
Using the "campaign matrix" as our mission selection tool, as we found it to be great fun and has many varied missions mixed in, I went for Hold and he did Advance, so we got ourselves into the Blitz mission, with him on the attack.
Overall the list seems to preform rather well. I made a few errors in power selection (like going for death hex, when he didn't bring his usual wraiths. that's what happens when you choose powers on listbuilding), and ahriman somehow failing every other spell somehow (he successfully casted something other than smite only twice the entire game, one warptime and one prescience. he also failed his smite three times.)
Horrors as a meathsield and counter-DS are amazing. though next time I'd probably no bother with putting the brimes in and keep them in reinforcement points.
The scarabs, oh god the scarabs. butchers of many things.
Helbrites seemed to work well as distractions, and cause quite a bit of damage.
End result, at the end of turn 5 I was left with ahriman, wounded exalted (both in hiding) and several horrors.
However, not a single enemy unit was inside the lines, and every single thing sans the necron characters was killed once (and came back)
Rolled for game end, and it did. reroll didn't save it.
Awesome game, the units preformed well, could use tweaking though.
Sounds it. Call me old school but I still prefer flamers than horrors, but for that game the horrors definitely sound like the better option. I try to leave a few points always open for summoning, enough for a greater of tzeentch if I roll lucky. nothing says tactical than having flamers, horrors, deamon prince, or gdot all sitting there and your opponent knowing one of them is going to show up at some point.
I never considered putting the missiles and the reaper cannons on the same model for the rubrics. That's pretty smart.
Azuza001 wrote: I never considered putting the missiles and the reaper cannons on the same model for the rubrics. That's pretty smart.
This is usually the way to go yes. But keep in mind too that abilities like Gift of Chaos target a model. You can kill specifically the guy with the missiles and reaper cannon.
Azuza001 wrote: Sounds it. Call me old school but I still prefer flamers than horrors, but for that game the horrors definitely sound like the better option. I try to leave a few points always open for summoning, enough for a greater of tzeentch if I roll lucky. nothing says tactical than having flamers, horrors, deamon prince, or gdot all sitting there and your opponent knowing one of them is going to show up at some point.
I never considered putting the missiles and the reaper cannons on the same model for the rubrics. That's pretty smart.
Well, they are mostly intended as bubblewrap and bugger objective sitters. Didn't know we'd have no objectives to hold until after the mission git rolled, so flamers wouldn't fit the role, but I already got models that are some sort of flamer/spawn midpoint, might try flamers next time.
Any advice on how to make good use of flamers?
Azuza001 wrote: You can give the mark of tzeench to a predator with quad laz, and if you put it in the second detachment with alpha legion as its legion that makes it -1 to hit and get a 5+ save if I am reading this right. That's one crazy tough pred nut to Crack.
Or am I doing this wrong?
Only INFANTRY, BIKERS and HELBRUTE benefit from Legion traits. -1 to hit Predators aren't a thing. ^^
A 5++ on a tank isn't as useful as it may seem because lascannons only give -3 to save, so if you can get cover you have a 5+ against the shot anyways. For missile launchers, they don't drop you below a 5+ even without cover.
I have a fairly uncompetitive (read: Does not include Magnus) Thousand Sons list and I've come to the conclusion that what I really need is some light infantry to screen my duders because even in rhinos and with a few warpflamers per squad my rubrics tend to get zerged off the board. In my last game, celestine and a squad of seraphim double-moved to cross the board in a single turn, charged and surrounded my rhino, then proceeded to punch it to death insta-gibbing a full 10-man rubric squad with upgrades :/
seems I have five options for this purpose, given that the Death Guard codex included the basic daemons as troops:
1) Tzaangors.
+decent anti-horde melee with the fantasy weapons.
+32mm bases for blockage
+T4
-No psychic-ness
-Bad LD -Less interaction with cheap buffers than daemon options
2) Cultists
+autoguns and stubbers means might do some wounds with shooting
-Weakest defense per point
-25mm bases
-Bad LD -Less interaction with cheap buffers than Daemon options
3) Pink Horrors
+T3 as opposed to T2 gives a decent durability boost vs common AI firepower as compared to Blues/Brims
+Full power Smite (if you can get it off)
+32mm base
+Access to cheap buffers like Herald/Changeling
-Expensive compared to everything but tzaangors
-Still only roll 1 die for smiting which is super lame
-Split seems to be pointless because unless im reading it wrong, even if you kill 1 model and add 2, you still count as having lost a model for morale, so if your 10 man pink squad is wiped and replaced with 20 blues, those blues then have to take a 10 model morale test right off the bat.
4) Blue Horrors
+cheaper than pinks
+Cheap buffers
-25mm bases
-still just 1 wound
-Split still useless
5) Brimstone Horrors
+2 wounds makes them almost as durable as pinks
+super duper cheap even after nerf
+still can theoretically cause a mortal wound, just to be annoying
+access to cheap buffers
-25mm bases
-almost no ability to fight
My leanings at the moment are towards a large group of pinks supported by The Changeling for some discount defensive shenanigans and the Treason of Tzeentch spell. That gives the highest defenses plus some ability to be annoying with smites along with the highest base size. It's definitely a toss up between brims and pinks. If someone does tell me I'm understanding the rule wrong with Split, and the Split models don't actually take morale, I think it might actually be worth the points to have a single unit of super-screeners splitting into blues and then brims to hold off opponents for the longest possible time with the smallest possible footprint.
Pink into blues into brimstone are super annoying and hard to get rid of. That is how I would do it.
I use flamers as screen units for things I don't want to get charged. It gets my opponent to shoot at them instead (they will die though so keep in mind this) or try and charge from outside flamer range. Even if they are successful it's a cheap bubble wrap unit that isn't bad.
Offensively I use them as objective holders or swarm dealers. Throw warp time on them to get them into position and things melt.
BoomWolf wrote: First, TS will lose dark hereticus, but will gain at least one complete spell list of their own.
So why exactly it would be devastating to magnus? he'll lose warptime, but will gain a whole new book. maybe it will be even better for him for all we know.
If Magnus gains a power similar to Warptime that lets him advance up the board rapidly, I'll be fine with that. The problem is that absent Warptime, Magnus is a bit of a sitting duck. He can't easily hide, and shooty armies will blow him right off the table before he can really do anything. Mortarion doesn't have Warptime, but he at least has the Deathshroud to tank for him, as well as that nice -1 to hit power.
Also, its entirely possible that we have more than one spell list, one of the few things that make TS unique is the different "cults" within it, 5 subsides with each their own outlook on psyker powers. the system exists in 30k and might see something akin to it in 40k.
I'd love to see the Cult Arcana return in some form as well.
Second, giving an "easier casting" ability to a TS army has a case, the GK codex already does exactly that. no reason to believe the TS won't at least have something of the sorts.
Sounds good to me.
You also forgot Ahriman in the model list, he's a thing.
It's a fair cop. But that leaves us with five unique models (a few more if daemons are included in the codex). That's still not an awful lot.
And the fact that exalted sorcerers is a good spot to create multiple character types rule-wise. 7 of the DG new units are a single-model character thing, and exalteds are exactly where the "psychic might" aspect can be expanded upon.
HOWEVER, do not expect even for a second we will be nearly as complete as the DG are. the DG are the "wallpaper villain" of this edition, we are not. they got a hell lot of lose to make them a proper "showcase" army-we are not the showcase army.
As it comes to models, the very best we'll get is a single dual-kit. don't expect anything crazy.
Fair enough, but I still think something else is in order. I just don't see how you can do a full codex with five unique units plus some daemons. Hell, like I wrote before, port over some Tzaangor options from AoS if necessary.
The twin-sword dudes, the Khenetai, are not terminators.
And I find it hard seeing them having a purpose in a TS army to begin with-being slow moving rubric is a bad starting point for an assault unit.
You're right, I had forgotten that they aren't Termies. That being said, I can see making Rubric assault troops work, assuming that the Aspiring Sorcerer can swap out his gimpy Smite for a Warptime-esque power that lets the squad move down the field quickly.
The Ammatara would be much preferable, being snipers (that chaos is general currently has none of) and all. however they didn't even get 30k models yet, and they are in recon armor that doesn't really fit rubrication.
Fair enough.
Osirion Dreadnaught would be awesome, but highly unlikely.
Ditto Castellax-Achaea.
GW doesn't seem to directly port from 30k to 40k after all. even the deathshroud are not the same. (neither are the SoC, though that's explainable by the rubrication)
Probably true, but I'm holding out hope. Besides, I'm not suggesting that the models have to be direct ports. A dreadnought that's clearly a Rubric take on an Osirion would still be awesome.
But my essential concern still stands: I just don't see how the current range of TS models will support a full codex. I honestly think GW will have to add a few more models (not many), and seriously beef up the sorcery options available to the TS.
Errrm, Blues and Brimes are T3 as well mate. not T2.
And brimes are 1 wound, not 2.
Are you confusing 7th edition rules here?
If you want to just swarm the board with bodies to soak bullets/charges, you can't get much better than brimes.
As for why split is useless-not because of moral, but because you need to pay reinforcement points for the newly created mini-horrors.
There is some value in doing it though-mainly the fact you can decide when and where you want more bodies as your dudes start dying, so if for example you got 2 units of 10 blues, and 10 brimes in reinforcement points-you can throw the brimes wherever blues start dying, and as such they are sort of "in limbo" of being at both squads at once until something dies.
Basically, brimes are best chaff, because even at 1 wound-they out-endure anything point-compared (T3 with 4++ at 3 points a piece)
If the only thing you want is a wound soaker-get these guys.
However, if you do use mainly brimes, get one blue to be the smite focus, so trying smites won't cost you bodies.
Blues are my personal go-to, because they can smite without killing themselves (unlike brimes), and mortal wounds stack up quite well, and they can do the "limbo squad size/place" trick with splitting into brimes. (just don't bother splitting when you're getting a bad moral roll, you'll just lose models.), at 5 PPM they are still useful as chaff, but they got a few more tricks up their sleeves than brimes (though amusingly, brimes are better at CC due to more attacks. there is no effective difference between S1 and S2 99% of the time.)
Blues are a good midpoint. cheap enough to be chaffy, but got a few decent tricks up their sleeves that brimes don't.
Pinks are, something. at 8PPM you are not any more durable than the blues, and can't smite any better unless you got yourself 10 or more, BUT they got a shooting attack. S3 assault 2 18" is nothing to write home about, but its something to help thin enemy hordes (who are a bit of an issue for us), and they out CC the blues, and often the brimes as well (because S3 melee now wounds T4 on 5+ rather than 6+ and coupled with better WS they'll get more wounds in per model. but not per point.)
These guys make the best line troopers from the horrors, but the points add up fast, and out TS are already mean line troopers. pinks are great, but I don't think we need them.
Naturally, if you play power levels-pink all the way, as in power levels splitting is "free", and pinks and brimes "cost" the same to begin with.
Nothing to say about cultists and tazzangors, as I never tried them, but neither seems as useful as horrors in my eyes.
Just a heads up... Plaguebearers and other Nurgle daemons being in the Death Guard codex does not make them Death Guard troops. They lack the Death Guard keyword. Taking them will break your detachment and surrender your Legion traits and rules.
Same with Thousand Sons, most likely. Brimstones are not troop choices for us come the codex. You can summon them into existence if you leave reinforcement points open and give up your sorcerer's movement but you can't start with them on the board unless you take a separate detachment with an HQ changeling. Which is still what people will end up doing.
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BoomWolf wrote: My list was:
Foot Ahriman
Foot Exalted (staff)
Rubrics (axe/boltpistol sorcerer, 7 bolters, soulreaper)
Rubrics (axe/boltpistol sorcerer, 7 bolters, soulreaper)
Scarabs (staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with both the soulreaper and the missiles)
Scarabs (staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with both the soulreaper and the missiles)
Helbrute (twin heavy bolter, scourge)
Helbrute (twin heavy bolter, scourge)
Horrors (11 blues, 3 brimes)
Horrors (11 blues, 3 brimes)
That list adds up in so many different ways depending on what points you are using. I even got 1557 using the standard rules without Battlescribe.
Something Battlescribe does wrong for example is the Aspiring Sorcerer point cost. They have them listed as only 18 pts for Rubrics in the Codex, and 30 pts for Rubrics in the Index. Except the missing entry from the Chaos Codex was not an intended point reduction, it was oversight. The French Chaos Codex still has the Aspiring Sorcerer listed in the point costs, albeit at 20 pts for a notable point reduction.
Have people found the Changeling makes a big difference or not? Seems to me that Magnus would out pace him and get out of range fairly quickly. I'm curious as to how people have been mitigating that. Is the -1 worth an extra round of shooting or so?
Widied wrote: Have people found the Changeling makes a big difference or not? Seems to me that Magnus would out pace him and get out of range fairly quickly. I'm curious as to how people have been mitigating that. Is the -1 worth an extra round of shooting or so?
Biggest thing he does is lets Magnus survive turn 1 easier. Magnus hasn't yet received his 3+ invuln by then.
After that, he's mostly to make Brimstones tanky. If you play with Lords of Change or Heralds or Exalted Sorcerers then he can keep your long range smite line well protected.
Whoever it was that recommended I just replace all of my anti-tank with smiting characters, I thank you. I took the following list against a Drukhari vehicle spam list (4 raiders, 2 razorwings and a tantalus) and was able to crack open the ships with ease through sheer volume of smite.
It's crazy how much damage the spell does; I felt like my Exalted Sorcerers earned their place just from their ability to smite, the other spells they could cast were just icing on the cake. I might replace one of them with a Terminator Sorcerer to drop with my Scarabs but I'm not sure yet.
Did you have perils, and if so how it went? Seems like that amount of smiting would cause some unwanted explosions.
Also, how did hou keep all the characters safe? And, however you divided the non-smite spells, didnt you end up wasting a lot of casts, with that many Excalteds?
I was pretty lucky as far as perils go, only did it twice and both times were double sixes. I imagine it could have easily gone differently, lol. I basically kept the characters in a box with the two Rhinos covering for them, which kinda back fired when one of the razorwings was able to fly behind the cluster and get closest to Ahriman (that was just bad positioning on my part). Fortunately the Changeling is really good and the razorwing only ended up doing 2 wounds to him.
I feel like I would have suffered more against a deep strike centered army but I suppose I could have kept the Rubrics out of the rhinos for a bigger screen in that case.
I did get some mileage out of the melee potential of Exalted Sorcerers, so that was nice. I probably would have been better served just taking more tzeentch heralds instead but I like to make my lists future-proof for when the codex comes out.
Arachnofiend wrote: I did get some mileage out of the melee potential of Exalted Sorcerers, so that was nice. I probably would have been better served just taking more tzeentch heralds instead but I like to make my lists future-proof for when the codex comes out.
But as was asked, didn't you waste a lot of the Exalted Sorcerer's potential? They can each cast 2 powers, but you can only cast Smite once. Taking a 163 point model just to cast Smite with it ONCE for 1d3 mortal wounds IF THEY SUCCEED THE CAST is kind of a waste. You would have dealt more wounds using a Predator or a Heldrake or any other unit.
Stacking Sorcerers has that downside. They can't all use their powers every turn.
My problems with taking a laspred or helbrute for my AV is that they're easy targets to get blasted off the table by the other guy's AV; with characters I don't have that problem. Plus I like the consistency from Smite, your chances of doing something with it are pretty high while shooting lascannons has a number of potential failure points.
The mere threat I'll warptime - slingshot one into the opponent lines tends to be invaluable. They are afraid to get too close in case a surprise blender hits them.
I'm asking because I'm interested so let's get other opinions.
How fare your Exalted Sorcerers? To anyone who runs them, do you like the Smite-heavy disc army better than the Terminator swarm?
Seems like people play two versions of Thousand Sons. The daemon-heavy one features lots of heralds, discs, changeling, and horrors while the inferno lists feature Rubric Rhinos, Scarabs, Ahriman, Magnus, and Tzaangors. Sometimes a Heldrake just for flavor.
They're fine, but imo they're way too expensive for a "smite-heavy" army. You get 3 or 4 Malefic lords for the cost of a single Exalted sorcerer.
I've downgraded mines to regular Sorcerers and it works just as well, for a fraction of the cost. You lose mobility, the aura and the 5++, but get enough points back for 5 or 6 Rubrics (or 20-30 cultists to act as chaff / hold objectives).
Our Exalted Sorcerers need to have the same "re-roll ones" aura that Lords get, because right now their aura sucks.
Arkaine wrote: I'm asking because I'm interested so let's get other opinions.
How fare your Exalted Sorcerers? To anyone who runs them, do you like the Smite-heavy disc army better than the Terminator swarm?
Seems like people play two versions of Thousand Sons. The daemon-heavy one features lots of heralds, discs, changeling, and horrors while the inferno lists feature Rubric Rhinos, Scarabs, Ahriman, Magnus, and Tzaangors. Sometimes a Heldrake just for flavor.
I use a slightly fluffy list. Thousand Sons are a low number Legion. They rarely ever bring any high number of actual legion members to bare. So I backfill my army lists with Daemon Engines and Tzaangors. For the most part, here is what I play:
HQ:
- Either Ahriman or if I feel he's too good, an exalted sorc. Both either on or off disc.
- Daemon Prince
- Sorc in Termie armor
Troops:
- 10 man squad of Rubrics, or if the game is big enough, two
- 30 man Tzaangor squad
Elite:
- Helbrute
- Scarab Occult Termies (I have 2 Aspiring Sorcs and 12 Terminators)
Flyer:
- Heldrake
LoW:
- Big Red
So in my games, I rarely field more than a squad or two of Thousand Sons and so far the army is doing great. Now we are semi-competitive around here. Not quite casual (there will always be 'that guy' so we have to keep our lists somewhat good) but not tournament worthy either. My current score is 12-2. I've never fielded the SOTs yet, but I've played everything else. The general strategy is to rush the field with flying units and warptimed helbrutes/tzaangors backed up with a DP and Ahriman/Exalted Sorc for the re-rolls. The Heldrake never, and I mean never gets to do much damage, even with the Baleflamer, however he has to be the most annoying model to my enemies as he's always in contact first turn against something that presents a threat to my army in the shooting phase. They are forced to withdraw that unit, which is still basically tying it up.
Arkaine wrote: I'm asking because I'm interested so let's get other opinions.
How fare your Exalted Sorcerers? To anyone who runs them, do you like the Smite-heavy disc army better than the Terminator swarm?
Seems like people play two versions of Thousand Sons. The daemon-heavy one features lots of heralds, discs, changeling, and horrors while the inferno lists feature Rubric Rhinos, Scarabs, Ahriman, Magnus, and Tzaangors. Sometimes a Heldrake just for flavor.
I use a slightly fluffy list. Thousand Sons are a low number Legion. They rarely ever bring any high number of actual legion members to bare. So I backfill my army lists with Daemon Engines and Tzaangors. For the most part, here is what I play:
HQ:
- Either Ahriman or if I feel he's too good, an exalted sorc. Both either on or off disc.
- Daemon Prince
- Sorc in Termie armor
Troops:
- 10 man squad of Rubrics, or if the game is big enough, two
- 30 man Tzaangor squad
Elite:
- Helbrute
- Scarab Occult Termies (I have 2 Aspiring Sorcs and 12 Terminators)
Flyer:
- Heldrake
LoW:
- Big Red
So in my games, I rarely field more than a squad or two of Thousand Sons and so far the army is doing great. Now we are semi-competitive around here. Not quite casual (there will always be 'that guy' so we have to keep our lists somewhat good) but not tournament worthy either. My current score is 12-2. I've never fielded the SOTs yet, but I've played everything else. The general strategy is to rush the field with flying units and warptimed helbrutes/tzaangors backed up with a DP and Ahriman/Exalted Sorc for the re-rolls. The Heldrake never, and I mean never gets to do much damage, even with the Baleflamer, however he has to be the most annoying model to my enemies as he's always in contact first turn against something that presents a threat to my army in the shooting phase. They are forced to withdraw that unit, which is still basically tying it up.
Your list is very similar to the one I've been working on and it sounds for much the same reasons. So I'm glad to hear yours is doing well!!!! My environment is generally the same, in that it's semi-competitive so I like to build strong armies but not necessarily broken ones. So I'm fine without playing the full on tzeentch approach. My question to you is how do you field your Tzangor? I have twenty at the moment but Im unsure as to how to load them out? Swords or guns? I'm thinking swords.
Your list is very similar to the one I've been working on and it sounds for much the same reasons. So I'm glad to hear yours is doing well!!!! My environment is generally the same, in that it's semi-competitive so I like to build strong armies but not necessarily broken ones. So I'm fine without playing the full on tzeentch approach. My question to you is how do you field your Tzangor? I have twenty at the moment but Im unsure as to how to load them out? Swords or guns? I'm thinking swords.
I run the full 30 with swords. They have the instrument so they get the +1" to advance and run. Might as well make their purpose specialized. I run a sorc behind them to assist with Invuln saves, and cast Fates as well. Sometimes I'll run a DP behind them for re-rolling misses too If you really want to make enemies and you have first turn, Warp Time them too.
I run the full 30 with swords. They have the instrument so they get the +1" to advance and run. Might as well make their purpose specialized. I run a sorc behind them to assist with Invuln saves, and cast Fates as well. Sometimes I'll run a DP behind them for re-rolling misses too If you really want to make enemies and you have first turn, Warp Time them too.
Cool. Thanks for the quick response! That is the direction I was heading in. They seem like they would be extremely annoying and from the way you make it sound, even more so if you make it impossible to ignore them.
I run the full 30 with swords. They have the instrument so they get the +1" to advance and run. Might as well make their purpose specialized. I run a sorc behind them to assist with Invuln saves, and cast Fates as well. Sometimes I'll run a DP behind them for re-rolling misses too If you really want to make enemies and you have first turn, Warp Time them too.
Cool. Thanks for the quick response! That is the direction I was heading in. They seem like they would be extremely annoying and from the way you make it sound, even more so if you make it impossible to ignore them.
Did Rubrics get any cheaper in the new csm codex?
Lemme check, though I think we have to use the Index version.
They went from 8 to 7. And can take a Soulreaper in the regular squad of 5 now and a second one if you have 20 in the squad.
Thanks Nintura! Do you think it's more beneficial now to go with two units of five instead of a blob of ten? The soulreaper doesn't seem worth it on termies because their storm bolters nearly put out the same volume with one str lower. But on these guys trudging forward, could be more ideal.
Azuza001 wrote: Is it though? Weaver increases an invulnerable by one or gives a 5+, so if your getting hit by sometime with high str and high damage like laz cannons or missile launchers weaver can make a bigger difference than agonies. Agonies is better when dealing with low damage, high number of wounds like bolter fire or assault cannons.
Not saying agonies won't get used more, but I think using weaver on high toughness units like predators or hellbrutes could be more useful.
Having said that I am afraid that all the Tsons legion trait will be is something invulnerable related and with the number of mortal wounds out there making those a non issue our tsons won't be as tough as nurgle like they should be.
Compared to slannesh dishing out a 5+ wound negation that stacks on top of whatever save you've got, for the same difficulty, it's pathetic.
The slannesh bonus is strictly superior in nearly every case.
The only way the tzeentch one is better is if you have a 4+ save rerolling 1s, or better, and if you actually use your armor than it's useless.
Its a poor spell.
Widied wrote: Thanks Nintura! Do you think it's more beneficial now to go with two units of five instead of a blob of ten? The soulreaper doesn't seem worth it on termies because their storm bolters nearly put out the same volume with one str lower. But on these guys trudging forward, could be more ideal.
Personally, I found it worthy to take a reaper on the Scarabs as well.
Yes, it costs an extra bolter, but that S5 is instrumental at giving a minimal shot against T8 stuff where we really struggle with our lack of high S attacks, and is rather big boon against the common T4 as well. The added AP dosent hurt either.
Every reaper matters. The rubric may "pay" less for it, but they don't guard it as well.
Subject 3
We have an upcoming "apocalypse lite" game coming around our local.
Basically a multi player game with a bigger table and some special mission rules.
We are going to play 1500 points, index only (and faq naturally), no codcies allowed, as most armies don't have one yet.
What do you think of this list?
Vanguard detachment
Disk Ahriman
Rubrics, axe/bolt sorcerer, 8 bolters, soulreaper
Rubrics, axe/bolt sorcerer, 8 bolters, soulreaper
Scarabs, staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with missiles and soulreaper
Scarabs, staff/bolter sorcerer, 3 regulars, 1 with missiles and soulreaper
Helbrute, scourge and twin heavy bolter
Helbrute, scourge and twin heavy bolter
Horrors, 6 blues 6 brimes (filler with leftover points really)
What are people's thoughts on flamers in rubric units? Is it better to use the soulreaper and bolters or some combo with flamers? They get super pricey this route. That's why I'm asking. I'm wondering where their sweet spot is price wise.
Widied wrote: What are people's thoughts on flamers in rubric units? Is it better to use the soulreaper and bolters or some combo with flamers? They get super pricey this route. That's why I'm asking. I'm wondering where their sweet spot is price wise.
I usually have 2 in each squad. Even 5 mans. Really helps prevent charges plus the Sorcs flame pistol too. That -2 armor is just glorious.
As far as Weaver vs agonies I think agonies is definitely more general purpose useful, but I like Weaver on Magnus,rubrics,and SO termis. Magnus is obvious I think but bringing the invulnerable save against 1 damage weapons to 3+ on rubrics and SOT can be pretty nasty as well. Granted some armies don't have much for 1 damage attacks with good AP but it really frustrated khorne daemons and necrons
Widied wrote: What are people's thoughts on flamers in rubric units? Is it better to use the soulreaper and bolters or some combo with flamers? They get super pricey this route. That's why I'm asking. I'm wondering where their sweet spot is price wise.
I usually have 2 in each squad. Even 5 mans. Really helps prevent charges plus the Sorcs flame pistol too. That -2 armor is just glorious.
That was the number I was thinking too. I never thought of including a flamer on the Sorc. I wouldn't have thought it would be worth it. Will have to give it a try. Thanks for all your input nintura.
Widied wrote: What are people's thoughts on flamers in rubric units? Is it better to use the soulreaper and bolters or some combo with flamers? They get super pricey this route. That's why I'm asking. I'm wondering where their sweet spot is price wise.
I usually have 2 in each squad. Even 5 mans. Really helps prevent charges plus the Sorcs flame pistol too. That -2 armor is just glorious.
That was the number I was thinking too. I never thought of including a flamer on the Sorc. I wouldn't have thought it would be worth it. Will have to give it a try. Thanks for all your input nintura.
It's just as good as a regular, but only 2" shorter range.
Had two games last night at 50 PL vs Nids and Wraithguard.
Sorc in Terminator armor with Prescience and Weaver of Fates
DP with talons and Warptime vs nids, Daemonic Str vs Eldar
20 man squad of Tzaangors
10 man squad of Scarab Occults. 2x Soul Reapers, 2x Missile
Game one was a slaughter on both sides. He had 2x Broodlord, 20x Genestealers, 40x Devilgaunts, 10x Gargoyles. Whatever my Termies aimed at, and whatever the Genestealers charged, just vaporized on contact. In the end, the Termies won out
Game two was vs Wraithguard with Spiritseer and Farseer. Had a huge squad of Axe/Shield Guard which the Tzaangors tied up the entire game (he would kill 3-4, I'd kill 1 Guard). Had a squad of 5 Flamer Guard and 5 Wraithgun Guard. We were playing the scenario where the board is split into 4 quarters and on round 3, an objective falls to the board in some sector. The terms had his Wraithguard tied up, the Tzaangors were still smacking the Axeguard. But I had my Sorc in Terminator armor still free so he made a bee-line towards the objective. DP killed the Farseer but died the following turn. He surrendered once he realized he couldn't fall back (I had him surrounded on both sides) and my sorc would beat him there.
I wanted to see how the Termie bomb would work as a whole and it did not let down. But make sure you put them where you want them because they are not going anywhere anytime soon without Warptime.
32 shots at S4 -2 AP hitting on 2s.
4 shots at S8 -2 AP hitting on 2s.
8 shots at S5 -3 AP hitting on 2s.
4++ saves keeping them alive alongside All is Dust.
Hey Nintura, Have you found one unit of 10 termies better than 2 units of 5? I'm thinking 2 units of 5 for the diversity of placement etc but curious to what your play experience proves.
Widied wrote: Hey Nintura, Have you found one unit of 10 termies better than 2 units of 5? I'm thinking 2 units of 5 for the diversity of placement etc but curious to what your play experience proves.
I have. It's cheaper PL wise and the Sorc can cast two spells, which will benefit all 10 Terminators and not just 5 of them. But then I've only played 1 game with that list.
Widied wrote: Hey Nintura, Have you found one unit of 10 termies better than 2 units of 5? I'm thinking 2 units of 5 for the diversity of placement etc but curious to what your play experience proves.
I have. It's cheaper PL wise and the Sorc can cast two spells, which will benefit all 10 Terminators and not just 5 of them. But then I've only played 1 game with that list.
What am I missing that lets the sorc cast two spells? I don't see it in the index or in the index errata. Unless you're talking about an HQ sorc casting buffs on the unit? Am I blind?
Hey friends, is anyone else having limited success with the Heldrake? I am running a list with one with a predator for anti tank and anti air, I gotta be honest, the Heldrake doesnt pull its weight. And the predator cant do it alone. I just dont think the 4 attacks is enough, especially at only -1
Ahriman on Disc
Daemon Prince with Wings and talons
20 Rubrics with cannon, 2 flamers in rhinos
5 SoT with flamer and missile
Pred
Drake
Helbrute w/ Las
3x10 Tzangors
Even with 6 las shots and the drake, I cant manage to put out much in the way of anti flyer (mainly the raven)
I just think the points on the drake could maybe be used for another Pred, what do you guys think?
btw, this is my toned down list, the other drops the drake and brute and some gors for Magnus
The only thing Heldrakes are good at is being a big, annoying target; you can tie something up with it on turn one and then hope it blows up when it dies. It can be pretty invaluable in some matchups but I think it's pretty useless in more.
I've recently been losing a lot of interest in my Thousand Sons. We lack choice in units to a really problematic degree, imo. I mean that partly in terms of gameplay, but more in terms of modelling. Add to that the fact that Forgefiends, Hellbrutes, Defilers and Helldrakes just don't look quite right to me as Sons - too raw, messy, furious. All together, it doesn't leave a whole lot of units on the table for me to choose from!
Is anyone here running another CSM detachment alongside their 1kSons? I was thinking of Black Legion (For the hilarious-looking Abaddon horror-show) or Alpha Legion (because they have the best tactics, and their armour miight complement 1kSons aesthetics.)
Beserkers, Possessed (with Changeling support?), Lords, actual Chaos Termis with flexible loadouts, traitor knights, kitbashed obliterators, etc., all seems really well suited to support the Sons. Plus you have all the buffs and auras that CSM provide, which is a lot of the fun of the game for me. What units do you think would most complement my main 1kSons force, both tactically and aesthetically? Thanks in advance to any dusties who respond.
I like my drake. He never does much damage, but man does he annoy. He's a huge distraction carnifex. He gets into combat first turn with whatever they have that poses a threat, like a Leman Russ Punisher or something, and at least forces them to fall back. Of course I find more and more armies are able to fall back and still shoot/assault nowadays, but those tend to be eldar armies, in which his baleflamer actually does a lot of work.
From what I can tell, you can't take a helldrake expecting it to fill a damage role. It's more there to distract and annoy while another heavy hitter ie: Magnus does some work. I don't see alot of people taking a gunline approach with 1k sons -- I assume because other armies just do it so much better. They attempt to counter the strategy, using things like the helldrake, and other fast or deepstriking in your face components to disrupt/distract and ultimately hopefully destroy.
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grouchoben wrote: I've recently been losing a lot of interest in my Thousand Sons. We lack choice in units to a really problematic degree, imo. I mean that partly in terms of gameplay, but more in terms of modelling. Add to that the fact that Forgefiends, Hellbrutes, Defilers and Helldrakes just don't look quite right to me as Sons - too raw, messy, furious. All together, it doesn't leave a whole lot of units on the table for me to choose from!
Is anyone here running another CSM detachment alongside their 1kSons? I was thinking of Black Legion (For the hilarious-looking Abaddon horror-show) or Alpha Legion (because they have the best tactics, and their armour miight complement 1kSons aesthetics.)
Beserkers, Possessed (with Changeling support?), Lords, actual Chaos Termis with flexible loadouts, traitor knights, kitbashed obliterators, etc., all seems really well suited to support the Sons. Plus you have all the buffs and auras that CSM provide, which is a lot of the fun of the game for me. What units do you think would most complement my main 1kSons force, both tactically and aesthetically? Thanks in advance to any dusties who respond.
I see alot of people matching 1k sons to Tzeentch demons to good success. It of course is a very smite heavy list playing mostly demons and super cheap, super tough, horror units to bog up your opponent. But it's super effective in close range and would give a bit of diversity through the demon line.
grouchoben wrote: Add to that the fact that Forgefiends, Hellbrutes, Defilers and Helldrakes just don't look quite right to me as Sons - too raw, messy, furious.
I've always thought that a Necrosphinx would make an amazing stand-in for a Maulerfiend. It wouldn't even take that much conversion, and the whole model just screams "Thousand Sons".
TzeentchMensch wrote: So how has everyone been running Magnus? Are you finding him enough as a solo threat, or do you run any units to support/augment him?
The main strategies I've seen are based around a primarily fast moving tzeentch army (maybe a sprinkling of Renegade Heretics aka Malefic Lords) that basically has Magnus, 1 or 2 helldrakes and Chaos Space Marine Demon Princes with it. Changeling/Brimstones/Blue Horrors/Chariots etc. They tend to be smite centric lists that push forward while Magnus goes off and does his thing. The helldrakes are there to tie stuff up and distract. He's generally supported by how fast the bulk of the army can be and how much ground it can cover. This generally buys you the space you need to be devastating with Magnus. Now with his 3++ re rolling 1's potential, he's quite survivable. Though he won't stay in range of the Changeling very long, he may end up with a -1 to hit him during different points.
I think it's super important to support Magnus. I think the best ways to do that at the moment are Helldrakes to be honest. They have a fantastic speed that will allow them to get in and muck your opponents plans while Magnus does some work. I'm going to be trying Scarab Occult Terminators as well to add even more threat up front.
I second the notion of fast Thousand Sons army builds. Sorcs on discs, Ahriman on Disc, DP with wings, Heldrake, Helbrute with Warp time, even a huge squad of Tzaangors can be fast when advancing. I use Rubrics to hold objectives, but let the rest of the army meet my opponents in turns 1, maybe 2 at the latest.
So the Death Guard FAQ confirms that having a Chaos Space Marines detachment unlocks the CSM stratagems for <Death Guard> and <Thousand Sons> units in other detachments. I know a lot of people were playing it like that already but I wasn't so sure, glad to see I was wrong. Means we can get VotLW Scarab Occults prior to the release of the codex, among other things (no daemonforge, unfortunately...).
Arachnofiend wrote: So the Death Guard FAQ confirms that having a Chaos Space Marines detachment unlocks the CSM stratagems for <Death Guard> and <Thousand Sons> units in other detachments. I know a lot of people were playing it like that already but I wasn't so sure, glad to see I was wrong. Means we can get VotLW Scarab Occults prior to the release of the codex, among other things (no daemonforge, unfortunately...).
Could you explain that a bit more? I'm still trying to get used to the mixing and such.
At the moment , there are no Thousand Sons stratagems.
The FAQ has confirmed, that if you unlock CSM stratagems by having a CSM detachment, those stratagems can be used on Thousand Sons units. Quite a few stratagems will work in this way.
The wierd bit is to remember that Thousand Sons and Death Guard are not 'Chaos Space Marines' for rules purposes.
TzeentchMensch wrote: So how has everyone been running Magnus? Are you finding him enough as a solo threat, or do you run any units to support/augment him?
Starting to see less Magnus in my meta thanks to Death Hex. There's quite a few chaos players here and they all run at least 1 sorcerer just for that power.
Captyn_Bob wrote: At the moment , there are no Thousand Sons stratagems.
The FAQ has confirmed, that if you unlock CSM stratagems by having a CSM detachment, those stratagems can be used on Thousand Sons units. Quite a few stratagems will work in this way.
The wierd bit is to remember that Thousand Sons and Death Guard are not 'Chaos Space Marines' for rules purposes.
See, this is the part I dont fully understand. How stratagems work or how you unlock them. I've only played a pure Thousand Sons army in 8th, I've never mixed another detachment. So treat me like I'm a noob for this
TzeentchMensch wrote: So how has everyone been running Magnus? Are you finding him enough as a solo threat, or do you run any units to support/augment him?
Starting to see less Magnus in my meta thanks to Death Hex. There's quite a few chaos players here and they all run at least 1 sorcerer just for that power.
nintura wrote: See, this is the part I dont fully understand. How stratagems work or how you unlock them. I've only played a pure Thousand Sons army in 8th, I've never mixed another detachment. So treat me like I'm a noob for this
If you had the Chaos Codex, it's explained at the top of the Stratagems page. The short version is that if you take any Chaos Space Marines detachment, you qualify for all of the stratagems. The stratagems have no limit to whom they can target other than what's written on the stratagem itself. So you can still target Death Guard or Thousand Sons with them because they are not making use of the rule, they are simply its target.
Not sure about anyone else, but I've added a small patrol detachment of Alpha legion (30 cultists+an apostle with the black mace because why not) and access to stratagems with the Thousand Sons has made my game a million percent easier.
VOTLW on Scarabs is amazing, Daemon Shell is like a super-reliable double smite on Ahriman, Spell Familiar is great fun with Aspiring sorcs (cant get your Warptimer over to your scarabs? Just swap out the sorc's smite for Warptime!), and Great Sorceror is handy for when you just need an exalted sorc to unload and drop Smite+Infernal+Gift+Daemon Shell in a single combo.
Sure you don't get daemonforge...unless you stick your pred/helbrute that wasn't gaining anything from being "thousand Sons" in your other detachment to grab a legion trait and access to the stratagems...
the_scotsman wrote: Daemon Shell is like a super-reliable double smite on Ahriman
You can't do this. Daemon shell only works with a set list of weapons. "Inferno" bolt weapons are not part of that list.
the_scotsman wrote: Sure you don't get daemonforge...unless you stick your pred/helbrute that wasn't gaining anything from being "thousand Sons" in your other detachment to grab a legion trait and access to the stratagems...
Which is what I do with my Forgefiend, otherwise it's just a pricy paperweight. Hopefully we'll get Daemonforge in our upcoming codex.
this weekend is our shops last Fate of Konor mission which involves Lords of War. Trying to debate if I should play fluffy and include scarab occult termies and possibly Ahriman? Or play for fun and just throw in a bunch of units. One thing that intrigues me is Prescience on a 4x Lascannon Predator (We are playing 75 PL so points dont matter) and possibly another Sorc using Death Hex on the Pred's target.
I've had good luck using a Predator in such a way, particularly if you can field a deamon prince in order to re-roll ones. Against opponents with more armor I'll often bring those three and a Helbrute to try and equalize things from a distance.
Azuza001 wrote: Pink into blues into brimstone are super annoying and hard to get rid of. That is how I would do it.
I use flamers as screen units for things I don't want to get charged. It gets my opponent to shoot at them instead (they will die though so keep in mind this) or try and charge from outside flamer range. Even if they are successful it's a cheap bubble wrap unit that isn't bad.
Offensively I use them as objective holders or swarm dealers. Throw warp time on them to get them into position and things melt.
You cannot target Horrors of any kind with Warptime. They lack the Heretic Astartes Key word.
Deofuta wrote: I've had good luck using a Predator in such a way, particularly if you can field a deamon prince in order to re-roll ones. Against opponents with more armor I'll often bring those three and a Helbrute to try and equalize things from a distance.
Well, I only took the one But it did some work.
First game was vs Tyranids. Had a Scythed Hierodule, Swarmlord, Stonecrusher Carni. 3 Spore spitters, 2 Exocrines, and a Malanthrope. The last group was all huddled up against the back wall. The first 3 charged my 30 man Tzaangor squad and just wiped out all 30 in one go lol. On my turn Magnus removed the Swarmlords Invuln save, the Pred hit with all 4 lascannons and dealt 13 wounds to the Swarmlord. The Daemon Prince killed the Carnifex, Helbrute crushed the Swarmlord, and Magnus dealt 15 wounds to the Hierodule. Terminators deep struck near the gun group but didn't really do anything. On his second turn, the Hierodule disengaged, ran to the back to get to the pred, attempted to charge..... and I got two hits in overwatch, killing the Hierodule. During his shooting though, the Spore mine thingies in the back got two direct hits, rolling two sixes, and a five and six for mortal wounds against my DP. They got a hole in one on that shot. After that, Magnus and the Helbrute made short work of the remaining models.
Game two was over before I got a turn. His Stormlord was decked out for 46 shots. Re-rolling all hits and wounds thanks to it being "cadian" vs a chaos army. With 40 guys inside who all got to shoot. His new Leman Russ killed the Helbrute in one shot doing 8 wounds. The Stormlord killed Magnus, after averaging 48 wounds. I scooped at this point. AM is just too over the top for me.
I'm thinking of a Demon Prince for Warlord with wings 189 points, Warp Bolter and Talons (Warp Time). Exalted Sorceror 125 points with Force Sword (Prescience, Weavers of Fate). Two units of 14 horrors (4 blue, 10 brim) 50 points each. Two burning chariots of tzeentch 98 points each and one predator annihilator 190 points.
My plan is to take a turn and shoot with the predator to soften a hard target up from afar. Protect it with a unit of the horrors and keep the prince and exalted near by for buffing. I will likely try to fly the burning chariots to a flank to get some decent shots off and distract. Maybe Fly the DP with them as well as his entourage after the first round of shooting.
The DP won't stand up to concentrated firepower. I think you need to get him up into combat as soon as possible. He's almost a guaranteed 7 hits, or more if you're fighting imperial.
I wonder if someone could help me with my Thousand Sons. I'm a new player to 8th edition, i only have some five games in this edition, but so far all have been defeats. And clear, massive, overkill, defeats .
I have really bad luck with dice, but of course, maybe i'm doing many things wrong, and besides this, i don't know how to do a little bit more 'tough' lists, and perhaps the lack of codex makes this army weaker.
We are a small gaming group, and have not many time, so we play 1000 pts in a 'hard-casual' or semi-competitive or whatever you call it. Nice looking lists but focused to deal damage and try to win...
I'm an old player from 3-5th editions, so i have a painted army with no many 'new' units or models. I have, and therefore can use, these figures:
- 3 rubrics squads with 9 man each, including aspiring sorcerer.
- 2 chaos predators with auto-cannon and lascannons
- 1 chaos vindicator
- 1 chaos dreadnought
- 9 converted TS terminators, i guess i can use them as 'scarab occult' termis
- 1 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
- 1 Daemon prince
- 2 Rhinos
- 2 Chaos spawns
In these last weeks i have converted 10 minis to count as Tzeentch cultists, but i find them in games a bit underwhelming (or... useless).
I usually have run in my games 2 squads of rubrics, the DP and the 2 predators. I've tried one unit all with warpflamers (count as...), but the 8" range mean that they got butchered by deepstrike units without being able to fire overwatch (deepstriking and charging from 9").
I don't know what can i include in my lists or what i'm doing wrong, so if somebody could help me so i can win some game from time to time, or at least be a bit more 'hard' to beat, i really really would appreciate it.
I agree cultists are practically worthless for us.
Also not a fan of warp flamers. I find that I only get into such range against opponents that want to get to such range (or think they want, not realizing they can't actually kill rubrics in CC in any fashion resembling effective with simple 'throw more dice" tactics)
Plus, they make an expensive unit more expensive
What kind of games you play?
Ethernal? malstorm? narrative? it changes a lot more than most people realize.
Who do you play against?
Do you have soulreaper cannons for your rubrics? how are your predators equipped?
Can you afford some chaff units? (tazzangors are one option, a secondary patrol detachment to bring some horrors is the other. cultists are a waste of points ATM.)
The more info you give, the more we can help.
On another note, I'm taking the following list to a local mini-turny tomorrow, 1500 points
Spoiler:
Vanguard-Alpha Legion
Daemon Prince with Wings
Daemon of Tzeentch
Eye Of Tzeentch (+1 Smite casting)
Malefic Talon x2
Psyker-Diabolic Strength, Smite (C1, D1)
Warlord-Unholy Fortitude
I'll let you know how it went.
Alpha because we yet to have any legion tactics, stratagems, traits and relics, ergo we are FAR behind in power level. so having a large alpha detachment for whoever can be alpha helps close the gap.
Ahriman and the prince are the major threats, with SoT and helbrute to run interference/scares and assist them.
The big rubric squad as "forward operatives" to have early pressure (and counter-deployment)
Horrors as objective holders. unfortunatly don't have enough brimes at the moment, I'd prefer 3 squads of 2 blues and 8 brimes each for a few more points to go around, but alas.
Maybe I should be less loyal to the changer of ways and make the prince a khorne with burning blood instead...losing casting, but gaining powerful assault tool. not like the eye of tzeentch is worth much. or slannesh with elixer?
nintura wrote: The DP won't stand up to concentrated firepower. I think you need to get him up into combat as soon as possible. He's almost a guaranteed 7 hits, or more if you're fighting imperial.
Ive changed it a bit now.
It's a demon prince same load out, herald on a disc (staff of change), Horrors (10 brim, 1 blue) x 2, Horrors (Blue x 10), Burning Chariot, Burning Chariot, Predator Annihilator.
My main idea is to use the predator with my dp to soften up a tough target or two right away. Rerolls of 1, plus weavers to give it a 5++ will hopefully make it resilient enough to get that job done. At 800 points I don't suspect there to be alot of tank potential but I could be wrong. After the first turn if shooting has gone well for me I will move more liberally with the horrors and chariots and dp.
On another note, I'm taking the following list to a local mini-turny tomorrow, 1500 points
Spoiler:
Vanguard-Alpha Legion
Daemon Prince with Wings
Daemon of Tzeentch
Eye Of Tzeentch (+1 Smite casting)
Malefic Talon x2
Psyker-Diabolic Strength, Smite (C1, D1)
Warlord-Unholy Fortitude
I'll let you know how it went.
Alpha because we yet to have any legion tactics, stratagems, traits and relics, ergo we are FAR behind in power level. so having a large alpha detachment for whoever can be alpha helps close the gap.
Ahriman and the prince are the major threats, with SoT and helbrute to run interference/scares and assist them.
The big rubric squad as "forward operatives" to have early pressure (and counter-deployment)
Horrors as objective holders. unfortunatly don't have enough brimes at the moment, I'd prefer 3 squads of 2 blues and 8 brimes each for a few more points to go around, but alas.
Maybe I should be less loyal to the changer of ways and make the prince a khorne with burning blood instead...losing casting, but gaining powerful assault tool. not like the eye of tzeentch is worth much. or slannesh with elixer?
Well, update how it went.
Apperantly playing an army you are not used to the first time in a tourney is a BAD idea.
Couple that with the list being built to ply the "long game", and time constraints being way too pressing and forcing me to play more agressive than I'd like, this just went poorly.
Game one, against an AM list. lots of scions, a plane (forgot name), manticore, some dudes and outflanking helhounds, playing scouring.
Got beaten badly, as as mentioned-game too short. we had to end it by turn 2, and seeing that coming I played far FAR too agressive, leading to taking far too many early losses.
Honestly, I played poorly. completely forgot to sue stratagems (not sued to having these) and by that did far less on turn 1 than I could have done.
Game two, against iron warriors. rather fluffy with his own prince and just pack sorcerer almost copying mine, a big squad of termies, two sets of oblits, a biker team and a few backfield troopers. dawn of war in the plain old 6 objective mission (forgot name).
Went pretty well. he came up ahead by a tiny margin (by the end of turn 5 time was up, we each held 2 objectives, both slayed the warlord and both had linebraker, but he had first blood) I stil didnt play quite well, not using stratagems as I should nor taking advantage of the alpha trait. I started, but too little too late and I could have done better.
Game three, here I finally played the army how it should be played.
The enemy bround BA and BT, mostly primaris (quite a few intercessors, some inceptors and hellblasters), the small plane SM has, and a baal predator with autocannon and flamers, a vindicare and some aura chars spread around (lieutenants, captain, ancient)
The missions was no mercy, and I had none. the game ended at the top of 4 with him having one last surviving intercessor (we agreed he's dead. he was surrounded by the large rubric team, the helbrute, the prince AND ahriman within charge range), while I suffered only minimal casualties (in fact, not a single squad was completely destroyed.)
To be fair, this time my opponent wasn't very good. he gave me easy sniping with my forward operative squad and my terminator on some chars-and a blasy daemon price diving fowrad with ahriman, followed by successful warptime meant a brutal charge that took several units out of the game (one got wiped, another and the vindi consolidated into and disabled), leading to the army as a whole quickly collapsing.
So overall, the list failed mostly because I had a bad day and couldn't use it properly-once I finally learned to take advantage of my abilities-it began to function.
Much refining required though. can't really tell who was the MVP or fail of the list though, as my first game was a total blunder, and the third was a butchering in my favor. based on game 2 alone, I can't tell much as I made some glaring errors with some units.
BoomWolf wrote: I agree cultists are practically worthless for us.
Also not a fan of warp flamers. I find that I only get into such range against opponents that want to get to such range (or think they want, not realizing they can't actually kill rubrics in CC in any fashion resembling effective with simple 'throw more dice" tactics)
Plus, they make an expensive unit more expensive
What kind of games you play?
Ethernal? malstorm? narrative? it changes a lot more than most people realize.
Who do you play against?
Do you have soulreaper cannons for your rubrics? how are your predators equipped?
Can you afford some chaff units? (tazzangors are one option, a secondary patrol detachment to bring some horrors is the other. cultists are a waste of points ATM.)
The more info you give, the more we can help.
Hello, thanks. Yes, i think i said it before but i will answer to your questions:
- We play "matched play" games, currently at 1000 points each army. We usually play "Eternal War" missions. We play in a store with few scenery that is always the same, as it is all what there are in the store. We play on a 180 cm x 120 cm table.
- I play against various players with Space Marines, some Eldar, and then Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Iron Warriors (CSM) and Adeptus Mechanicus.
- As i said in my previous post, i have the models from old editions. However there are no problems to simply say "model X carries this weapon", so i can use whatever weapon i wish. In my lists i have equipped the predators with Autocannon and 2 lascannons. The list of the models is, again:
Spoiler:
- 3 rubrics squads with 9 man each, including aspiring sorcerer.
- 2 chaos predators with auto-cannon and lascannons
- 1 chaos vindicator
- 1 chaos dreadnought
- 9 converted TS terminators, i guess i can use them as 'scarab occult' termis
- 1 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
- 1 Daemon prince
- 2 Rhinos
- 2 Chaos spawns
- 10 cultists
- Afford how? I have bought many of the new models boxes, but i'm very slow in assembling and painting them, so it will take some time before i can play with them. If you mean in the lists, i'm open to try your suggestions.
I think I'll start a 40kTS army next year, using 30k models (that I have yet to buy). I've been reading this and other threads about TS, and the question on 'can we use the Rubric Marines sheet on the CSM codex' may have been answered by GW in its latest Designers' Commentary:
TS=/=CSM, so its a different slate, but when again its the same models
Its still a limbo of uncertainty.
Of course it does.
"Does your model have a datasheet in a codex?"
'a codex' is not the same of 'its faction codex'. Any codex with 'Rubric Marines' datasheet on it would be able to be used by a player fielding Rubric Marines.
TS=/=CSM, so its a different slate, but when again its the same models
Its still a limbo of uncertainty.
Of course it does.
"Does your model have a datasheet in a codex?"
'a codex' is not the same of 'its faction codex'. Any codex with 'Rubric Marines' datasheet on it would be able to be used by a player fielding Rubric Marines.
The problem is, we have rubrics with the Thousand Sons keyword. because, yaknow, thousand sons.
<legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.
So if the two are truly one and the same-can we even TAKE rubrics any more?
The bigger question, given that the TS rubrics and the CSM rubrics had two dataslates in the index-are the two the same unit?
Because while the "common sense" answer is yes, we all know common sense does not apply to game rules and you have to use the written rule, but the written rule says nothing of this weird scenario, and if anything, it says that we cannot take rubrics at all.
BoomWolf wrote: <legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.
You're nitpicking, seriously.
Say you have a Thousand Sons army. You want to play THOUSAND SONS.
Where's the Thousand Sons army list ? Index: Chaos. From now on we follow THESE rules.
What's the name of your model ? Rubric Marine
Does your model have a datasheet in a codex ? Yes. So you use the Rubric Marines datasheet and point costs in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.
Does the datasheet have the <LEGION> keyword ? Yes.
Can you, by the rules of your army (Thousand Sons army rules, p.49, Index:Chaos) replace it with the THOUSAND SONS keyword ? Yes.
Congratulations, your Rubric Marines are now THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines. And Troops, because "the Battlefield Role of THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines is Troops instead of Elites."
Warpspy wrote: Hello there, i hope this thread is correct,
I wonder if someone could help me with my Thousand Sons. I'm a new player to 8th edition, i only have some five games in this edition, but so far all have been defeats. And clear, massive, overkill, defeats .
I have really bad luck with dice, but of course, maybe i'm doing many things wrong, and besides this, i don't know how to do a little bit more 'tough' lists, and perhaps the lack of codex makes this army weaker.
We are a small gaming group, and have not many time, so we play 1000 pts in a 'hard-casual' or semi-competitive or whatever you call it. Nice looking lists but focused to deal damage and try to win...
I'm an old player from 3-5th editions, so i have a painted army with no many 'new' units or models. I have, and therefore can use, these figures:
- 3 rubrics squads with 9 man each, including aspiring sorcerer.
- 2 chaos predators with auto-cannon and lascannons
- 1 chaos vindicator
- 1 chaos dreadnought
- 9 converted TS terminators, i guess i can use them as 'scarab occult' termis
- 1 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
- 1 Daemon prince
- 2 Rhinos
- 2 Chaos spawns
In these last weeks i have converted 10 minis to count as Tzeentch cultists, but i find them in games a bit underwhelming (or... useless).
I usually have run in my games 2 squads of rubrics, the DP and the 2 predators. I've tried one unit all with warpflamers (count as...), but the 8" range mean that they got butchered by deepstrike units without being able to fire overwatch (deepstriking and charging from 9").
I don't know what can i include in my lists or what i'm doing wrong, so if somebody could help me so i can win some game from time to time, or at least be a bit more 'hard' to beat, i really really would appreciate it.
Thanks
So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...
1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.
2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.
3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.
Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)
BoomWolf wrote: <legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.
You're nitpicking, seriously.
Say you have a Thousand Sons army. You want to play THOUSAND SONS.
Where's the Thousand Sons army list ? Index: Chaos. From now on we follow THESE rules.
What's the name of your model ? Rubric Marine
Does your model have a datasheet in a codex ? Yes. So you use the Rubric Marines datasheet and point costs in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.
Does the datasheet have the <LEGION> keyword ? Yes.
Can you, by the rules of your army (Thousand Sons army rules, p.49, Index:Chaos) replace it with the THOUSAND SONS keyword ? Yes.
Congratulations, your Rubric Marines are now THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines. And Troops, because "the Battlefield Role of THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines is Troops instead of Elites."
I'm sorry, if you can't understand why doing something you were explicitly forbidden to do isn't legal, there is no point having a rational discussion here.
BoomWolf wrote: I'm sorry, if you can't understand why doing something you were explicitly forbidden to do isn't legal, there is no point having a rational discussion here.
Obviously, we can't have a rational discussion if your sole argument is "I don't want to talk".
MY argument is that you use the rules of the Index:Chaos to build your army, and here the <LEGION> can explicitly be replaced by the THOUSAND SONS keyword. The only thing you take from the Chaos Space Marines codex is a datasheet, as GW told us to do.
You're *not* building a Chaos Space Marines army, you're building a Thousand Sons army. The restrictions from the CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply to your army, since you're not using the CSM codex rules.
Look.
The CSM codex clearly states, without ANY room for argument, that any and all units in it CANNOT under ANY circumstances replace <legion> with Thousand Sons.
The fact its not a "chaos space marine" army is not relevant. you got a <legion> keyword, and you are trying to replace it with Thousand Sons-and that is simply not a legal choice.
There are no ifs or buts in this. you cant use part index part codex mismash of the same mechanic to blend it together as some sort of hybrid to get the results you want.
Especially when the thing you base it on, the index, HAD two separate datasheets, one for elite <legion> rubrics, and another or troop Thousand Sons rubrics.
The two were not, at any point during 8th, presented as the same unit to begin with.
Because by your logic, the limits in CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply if i'm building another army?
So....I can have Imperial Fists Noise Marines.
The FAQ clearly also noted that the <legion> and the likes are NOT to be cheesed around, they have a clear set of what they can and cannot be-and while you can make up your own, trying to use another armies keyword is not how it works, and like it or not Thousand Sons is a completely separate army from CSM now.
Just like you can't have Gray Knight sternguard, you can't use CSM dataslates for TS.
If your arguement is that you are using index rules-they USE index rules. they tell you to take the unit slates AS PRESENTED IN THE INDEX, not as presented in the codex.
You can claim its stupid, because it is.
You can say its not RAI, because it probably ins't.
But this is RAW, and as long as this is RAW-that's the way TO are most likely to go.
So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...
1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.
2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.
3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.
Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)
Many thanks!
You give me here many good ideas, the rhinos with 2 combibolters and havoc launchers is certainly a respectable amount of shooting at short range. I never thought about that. Terminators have to have warptime, how? The range of that power is 3", so i would need to deep strike a terminator sorcerer with them, or perhaps deploy them just where the daemon prince would be (?).
However, i'm not sure about what you say that we can use the Codex entry for rubrics. I think is not clear, as it is being discussed right here. It would be logical to replace the index entry for the codex one, but GW didn't say anything about that in the Faqs. I don't know if that would be "legal"...
I see that more people have doubts about this matter, so what we can do?
So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...
1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.
2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.
3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.
Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)
Many thanks!
You give me here many good ideas, the rhinos with 2 combibolters and havoc launchers is certainly a respectable amount of shooting at short range. I never thought about that. Terminators have to have warptime, how? The range of that power is 3", so i would need to deep strike a terminator sorcerer with them, or perhaps deploy them just where the daemon prince would be (?).
However, i'm not sure about what you say that we can use the Codex entry for rubrics. I think is not clear, as it is being discussed right here. It would be logical to replace the index entry for the codex one, but GW didn't say anything about that in the Faqs. I don't know if that would be "legal"...
I see that more people have doubts about this matter, so what we can do?
There are tons of options for how to get the Terminators warptime. You could either bring a terminator/jump pack sorceror along with them, you could move out one of our highly mobile psyker options out to them like a Daemon prince or Ahriman on a Disc, or if you're bringing a CSM detachment for the stratagems, you can use the "Spell Familiar" stratagem (I think that's what it's called) to swap the Aspiring Sorceror's "Smite" psychic power with Warptime.
I have been asking my opponent if it's alright if I use the new entry in the CSM codex for a long time, so far nobody has complained about it. If you're going to a big event, you may run into some resistance from a TO or something, but to 99% of reasonable people it just makes sense - it's not like you aren't actively making your army worse by putting more rubrics in it as opposed to other stronger chaos units.
It's a lot like the stratagems. Every single stratagem that Thousand Sons can sneakily get access to by bringing an allied contingent of other CSMs (I just declare one of my sorcs and a unit of cultists to be "alpha legion"), the Death Guard also kept explicitly in their own codex, so it's perfectly reasonable that Thousand Sons also get them. Its not like they're not "veterans of the long war" or "Master Sorcerors" or whatever.
So with pieces of the Faeit leaks confirmed in today's article, it looks like Thousand Sons are getting...
Thousand Sons
Warlord Trait- re-roll deny witch tests
Relic- rolling doubles for psychic tests means the opponent may not resist with deny the witch or negate it by any means.
Psychic Power- warp charge of 7. Select an enemy unit within 18" and roll 9 dice. The unit suffers mortal wounds on each roll of a 6
Stratagems
1CP If within 6" of at least 2 other friendly TS psykers, you can add 2 to your psychic test.
Which is. not good, really. Only the stratagem is decent and even then I'm not sure I would spend our extremely limited CP on it.
I don't know, that stratagem looks pretty easy to do if they count aspiring sorcerers as psychers, which obviously they are. The rest looks fluffy at least, helps show tzeench is psychic based and can help make them look so much tougher in the psychic phase. And at least it's a bone, I will take whatever I can get at this point.
The stratagem could be useful if it is for all the psychic phase, if it is only for one power is really expensive in CP and i don't see why it would be better than simply re-rolling the lowest result via re-roll stratagem.
I disagree about being fluffy... Warlord trait: "re-roll deny the witch" So, for powers against the TS army... in an army (potentially) with psykers in every squad. In the fluff they are capable of firing lighnings, bolts and fireballs with ease, i think a "fluffy" rules would be making easier to actually cast powers, like, for example, "re-roll psychic tests"... Re-roll the deny the witch is useless unless you are facing a heavy psychic army. I don't know, perhaps its me, because in my gaming group i'm the only one who uses psychic powers, so... The relic is utterly random. "Doubles for psychic test", means that only double 3s, 4s and 5s would count. I don't know what are the probabilities, but i find it extremely random, difficult and unlikely. Could be useful if, again, it would be "sucessful psychic test of the bearer of this relic cannot be resisted or negated..." Which considering that you have to roll and pass the psychic test first, is not actually that bad... Psychic power... More random. The fact that you can select your target is negated by the fact that potentially you can do literally nothing. Rolling 9 dice means that you could get one or two 6s results, while Smite guarantee 1 mortal wound at least. With one of my standard rolls it would mean doing nothing (not a single 6), so only useful if you have wild good luck... And I think that according to fluff TS would be more than capable to actually cast some psychic powers able to destroy and kill things, not "maybe if this and that and those happens, then i maaaaybe could kill one poor guy there".
From a background and story point of view, i find these rules extremely dissappointing. As i said, I think Thousand Sons should have a proper representation of their psychic prowess, that is, make easier to cast powers, make those powers actually meaningful and dangerous and make that they cannot kill themselves casting those powers... In the current situation, you can lose the army only trying to do what they supposedly do in the fluff (perils of the warp, dies, explodes, etc.)
BoomWolf wrote: Look.
The CSM codex clearly states, without ANY room for argument, that any and all units in it CANNOT under ANY circumstances replace <legion> with Thousand Sons.
The fact its not a "chaos space marine" army is not relevant. you got a <legion> keyword, and you are trying to replace it with Thousand Sons-and that is simply not a legal choice.
There are no ifs or buts in this. you cant use part index part codex mismash of the same mechanic to blend it together as some sort of hybrid to get the results you want.
Especially when the thing you base it on, the index, HAD two separate datasheets, one for elite <legion> rubrics, and another or troop Thousand Sons rubrics.
The two were not, at any point during 8th, presented as the same unit to begin with.
Because by your logic, the limits in CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply if i'm building another army?
So....I can have Imperial Fists Noise Marines.
The FAQ clearly also noted that the <legion> and the likes are NOT to be cheesed around, they have a clear set of what they can and cannot be-and while you can make up your own, trying to use another armies keyword is not how it works, and like it or not Thousand Sons is a completely separate army from CSM now.
Just like you can't have Gray Knight sternguard, you can't use CSM dataslates for TS.
If your arguement is that you are using index rules-they USE index rules. they tell you to take the unit slates AS PRESENTED IN THE INDEX, not as presented in the codex.
You can claim its stupid, because it is.
You can say its not RAI, because it probably ins't.
But this is RAW, and as long as this is RAW-that's the way TO are most likely to go.
I think you may be right to a certain point. Though I disagree with you about the fact that the Thousand Sons are a completely separate army. I think eventually they will be for sure. However, Like most index specific legions like thousand sons the index states that you include certain units from heretic astartes profiles into your thousand sons army (ie: heldrake). GW has pointed out in the past, for example, that the Dark Angels could use updated profiles from codex astartes because the index referenced they pull information for these slates from the codex astartes portion of the index. I do think it's an easy way for them to relieve the pressure of codex creep so to speak. I do not see why that philosophy wouldn't continue here? This was addressed in a community posting from GW and it just makes sense. The logic being because it states clearly to use those profiles from the heretic astartes portion of the index that it should also apply to heretic astartes units from the codex of the same name (to receive the same updates to points that will eventually find their way to our codex im sure). The psykers spells followed the same philosophy obviously Thousand Sons were given access to the full list of spells because the index calls on them to use the powers of the dark hereticus which is shared between the codex and index. However, where I think it might get murky is with units like the Rubrics where they had their own specific thousand sons entry. Other than that I feel it's kind've obvious how this applies, regardless of the Heretic Astartes book stating that these units cannot have thousand sons keywords. I think that is there in readiness for their eventual codices to come forward.
I'm seriusly hoping the faeit leak to be highly inaccurate, because these rules are HORRIBLE.
Who cares about the trait? its even worse than the rulebook ones.
The relic is also useless as hell, for the simple reason that double 1/2 is a fail cast anyway, double 5/6 highly unlikely to be denied (and double 6 is perils!)
So it leaves it to trigger only on double 3 or 4. 3's not always even cast anyway so I'll count it as half value, so there are 4s.
Congrats, the relic says that once in about 27 casts, it will do anything.
If the opponent even CAN deny to begin with.
YAY.
Unique psyker power-worse than smite, by far. WC7 for an average of lousy 1.5 MW?
It would hardly be noteworthy at WC5, but at 7 its pure trash.
Its a lousy downgraded infernal gaze-and gaze itself is bad already.
Stratagem, great. if your units are in a darn cluster. not like we got a massive unit count to begin with. oh, did I forget to mention we are TS and have a low unit count?
Sure, every rubric and scarab unit counts. but if they didn't it would be outright unusable.
It would be great, if psykers in general weren't bad in 8th (with the exception of smite spammers, or outright monsters)
Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.
BoomWolf wrote: I'm seriusly hoping the faeit leak to be highly inaccurate, because these rules are HORRIBLE.
Who cares about the trait? its even worse than the rulebook ones.
The relic is also useless as hell, for the simple reason that double 1/2 is a fail cast anyway, double 5/6 highly unlikely to be denied (and double 6 is perils!)
So it leaves it to trigger only on double 3 or 4. 3's not always even cast anyway so I'll count it as half value, so there are 4s.
Congrats, the relic says that once in about 27 casts, it will do anything.
If the opponent even CAN deny to begin with.
YAY.
Unique psyker power-worse than smite, by far. WC7 for an average of lousy 1.5 MW?
It would hardly be noteworthy at WC5, but at 7 its pure trash.
Its a lousy downgraded infernal gaze-and gaze itself is bad already.
Stratagem, great. if your units are in a darn cluster. not like we got a massive unit count to begin with. oh, did I forget to mention we are TS and have a low unit count?
Sure, every rubric and scarab unit counts. but if they didn't it would be outright unusable.
It would be great, if psykers in general weren't bad in 8th (with the exception of smite spammers, or outright monsters)
Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.
Me too. Those power and abilities are pretty lame to be honest. There are better ways to capture the magical mastery of the Thousand Sons than that. It's not very competitive.
Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.
You said it all much better than me, +1 to all you said.
And this last sentence from you is actually happening to me right now. "I should not complain as we have our own rules and units and even a future codex". Yes, but i would like that those rules would be at least a little bit like the background says that TS are, and not "those"...
I really, really don't understand the apparent design philosophy behind some of these rumored Thousand Sons rules. Manipulating Deny the Witch rolls is just too situational; these rules are absolutely worthless against armies that can't DtW.
The design philosophy for the Sons should revolve around (1) allowing them to more reliably cast psychic powers, and (2) reducing the danger to them of casting psychic powers. For Sons players, psychic powers should work less like a "risk/reward" system and more like standard, reliable shooting attacks (albeit limited by the Rule of One). With those goals in mind, just give Sons straight-up bonuses to casting rolls (which, incidentally, builds in defenses against DtW where that's applicable) and give them defenses against Perils of the Warp. Maybe a Stratagem or Relic that allows the player, in one round per game, to ignore the Rule of One in Matched Play. The leaked Stratagem sort of works under this philosophy, except that (1) it requires the player to use up precious, precious CPs, and (2) it requires units in what is usually a very small army, model-count wise, to stay bunched up, greatly reducing the player's tactical capabilities.
A preview video (that was taken down because it went through the entire book page by page lol) confirms that the leaks are what we're getting and the leaks are all we're getting. We might as well have gotten a blank page. At least Magnus didn't get nerfed I guess.
Arachnofiend wrote: A preview video (that was taken down because it went through the entire book page by page lol) confirms that the leaks are what we're getting and the leaks are all we're getting. We might as well have gotten a blank page. At least Magnus didn't get nerfed I guess.
Bummer because anyone who refuses to bring a primarch is getting shafted again.
What would you guys like to see if there were properly fleshed out TS rules? I would personally like some way to represent the different TS cults, maybe psychic powers reflective of each
For fleshed out TS rules, simply for an allegiance rule, I'd like to see: Reroll dice rolls of 1 on Psychic and Deny the Witch tests. This would be reliability, insulation from Perils, and not quite as powerful as an army wide +1 to psychic and DTW rolls.
A second Warlord Relic option: Your warlord knows one additional psychic power, and may cast one additional psychic power per turn.
3rd Relic: Your warlord gains an additional 9 inches when casting Smite. Matched Play only: In addition, your warlord is may cast Smite one additional time per turn (max 2 times).
Change of the leaked stratagem: Increase the range that psychic units must be to 9 inches (this is Tzeentch we're talking about after all).
Strategem: Predicted Arrival: (2 cp) A single unit within 9 inches of another friendly psychic unit, may fire on a newly arrived unit within line of sight and range, that arrives after the start of the first battle round. Eldar have a very similar stratagem, but it is restricted to the warlord, for 1 cp. Figure changing it to a friendly psychic unit (which TS have to spare) would be offset enough by the increased cost.
Spell: Tzeentch's Warpflame: test of 7. Pick a friendly TS unit with flamer weapons. During the next shooting phase, if all flamer weapons are targeted at the same unit, that unit must subtract 1 from it's invulnerable save roll.
What is everyone using for long range support? Are you using FW or just allying in some oblits and havocs? And if so what legion are you using for allies?
demontalons wrote: What is everyone using for long range support? Are you using FW or just allying in some oblits and havocs? And if so what legion are you using for allies?
Alpha Legion Obliterators supported by the Changeling are -2 to hit and brutal anti-tank. For an in-house option dakka helbrutes are pretty good firepower but seem to fall over to a stiff breeze.
Oh right, and the Fire Raptor is 60 points cheaper in Chapter Approved so it went from "pretty good" to "crazy good".
Empyric Channeling: 1 CP, used at the start of the psychic phase if a Blood Angels Psyker is within 6″ of at least 2 other Blood Angels Psykers. The Psyker can immediately attempt to manifest one additional power and when he does so, adds +2 to the test.
So apparently Blood Angels get this. It's just... Cabalistic Focus but way better. If we could use Cabalistic Focus to let Magnus cast all four of his powers I'd be much more excited about it, I can tell you that much.
I might be remembering the requirements incorrectly, but I believe you need 2 HQ for the Battalion detachments. So both your Daemon and the TS Battalion would need to be reworked. In addition, that TS detachment would be another Spearhead (unless I'm reading it wrong).
Tuluth wrote: I might be remembering the requirements incorrectly, but I believe you need 2 HQ for the Battalion detachments. So both your Daemon and the TS Battalion would need to be reworked. In addition, that TS detachment would be another Spearhead (unless I'm reading it wrong).
Nah it's come out wierd, it's one battalion detachment of two halves, mixed daemons and Tsons.
Yeah after cutting Ahriman and the exalted it's .. really not very thousand sonsy. Well the DP will have the warlord trait and relic? Lol.
Just checking: does Cabalistic focus bring the result that triggers Magnus’s 2D6 smite up a further 2, in addition to his own bonus to cast? i.e. Magnus would have +4 to cast, triggering super-smite on a 7?
So after getting my ass handed to me again (this time by an Alaitoc Craftworld army) I'm seriously at a loss as to what to do with my Thousand Sons. I'd like to know what's working for other Sons players because nothing seems to work for me. Or do I just accept that this army sucks and wait for the codex to hopefully fix it?
Arachnofiend wrote: So after getting my ass handed to me again (this time by an Alaitoc Craftworld army) I'm seriously at a loss as to what to do with my Thousand Sons. I'd like to know what's working for other Sons players because nothing seems to work for me. Or do I just accept that this army sucks and wait for the codex to hopefully fix it?
I stopped taking mine as tsons personally. They are now a renegade legion of tsons. I have been teaming mine up with deamons as well to use as chaff with good results. The Tsons make good fire Support and the deamons really give the numbers for cheaper that the Tsons need. Out of the last 3 games I have played against nids with this combo I have won one and lost 2, which is one more win than I have gotten with my pure tsons since 8th.
Here is hoping the codex does to us what it did for deathguard and we don't get what Grey knights got.
I hope the Thousand Sons Codex gives the Rubric marine either a boost or a price decrease. After playing against them for maybe about 20 games. I feel they are just a tad overcosted. I'd like to see them either have full psykers for their sargents or a discount on just the footsloggers.
Or maybe their psyker powers will make their troops more hardy (like the one that grants an additional +1 to saves)
Captyn_Bob wrote: I mean, you are investing in two pricey psykers to stand near Magnus not doing much, plus CP which you won't have much of.
Or two aspiring sorcerors.
Lol they are still pricy psykers, and just as unlikely to keep up with Magnus. But yeah that's easier than keeping HQs close.. deepstrike some scarab occult in to form a shieldwall. Could work...
Arachnofiend wrote: I mean considering Plague Marines are 17 points now and Rubrics are strictly worse than Plague Marines they're definitely overcosted.
How are rubrics "strictly worse"?
Plagues are more durable, but rubrics are more killy.
The 17 points for a plague marine and 18 for a rubric is before factoring in whatever weapon they're carrying so I'm just looking at the body there, and the plague marine body is clearly superior to the rubric's.
Arachnofiend wrote: The 17 points for a plague marine and 18 for a rubric is before factoring in whatever weapon they're carrying so I'm just looking at the body there, and the plague marine body is clearly superior to the rubric's.
Arent you just trading All is Dust +an invuln save for Disgustingly Resilient?
How is DR superior? On a single wound model its not amazing.
Also, pricing is not *just* the body. It's the body plus the baseline weapon. GW generally allows basic weapons to be included in the base cost to avoid unnecessary math. For instance, the Manticore body is identical to the chimera body but *for some reason* 50 odd points more, and the manticore weapon is *for some reason* 0 points.
nintura wrote: Also, all is dust is way worse than DR. DR gives you a save no matter what. Even against smite. On top of your regular and/or invuln save.
yup, also stacks with cover. Both models suffer against multiple damage weapons similarly though. The invuln is super useful, but so is T5. I think Deathguard are significantly more resilient against small arms (DR is roughly equivalent to +1 save, T5 is a flat upgrade). Only against -3 rend single damage (which is rare), the rubrics have a better save (4+ vs 6+/5+) otherwise, lower rend is either equivalent or worse I think due to T5.
I guess the issue is both tsons and deathguard are supposed to be tough units, but in different ways. I would totally agree that gw is trying to make them different, I would not want a 5+++ save like deathguard have, our thing has been invulnerable saves since times of old, but it just isn't good enough now. Maybe a 5++ invulnerable save that becomes a 4++ save if they don't move? Idk, I just hope they do something.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a change in how All Is Dust works. I'm just saying it's a weaker rule and therefore should be cheaper; this was the case prior to the CA Plague Marine buff, but for some reason we didn't get any buffs to our stuff. My hope is that our non-existence in Chapter Approved means our book is coming soon, but...
I would settle for a points reduction instead of increasing our toughness further. I want to be able to make my armies fluffy and larger with more options.
We definitely need a points reduction and some additional units. If plague marines go down to 17 I feel we are worth about the same. Maybe even 16 points because our weapons are so expensive.
But I think we are going to get the death guard treatment and get a full codex with a couple demon engines and probably a new character unit.
I’m very curious as to what our legion trait will be. If they make it just Psychic based then our dreadnoughta lose out unless they let us have psychic dreads. Personally I think it should be to reroll 1s on psychic tests. This makes us less prone to perils without being a copy paste of grey knights.
It would also be cool if we got some special rules for our units like what they did with blightlord terminators and their rust rule. I just hope our stratagems are cool and fluffy like the blood angels and they don’t give us the gack they did in the CA.
Our Legion Trait is gonna be weird because it has to be something that applies as well to a tzaangor as it does to a sorcerer. It can't involve the psychic phase because then half the units that are supposed to get the trait won't get anything out of it.
Arachnofiend wrote: Our Legion Trait is gonna be weird because it has to be something that applies as well to a tzaangor as it does to a sorcerer. It can't involve the psychic phase because then half the units that are supposed to get the trait won't get anything out of it.
I honestly have no idea what it could be.
lets be real, it will involve the psychic phase and when asked about all the non-psykers, GW will just shrug.
We're a very short range shooting army. This is the worse kind of armies in the current meta, because you have all the drawbacks of Assault armies, without the benefits.
For us to be competitive, our Legion trait should be : +1 to Invulnerable saves and Psykers re-roll 1 on Psychic tests.
If we don't get a boost in resilience, there's no way we'll be able to compete with the crazy firepower some armies have these days.
Making our Legion Trait basically be Weaver that stacks with Weaver would allow for some pretty crazy shenanigans; you could have a big blob of Rubrics with a 2++ rerollable against 1 damage attacks. Now that is the kind of durability I want out of my army.
Arachnofiend wrote: Making our Legion Trait basically be Weaver that stacks with Weaver would allow for some pretty crazy shenanigans; you could have a big blob of Rubrics with a 2++ rerollable against 1 damage attacks. Now that is the kind of durability I want out of my army.
I remember seeing an FAQ or something, somewhere, that says Weaver of fate doesn't go beyond 3++ though. But what leads me to think we'll get +1 invu is because TS have always had a 3++ or 4++.
So first off you can't use the CSM codex entry for Rubric Marines TS Rubric marines are an Entry unto themselves which means they have no entry in a Codex and as such you must use the index version.
Next the CA rules.
Thousand Sons
Warlord Trait- re-roll deny witch tests
Relic- rolling doubles for psychic tests means the opponent may not resist with deny the witch or negate it by any means.
Psychic Power- warp charge of 7. Select an enemy unit within 18" and roll 9 dice. The unit suffers mortal wounds on each roll of a 6
Stratagem- 1CP If within 6" of at least 2 other friendly TS psykers, you can add 2 to your psychic test.
So a couple things to address.
First the CA rules.
To say they are gak would be a insult to gak everywhere.
Warlord trait- This damn thing, I understand the reasoning behind it, which is something along the lines of its way too easy to blow up TS with other psykers because of the inability to DtW. Problem is this wont help at all the increase is marginal at best and unless you have Magnus. You really can't expect. But good for Magnus.
Relic- Oh Jesus really like 3 in 36 and that's not including the new spell which only work on a double 4 or 5...really thats less then a 10% chance of working. But good for Magnus
Spell- WC 7 that does maybe 1 wound? In fact your more likely to get 0 wounds then you are to get 2 wounds which is atrocious. About the only good thing about it is it can target anyone. But magnus would be able to cast on a 5, 3 with the Strat.
Stratagem- I have like 9 total CP and no way to recover them in an army that is literally able to lose the game in the first turn when I have the first round because I have 5 psykers that will more then likley die if they perils and kill everything around them, and you want me to spend my CP on anything that isn't fething rerolls? But good for Magnus.
Im senceing a theme here.
RM vs. PM
Rubrics are worse in every area except 2 -1 AP and - 4 AP which they preform the same as PM when it comes to durability. Offensive power stock Rubrics are better but once you add the fart guns PM rocket past Rubrics and the only way for rubrics to come close is to have add a feth ton of upgrades which spiral out of control and end up costing you so much money its ridiculous. Keep in mind PM are more mobile and have longer range with thier special weapons. So to sum up PM are more mobile, have better weapons, equal to or longer range, are more durable and cost 3 points less stock even though stock they are super effective against horde armies.
Winning with TS
Right now its hard to do. A couple of bad rolls in the Psychic and you can lose the game before it ever really starts. No access to any kind of actual chaff unit, and anti-armor is still hard to get.
First you should never have more then 1 squad of Tzzangors per 1000 points, and unless they are needed they should be stuffed into a Rhino, out of range for any unit that would be effective fire against them. They should only be employed in 1 of 2 ways. Either as a screen for your flamer squads against melee oriented armies, or as a deep strike prevention against shooty armies.
Second your chaff unit is, and I know this is going to sound crazy, CSM. Particularly while standing in cover, they are there to draw the fire of high AP weaponery, with no invul save and no extra +1 to get through people will more likely attack the CSM in cover then the Rubrics out of cover.
Third every Aspering Sorcerer gets a hand flamer they are the most effective weapon we have in the army. You should probably expect it to go up in price when the codex drops.
Forth sepcialize your RM squads as much as you can. You already have a sargent that's over priced and kitted put for CC in a unit that dosen't belong in CC. Your units should have either flamers or a Soulreaper but never both.
Fifth remember when deciding on the Legion you want keep in mind what you want out of your squads. I personally run Alpha because a unit of Rubricae sitting on a objective that have a 2+ save vs most fire and a -1 to hit (Caution: Side effects include; Being called terrible names by your opponet and loss of friends)
Personally I run 5 Rubric Squads (2 flamer 3 Soulreaper) with 2 units of Tzzangors, a 7 man Havoc squad, 3 squads of CSM, and 2 Rhinos accross 2 Battalions and 1 Vanguard.
A dreadclaw does the same for much cheaper. I think if you want to put a 9 man flame squad in there with a sorceror to warp time them in works just as well. Teleport in some scarab occult and jobs a good ‘un
How do you people see exalted flamers as backup to our anti-heavy department?
Or maybe basic flamers are better for anti horde?
Assuming I happen to have 3 models, and need to decide using them as either one, and I happen to have daemons running around anyway (because horrors, though they currently lack ObjSec due to not being mentioned in CA, they are still the best chaff there is.)
Ive used rubrics from the codex at a dozen tourneys now and seen other people using them, so either TOs around the country dont know what theyre doing, or as usal dakka is wrong about something...
Apart from that you lost all credibility when you said its hard to win as TS at the moment
Mesokhornee wrote: Ive used rubrics from the codex at a dozen tourneys now and seen other people using them, so either TOs around the country dont know what theyre doing, or as usal dakka is wrong about something...
Apart from that you lost all credibility when you said its hard to win as TS at the moment
Oh look, another fresh faced new user who has nothing to say except "get good". I'd love to hear your advice on how to breeze through the tournament scene with Thousand Sons, O Wise One.
4x5 Rubrics + 2 rhinos. Each squad of rubrics has 2-3 flamers + flame pistol.
Magnus + Changeling
So opponent has 2 options - shoot at Magnus (-1 to hit)
OR shoot 2 rhinos which advances very forward to flame opponent.
If he picks Magnus - rhinos will disembark turn 2 and flame opponent.
If he picks rhinos - Magnus will be safe and rubriks might loose some non-flamer guys.
SOT can be deepstriked but last couple of games they really did nothing for their points.
One of the problems when building TS lists, is that we have few native options for dealing with T7+ units. This of course depends on your local Meta (my own tends to run armor and tank heavy). Our good options aren't cheap, with the most obvious ones being a DP with double claws and Hellbrute. Smite only works for so long, and isn't able to do much to that enemy tank that's bubble wrapped.
Now, if only there was a reason to take an Exalted Sorcerer instead of Ahriman. Right now the priority seems to be Ahriman>Sorcerer in Terminator Armor>Exalted Sorcerer. Demon Prince and Magnus are in their own categories.
Arachnofiend wrote: So after getting my ass handed to me again (this time by an Alaitoc Craftworld army) I'm seriously at a loss as to what to do with my Thousand Sons. I'd like to know what's working for other Sons players because nothing seems to work for me. Or do I just accept that this army sucks and wait for the codex to hopefully fix it?
The big thing most people have been doing is partnering up close with Tzeentch demons. It makes the most sense as alot of tzeentch stuff is super cheap, and synergizes well. Then basically you take the better aspects of Thousand Sons and sprinkle it in. It's actually pretty thematic too from what I can tell.
So from my experience, horrors are really good cheap units that are hard to shift off objectives etc. The Changeling is pretty invaluable. Exalted Flamers and flamers in general are pretty decent fire support and cheap. Then heralds for extra smite options.
Lately, I've been experimenting with an Alpha Legion detachment to sneak in Obliterators and Havocs. This gives decent anti-armor which TSons and Demons seem to lack. Obliterators are very good. I actually often try and bring a screen of Scarab Occult to plunk in front of the Obliterators so my opponent then has to think about dealing with them. Plus Scarabs offer great anti-infantry and they are fairly durable.
Units from TS that are mainstays are obviously Magnus, some people like bringing 5 man units of Rubrics. I haven't tried that too much. Or 20-30 man blobs of Tzaangor (at small point games they are actually pretty good. I haven't tried them in larger point games. I have seen people make decent use of Heldrakes mostly using them to tie gak up so Magnus doesn't get as hurt.
The big thing most people have been doing is partnering up close with Tzeentch demons.
I would be happy to run pure TS list but we are too elite army.
I think there are 2 ways how to run TS: with Magnus and without.
With Magnus you have to run daemons - Changeling is our the only protection from turn 1 killshot.
Without Magnus i like Alpha legion with Obliterators, Predators and cultists.
Det 2: alpha legion supreme command
3 x DP with wings and MOT
Det 3: alpha legion airwing
3 x helldrake with flamer
still like 30 points short
This would give much of the army -2 to be hit and would be many characters so would be unable to be focused down on the princes. Another iteration I toyed with was 4 princes and 3 exalted flamers, taking a vanguard daemon detachment instead of alpha legion supreme command.
Arachnofiend wrote: Telling me that the way to win with Thousand Sons is to run anything else and just toss Magnus in there isn't exactly encouraging...
I think it's about finding the balance between Tzeentch and Thousand Sons. It's actually a pretty thematic pairing as well. The alpha legion is obviously the less fluffy more competitive route but I think you can get pretty competitive with just Tzeentch and Sons too if you'd rather stay truer to the fluff.
I wouldn't say you have to ignore the Sons, but more play to their strengths. They are a very elite army at heart, so typically when people build a pure list they are jamming Elite priced units in and coming up with dramatically smaller lists with fewer options than their opponents and wondering why they are getting smashed. You have to off-set their weaknesses and play to strengths. So strength: Smite obviously, mortal wound casting in general, and anti-infantry weaponry. Weaknesses: cost and anti-armor. Use demons to off-set these and you will find a pretty fluffy pairing I think that can work decently well.
I echo what alot of people are saying in this thread though and that's that we need a points adjustment in our book. Our units are wayyyyy to expensive to keep up either that or they are not elite enough. GW needs to decide. I think we will be getting a points decrease.
Yeah, at this point my Tsons list has a pretty significant horde component. 30x horrors with extra blues held in split reserve go in front (if they're targeted I split blues towards my opponent to try and tie things up t1), 30x Tzaangors making up the second row to charge towards the frontline as a someone pointier double-distraction. I do use 4x rubric squads (5 each in 2 rhinos), and a scarab occult termie squad plus an Osiron dread as a helbrute and a predator. But in terms of numbers, chaff bodies far outnumber actual thousand sons.
Haven't heard about any changes to smite... Just that some were saying they were going to do something in Chapter Approved which they didn't do... thank goodness.
Well, I'm not very good at converting, only painting. But I guess I can use that excuse
