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The Tasmania States '08 tournament is coming up, and this is the first list I plan to use in it, revived from my messy old Tzeentch list. No, I won't have any lash abuse, this is a Tzeentch list, not one of your cheesy lash lists. All armies entered must be at least 2000 pts, with a maximum of 2500.

HQ
Daemon Prince, with MoT, Warptime, Doombolt, and wings. - 165 pts.

Elites
5 Terminators, with Icon of Tzeentch, Reaper AC, four combi-plasma guns and two power fists. - 250 pts.

5 Terminators, with Icon of Tzeentch, Reaper AC, four combi-plasma guns and two power fists. - 250 pts.

5 Terminators, with Icon of Tzeentch, Reaper AC, four combi-plasma guns and two power fists. - 250 pts.

Troops
9 Thousand Sons, champion has Doombolt. - 277 pts.

9 Thousand Sons, champion has Doombolt. - 277 pts.

9 Thousand Sons, champion has Doombolt. - 277 pts.

9 Thousand Sons, champion has Doombolt - 277 pts.
Heavy Support
2 Obliterators - 150 pts.

2 Obliterators - 150 pts.

2 Obliterators - 150 pts.

Total points value: 2500 pts exactly

As you can see, this list forgoes all fast attack for maxed elites and heavy support choices. Ahriman will stick with the DP or tag along with the Termies, while the DP fires Doombolt on-the-charge and uses Warptime to hit and wound like crazy. The Oblits are there as AT infantry, and there are enough Thousand Sons to take on an equal number of MEQs thanks to inferno bolts. The Chosen will infiltrate into cover and pound away with plasmas and their heavy bolter, a configuration 'borrowed' from a GW battle report, in which said configuration did very well. The Termies will be in bolter range most of the time, focusing on infantry or light vehicles. And as a ward from bad luck, I have four squads of 9.

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== Lash is not cheesy. ==

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Doombolt is dumb IMO. BoC is better.

Ahriman...yeah, fluff. Effective, no.

Possessed...were uber for Tzeentch last edition. They uhh suck hard now.

For the cost in Chosen, you can bring Termies with combi-plasmas and deep strike...then kill things in CC if they don't kill you.

TS squads need BoC.

Chaos tanks are le crap. Go with oblits.

Paint them blue and gold, use TS heads...and BAM! Fluffy.

Your list has 3 scary anti-infantry units and 2 semi-scary anti-terminator/MC units...and a unit of Oblits and 1 DP.

Rest is crapola.

Ahriman isn't THAT bad... three psychic powers per turn with his Ld 10 allows him to kill off an MC, commander, whatever, and provide fire to soften up squads prior to an assault. The possessed are very underestimated imo. Any of their 6 abilities are useful, you just have to adapt. The tank is fine. BoC I can do, but as for the rest, I see no problems with it.

Three diffrent powers and cost a ton, wont finish off very much(actually what will he kill reliably?). Quite a bad deal tbh.

Possesed is one of the worst units in the whole dex. Expensive, slow and totally random whats there to like?

Bringing one av12 and one av13 vehicle in a 2500 army is asking to have them shoot out in round 1, so no, they are not fine.

This list is so far beyond help that there isnt really much to say, would loose to the scrapmetal bits from a real army.

At 2500 pts its not really competitive.
A shooty army should be able to take down three costly TS squads quickly,
while a fast cc oriented army will kill the TS squads in cc.
I'd drop Ahriman, Possessed, and Chosen, and add more troops.
In the 5th ed, mount them in Rhinos as troops disembarking from a destroyed transport are no longer entangled.

I just spent $500 building a Chaos army, and I hope that you will do well. But, I doubt it. The Chaos Codex is an unmentionable expletive deleted, repeat. The basic problem is that every troop costs TOO MUCH. Think of it this way, if I told you that I had just built a SMURF army list at 1500 points with a total of 30 Marines in 3 squads, you'd laugh me off the forum. But, that's exactly what you have here at 2500 points!! Gee, at 2500 points could you get a SMURF army with 60 marines and 4 Landraiders??? Probably.

Now I've got 3 squads of Thousand Sons also, so I am sympathetic. Sure, their Bolter Fire is really nice against Smurfs. But, it won't kill stupid Orks with their Force Field Save. Your 4+ invulnerable save might be good against Las/Plas squads, but you pay through the nose for it and will it help you at all against SOB or Dire Avengers??

I'd go to 9 obliterators. I looked at Chosen Marines as well, the idea of infiltrating 3 squads of 5 with 4 meltaguns or 4 PG sounds intriguing. But again, look at the cost. For a similar cost you can almost have Terminators....Alas.

Again, I love my Thousand Sons, but the Sonic Blasters of the EC are a better ranged weapon.

WuestenFlux's advice, get Rhinos, sends great, until you figure that it might cost you two Obliterators to do it.....

Looking forward to your report back, maybe it will give me some hope. Meantime, drop the Possessed, the Landraider, bring 9 Obliterators, change out the Possessed for Terminators...

Humph... very well. I will heed this advice and pull together some more termies from the depths of my sprue pile.
Edit: I've ditched the Chosen in favour of another TS squad. Think this is a good move?

Chosen infiltrate. They carry plasma guns.

They walk on, they shoot, they die...after all, they are just marines with T4 and a 3+ save.

They cost a huge amount of points.

Terminators deep strike. They carry combi-plasma guns.

They drop, they shoot, they stay, they close combat until eliminated and are very dangerous to many armies.

They cost a huge amount of points.

Which do you really want to take?

Your DP costs 185, not 165. It looks like you forgot to add the cost of the wings. And Ahriman, as already stated, is a waste of points. Just because it's a large point game doesn't mean you can afford to throw them away.

Fair point there Stelek... I suppose in essence DS and infiltrate are the same.

In 5th edition, they are always available.

So if you are going to take a unit from the same slot, you want one that is cheap and suicide-friendly (aka 5 hardened vets with plasmaguns in a IG army) or you want one that will stick around and can accomplish a secondary objective.

Infiltrate is random...and avoidable. Deep strike is not when you are only deep striking a single unit. When will it come in? What will he do with it? Where am I vulnerable? Can I protect myself without hurting the rest of the army? All questions one asks when there is a single deep strike unit coming in...and if it's say a Khorne Terminator unit with combi-plas and power weapons...it's very dangerous indeed.

Three DS'ing units such as Termies is still nasty, but I'd personally keep two in reserve and have the last squad footslogging, as those S&P TSons won't be reaching the frontlines very fast.

As each mark gives the unit very diferent strenghs and thus giving the unit a different role on the battlefeild.The question I have is which is the best mark to give Termies?

Cheese, foot slogging TS reach the front lines immediately.

They can shoot 24", ya know.

Billie it really depends on what you want them to do.

Small units, go for cheap or no icons.

Larger units, you can afford Nurgle or Tzeentch.

Everything has a use on chaos terminators in some way.

Should I re-equip one or two of them for assaults? Because I'm told that they do quite well in either shooting or CC.

for terminators take mark on tzneetch if your likely to be facing lots of anti-meq weapons (Marines, Tau, Nidzilla) and mark of nurgle if your facing horde armies (Orks, horde nids). equipment wise if you have them with a couple of powerfists some combi-weapons and a heavy weapon thats pretty good. dont deck them out competely for combat if your going to deepstrike them. a few powerfist are fine.

Why should Tzeentchian units do any worse against hordes? Remember Tzeentch termies, characters and TSons have a 4+ invul save.

What does the invulnerable have to do against hordes? You do worse because you pay a lot of points for AP3 bolters, which are pointless against horde lists. You're basically just normal marines against say, a Gaunt Horde, because they arent concerned with your invulnerable, and kill you as if you were normal marines.

Isnt that kinda obvious?

i did also specifically say TERMINATORS.

say you have a squad of terminators with MoT in combat with a mob of 30 orks. these orks dont have powerweapons, so is an extra 1 inv save going to do you any good? No.

now a few inches away is a terminator squad with MoN is in combat with 30 orks. the orks still dont have power weapons but now the extra toughness is a real headache for them. if theyre hitting on 4s, wounding on 6s then theres a 2+ armour save, 90attacks translates into 1.25 dead terminators.

add into the fact that orks and nids (the two main horde armies) have almost no AP2 guns that can penetrate your armour, then there is no reason not to have MoN when playing

(this goes for other Tzneetch units as well. a 4+ inv save does diddly-squat againt an any army that cant penetrate your armour easily but has enough attacks that it doesnt matter.)

having said that MoT is better in all other circumstances. against every other army i would prefer to have MoT, but as you asked about hordes i gave you your awnser.