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Alright so I have been playing my Space Marines for about a year now and have gotten pretty good with them; I win a good amount of the time with players of similar experience level and think I can take on some of the tougher players at our store and give a good fight. However I have found myself wanting a change of pace and look to Chaos for it. So what are some of the staple things to know about the Thousand Sons? Which units work well and which not so well? What are some of the nifty tricks that Tzeentch can pull on its foes and what are some of the things to watch out for?

I have plenty of time to save the money I need for the Thousand Sons; I want to finish my Vampire Counts, Christmas around the corner and my B-day not far behind means that I will be set. So I don't need to know anything right away and can take some time to proxy and experiment. I have a copy of the Chaos Space Marine codex and I have read it, so I know about the different units and powers and I can check those that I do not know. Thanks for the help, hopefully Chaos will be what I hope for.

The Wildonion

Tsons have a problem getting enough marine-killing power and general AP2 firepower into an army. The basic troops are very tough, but they are slow and don't have any hitting power to speak of (and they're really expensive *and* need huge squads to get the favored numbers), so you have to go to your auxilliary troops to kill the enemy. Some common solutions:

-Multiple lascannon preds and defilers can dish out a combination of antitank and marine killing power
-A big bad flying daemon prince in combination with a Lord of Change can sweep around the board and deal with a variety of threats. Big flying tzeentch entities should have Wind of Chaos power.
-I've successfully used a gimmick squad of flying possessed with multiple gift of chaos spells, but they are so expensive that you have to build (and play) your army around them.
Tsons players generally split into the Gift of Chaos school, the Bolt of Change school, and the Doombolt school, each adhering to the idea that multiple instances of that power are the best option. I'm a member of the Gift school--others may come on this thread and lobby for their preferred power.
-The kids these days are all fans of gigantic flamer squads. Personally I prefer a mix of flamers for shooting and horrors for ablative wounds. Don't expect them do to anything in HtH except bog down enemy units--you need something hard-hitting to finish off whatever they tarpit (and the options are limited). Many Tsons players don't even bother with daemons because they are relatively weak compared with other daemons.
-Personally I never tried the terminators in any serious way. Not enough hitting power for my tastes. But some people swear by them.

I played Tsons for a while, though I played them very different from the "norm" or accepted ways of playing them. which most of the time was a huge advantage.

I took a pred for anti tank of course (something Tsons have a hard time w/) then 3 or 4 rhinos, thats right rhinos, w/ a relatively beefy sorc/champ with a fist, a thrall or 2 and the wind of chaos power. zoom up 12" w/ rhino pop smoke, next turn deploy out of it, rapidfire w/ lots of bolters and then depending on how many enemies i could get under the wind of chaos template maybe double tap it by sacrificing a thrall. wind of chaos utterly destroys MEQs. always wounds on a 4 regardless of toughness (very fun against nurgle) and ignores armor saves. next turn charge and you have a lot of MEQ wounds absorbing attacks for your aspiring champ w/ fist. if you cant pop stuff with the pred(s) you can always charge them w/ a fist to try and get at them.

it was a real fun army to play, and good against most opponents. it has a few weaknesses but most people dont see it comming and demand to read wind of chaos when you hit it w/ them 2 times in the same turn.

I played around w/ termies, defilers and daemon princes but my chaos marines were always the money makers in every game.

Thanks for these first bits of advice, I think I have learned more in those posts than in the browsing I have done reading existing TS threads on this and other sites. You mentioned that there were three common schools Flavius Infernus, does each just focus around the use of tons of that power or are there certain unit combinations that go with each school?

My marine army runs lots of troops, I only have two Rhinos as a way to increase mobility and no other vehicles, so I am used to the troop majority style armies. One thing that I wanted to ask was whether or not Defilers should be upgraded with indirect fire. I have seen some say it is a must and other say that it is a waste so I would like to here some opinions about it.

I am mostly from the Winds of Chaos School. But here are some batreps of when I briefly matriculated at the Bolt of Change School:

http://dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/17/tpage/1/view/Topic/postid/102103/Default.aspx

 

Seems to be missing it's pictures. 

The reason why you have different schools of thought is because you have to build your army around certain psychic powers. For example the Bolt of Change and the Doombolt armies will just sit back and shoot, and the Winds of Chaos and Gift of Chaos armies will be more like rhino rush armies seeking to get in close to the enemy. Since you can’t be both, (and be effective) you need to select which way you are going to go.

 

And another problem with the Thousand Sons is that they have awful units, and very good units. You need to learn which one is which very soon, or you will be very disappointed.

 

Here is how I rate them:

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">   [/b]

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Good Units: [/b]

Thousand Son’s Marines (Rubric Marines)

Thousand Son’s Terminators (Rubric Terminators)

Demon Prince/ Chaos Lord

Chaos Lt.

Predators

Defilers

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">   [/b]

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Bad (Units that should be taken rarely) [/b]

Flamers

Lord of Change

Dreadnoughts

Land Raiders

 

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Ugly (Units that you should never take) [/b]

<st1:place>Chosen</st1:place>

Possessed

Horrors

Screamers

As a note: You will almost always max out on heavy support because that is the source of most of your anti-tank firepower. 

'k, I've never played Tsons...but several times I've wished that I had the option for Coruscating Warp Flame on my Nurgle Dreadnought. It seems like a really nice dediication, much better than most of the others.

I think Chaos Dreads are underappreciated. With MH and DP they get expensive, but AV 13 ignores stun/shaken ain't bad.

The Bolt of Change and Doombolt schools sounds like they are what I want to play, though I will gladly listen to advice for all schools; how would I go about creating those kinds of armies?

Also I understand that the Rubric Terminators are some of the best because of their two wounds, but that Chosen Terminators have one wound and sorcerer powers. Which is the better of the two or are they too different to compare on terms of one being better or worse?

Personally, I think the Lord of Change is on par with the Bloodthirster in terms of being a top-end assault unit. Cheaper, free psychic power, huge initiative -- don't discount the I6 on a model that will win most assaults, counts as ten models, and then applies a further -2 Ld to whatever it's fighting. It's a rundown machine.

But with only three attacks even a 10 man Marine squad is just going to bog him down forever. I use him just because he's cool. But you have to combine him with other forces to get the most out of him. 160 points and taking one of your sorcerers is a very high price to pay.

I have had massive success with my thousand sons, which was a let-down as I intended them to be my "challanging army".

Here is what I have found out:

1.The army is built around the aspiring champions, never forget it. A rubric squad without a champion doesn't do much. They are your assault weapons, heavy weapons, and close combat powerhouses.

2.Because of the previous thought, Lords of Change stink. Sure, they have decent stats, but it will kill an aspiring champion to get one. That will leave an almost useless rubric squad standing in the middle of no-where. Too many points wasted.

3. Anti-tank is your biggest weakness, but surprisingly, not anti-heavy armor. A Predator with all lascannons is great for killing tanks, but make sure to take every gift possible to keep it alive as it will be drawing TONS of fire. Deamonic possession, mutated hull, and parasitic possession should be taken all the time.

4. You need as many bodies on the field as possible. Your guys will be outnumbered in almost any battle, so don't do the enemy any favors. Find ways to cut corners here and there. A couple extra marines might make all the difference.

5. You have very few things that can move fast. No matter what they are, do NOT be afraid to sacrifice them if it will help your army in general. I tend to send my deamon prince on a suicide rush to take out leman russes or basilisks as they will be eating me alive the entire game.

6. Kill off anything with a strenth of 8 or higher as soon as possible. Once they can't instakill you things get easier.

7. Remember that with the changes to Slow and purposeful in the new Rulebook that Thousand sons now have inititive 4 and can sweeping advance.

8. Never discount the advantage of ALWAYS being able to fire out to 24 inches with a bolter or ALWAYS being able to attack after rapid firing. Rapid Firing, then assaulting is statistically better than one shot from a pistol and then assaulting with 2 CCW's.

Here is my general 2000 list from the top of my head. ( some things might be missing as I haven't played in a while)

Deamon prince: Mark of Tzeench, Stature, 5+ invulnerable save, deamonic strenth, deamonic flight, spiky bits, master crafted close combat weapon, a second close combat weapon, winds of chaos, and a free icon. (once he gets somewhere he WILL make a big dent. Also he distracts from the other units that are creeping up.)

9 rubric terminators. Aspiring champion with mark of Tzeench, Bolt of change, deamonic strenth, spiky bits, master crafted powersword,  a close combat weapon, and a free icon. ( this is the Hardest unit to kill. The most I have ever lost out of this unit is three terminators. even dedicated assualt units have a hard time with it. keep them in reserve and deepstrike them later when you know when and where you will be having problems).

9 rubric marines in a rhino with smoke launchers. Aspiring champion with mark of Tzeench, wind of chaos, bolt pistol, mastercrafted-spiky bitted powerfist, a thrall, and a free icon. (these squads will move just as fast as "normal" marines in the first turn or two. Rhinos are fragile, so set them up carefully to avoid fire. i use them up the sides of the table to take out flanking units the enemy plans on using late in the game. Two flamer templates that ignore armor will do a lot of damage to marines in cover. You might need to use the rhinos later in the game, so try to keep them alive, but don't be too depressed if they die.)

9 rubric marines in a rhino with smoke launchers. Aspiring champion with mark of Tzeench, wind of chaos, bolt pistol, mastercrafted-spiky bitted powerfist, a thrall, and a free icon.

9 rubric marines. Aspiring champion with mark of tzeench, powersword, 4 thralls, Bolt of Change, and a free icon. Cheaper squad meant to soften-up squads with AP 2 goodness before the rhino squads hit them. Also doubles as a back-up anti-tank unit.

9 flamers. ( I orgininally only used this unit because i got them second-hand for very cheap. However, I noticed that they are GREAT for thinning out Horde units that will try to swamp your rubrics. Not a super-good unit but about the only thing guaranteed to do MASSIVE damage to large horde units.)

Predator with three lascannons, mutated hull, parasitic possession, deamonic possession. (This is one of the few anti-tank units in the list. Kill anything extra-hard right away. Your enemy will need to pour tons of fire into it to make sure it is dead, thanks to the upgrades. This will allow your units to avoid much of the anti-tank weapons that will insta-kill rubrics.)

 

Army as a whole: 52 models with a total of 87 wounds and 3 vehicles. Harder to be swamped by horde armies and will give true pocket armies like deathwing a fit.

Hope that helps.

I tend to like the bolt of change school of thought, It takes pressure off your predators and can really rock an opponent who gets 10-20 bolts of change or lascannon shots coming at them turn 1. Get a CC Lord to do his thing, get a LT w/ termie armor, bolt of change, and thralls and join him up with Terminators (I use 5-6 man squads) who I might add have I4 power weapons (give the asp. champ a chainfist/pfist).

After that, I would go with 3 Predators w las/hb and DP and other stuff to taste. Fill in w/ Rubric marines to taste. Avoid pretty much every thing else. I go w/ las/hb preds because A) They can move 6" and still fire to full effectiveness, B) You can move them up to help shield your squads as they advance or manuever. AV 14 is tough to kill.

So the Aspiring Champ is the work horse unit for the rubrics? Also I have been a little worried about Armored Elements (tanks) and wanted to know if the triple Las pred really is the best way to go about getting Anti-Tank.

Yes. You can fit some BoC in here and there, but Preds (notice pluralisation) will be your anti-tank work horses.

I have been seeing less and less vehicles in 4th edition, as vehicles became more fragile with the new rules. This can only be good for thousand sons.

If you were unmarked chaos marines I would tell you to use havok squads instead of predators, but that isn't even an option for thousand sons. While I see the advantage of taking heavy bolter sponsons to move and shoot, but that isn't what you need your predator to be doing.  As one of the few ways to get lascannons it should be a purely dedicated anti-tank unit. Your rubric squads are all ready super at anti-infantry duty.

Three predators is usually over-kill against most armies. Two is still debatable. Remember that every Predator you have is 8 fewer rubric marines. The surest way to get defeated is to be swamped by three times as many infantry as what you have. 

Another thing I shoud add. Read the Torrent of Fire rules int he rulebook VERY carfully. If you use it wisely you can kill those pesky lascannons that are a huge threat to rubrics.

torrent of fire rules are a huge advantage for Tsons, never forget it. when you can rapid fire then charge w/ ur rubrics make his pfist take the save seperately so he dosen't insta kill you with that. if you are out of charge range then lascannons are good too.

Is torrent of fire when I can force my opponent to roll saves for specific models when I deal more (potential) wounds than he has models/wounds?

that is exactly what torrent of fire is. Your first line of duty is to make him take specific saves on any lascannon, missile launcher, marine powerfist, or other weapon with a strenth of at least 8. Once those are eliminated rubric marines are near impossible to kill off. Yet another reason I believe that you should put as many infantry on the table as possible.

Alright, I have used torrent before (love when I force an opponent to eat saves on his heavy weapons) so I know the value of it.