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First off, I'm one of those horrid fluff/theme army guys, I also still play with my Dark Angels (which would explain my dead last placing at last years Adepitcon). With all of this, I thought I would dig out my Thousand Sons, finish them up, and play with them in a casual Space Marine heavy environment.

Any help you can offer would be most helpful. (Just don't drop the Daemon Prince, I've spent too much time converting him)



Headquarters (390)

Sorcerer: 185
Mark of Tzeentch, Warp Time, Bolt of Change, Personal Icon

Daemon Prince: 205
Mark of Tzeentch, Wings, Winds of Chaos, Warp Time

Troops (1016)

17 Thousand Sons, 1 Sorcerer: 391
Melta Bombs, Bolt of Change

17 Thousand Sons, 1 Sorcerer: 391
Melta Bombs, Bolt of Change

18 Lesser Daemons: 234

Heavy Support (440)

2 Obliterators: 150

2 Obliterators: 150

Vindicator: 140
Havoc Launcher

Your HQ is fine (most people would say take 2 DPs or 2x sorc), although you may consider ahriman at this points level since he is a beast of a psyker.

I don't like your 17man tzeentch squads. They aren't fluffy (a fluffy squad would be 9 total), and the more you put into a squad the less your army can shoot at (ie 9 different squads can shoot/assault 9 different enemy units, 4 different squads can only shoot/assault/etc 4 different enemy units). Also you need to look at the special rule "slow and purposeful" to understand your extreme need of rhinos for each squad unless you have some odd battleplan I can't envision.

18 lesser daemons... again suffering from too large of a squad to give yourself options. You also only have 1 unit with a personal icon to help them deepstrike. Imo there are better ways to spend these points (or at least a portion of these points). I would suggest getting a squad of regular csms /w MoT (gives you the option for meltas which you sorely need, better cc ability, gives you another icon to DS on, and still lends some of the tzeentch durability).

Heavy support is where you are weakest imo. You have zero other tanks besides your vindi which is just asking your opponent to shoot every single anti-tank weapon at it. That is guaranteeing you a major loss of points/fire power early on. Get another vindi or drop it and spend the points elsewhere. Your oblits are also very expensive and only get a single shot apiece. You need to think which is better...a 75pt unit that has the correct weapon to do the job, but only gets one chance to do it...or getting some havocs/predator that has a lot more shots for a lot less points (5x havocs /w autocannon gets 8 str7 48" range shots for 155pts).

Double check your math on those thousand sons squads as well. 17 1ksons + 1 sorc = 451 pts base. With bolt of change and melta bombs they come to 481pts.

I gotta agree with most of the advice from Halsfield.

1) Split your Rubrics up into squads of 9 and give them Rhinos. I prefer Warptime over any other power because it helps mitigate alot of their weakness (assault and anti-tank with rerolling Meltabombs). Its silly but don't forget you can reroll that Bolt Pistol.

2) Split the LD into 2 squads of 9 as well. Its fluffy and more effective. Also remember that you NEED to have Icons on the table to summon them, so find the points to put some in your Rubric squads.

3) Oblits are fine but the single Vindicator is a big target. Hopefully with some Rhinos it will live longer though. If you do keep it, drop the Havoc for D. Possession, its much more important that it be able to move and fire. To be honest I'd look into getting more Oblits or a Combi-Predator for anti-transport.

Daemon Prince: Not fluffy. The Thousand Sons are in their current state because they will do whatever it takes to avoid mutation.

TS Squads: Slow and Purposeful means that Rhinos are worth their weight in gold to these guys. Melta bombs on footsloggers that can only assault D6"? Pass. I'd go three squads of nine models (8+Sorc, nine is Tzeentch's sacred number) naked in Rhinos. Use the extra points to buy another Vindi.

Mr. Bluesky wrote:Daemon Prince: Not fluffy. The Thousand Sons are in their current state because they will do whatever it takes to avoid mutation.

I think this is a bit borderline. The primarch of the 1ksons is a daemon prince. Ahriman + friends certainly cast the rubric to avoid/stop the mutations, but Ahriman was cast out of the main 1ksons group by Magnus for doing so. I think there is a high possibility of a powerful captain of the same thinking as Magnus(Tzeentch's gifts are gifts, not curses) that might accept/earn daemonhood and lead a group of rubric marines into battle. If you include Ahriman I would stay away from daemon princes.

I would drop and add the following

All Rhinos for 2x Land Raiders

The Why? With only 2 squads of TS you need protection Rhinos do not give this. Unlike Plague Marines you can not rely on your 4+ inv save you or the AP 3 to cut enough troops down as not to get assaulted. The Land Raiders can level enough firepower are the few anti tank to kill it and let you roll up deploy soften the target with AP 3 and let you lesser deamons finish the job.

Obliterators for Terminators with chainfists and a few combi-meltas with MoT

The Why? The Terminators can drop on to the field and be used like a swiss army knife. They can assult and are more mobile than Obliterators. Also the death of one is not as over whelming.

Just my thoughts I run a similar list in 2000k range

Halsfield wrote:I think this is a bit borderline. The primarch of the 1ksons is a daemon prince. Ahriman + friends certainly cast the rubric to avoid/stop the mutations, but Ahriman was cast out of the main 1ksons group by Magnus for doing so. I think there is a high possibility of a powerful captain of the same thinking as Magnus(Tzeentch's gifts are gifts, not curses) that might accept/earn daemonhood and lead a group of rubric marines into battle. If you include Ahriman I would stay away from daemon princes.

My TS army is led by a Prince as well, but I've given the fluff a twist to suit my purposes. I'm not going to contend the point - if he wants a DP, he can take a DP. It's just interesting that he's making a "fluffy army" that adheres remarkably little to the fluff.

Rajak, I'm not big on Chaos Termies, as they have an annoying tendency to run screaming from the battlefield like little girls. That's just my view, though.

After looking at the options a 8 man treminator squad has a 2+Arm 4+ Inv a group of chosen at the sme point cost has only a 3+Arm 5+ Inv with MoT. Though the Chosen have acess to better weapon load outs for up to 4 models. The treminators start with power weapons which is nice for an assault

Ok - I would have thought 17 +1 sorcerer = 18 or 2x9. Arent multiples fluffy?

In any case, Rhino's help 1ksons no end, so keep'em at 9!

OK, I get that you are only going to be playing friendly, fluffy games with this army, but I would assume you want to win at least occasionally, right? Right.

In that case I offer the following suggestions:

1. Drop an HQ. You say you want the DP, because you converted him, fine, but pick one and lose it. You have almost a third of your army's point total tied up in two models.

If you keep the DP, you might want to re-think giving him Winds of Chaos. If he is close enough to use it, then he should probably be assaulting, especially since he has wings. Warptime will keep him safe, and is a good pick, but I would suggest a longer ranged power for your second choice.

3. Moar Troops! You have two giant uber squads that are so fat, they make your momma look thin. You need to take the points that you save from your HQ, and buy yourself some squad in the range of 8 Sons + Asp. Sorc. That gives you your holy number nine, and three squads of that come in at around 852 if you give each squad an Icon and a Rhino. Pick some powers for your Sorcs and you are done. I suggest Doombolt. Split your Daemons in half and now you have 5 scoring units to stomp around the table with.

This will allow you to engage more enemies at once that your previous three squads, and it will make it easier to move around. How do you even get LoS with 17 models in one unit? Are your boards all flat?

3. WTF is a Havoc launcher doing on your Vindi? It is too big to be a defensive weapon, it cannot be fired on the same turn as your DC, and if you are using it to buy off a "Weapon Destroyed" result then you are paying too much for it. If you want to use a Vindi, possess it or put cheapo weapons all over it. Or both. But get rid of the Launcher, those are for Preds and hopped up Rhinos.

4. Your Oblits look good. If you make the changes with the troops, that will give you three icons to DS them onto so they don't have to lumber up the field. Everybody likes Oblits. They aren't really fluffy, but they work.

5. Have you given any thoughts to 2x DCCW Dreadnoughts? They would help add more armored targets to the list for cheap, and could be used to keep your 1K Sons out of CC and shooting those magnificent bolters for longer. Taking the guns off means you don't lose any of your pricey manz, and cuts down on the times they go nuts each game.

I am hoping these suggestions will help you. They won't change the composition of your army much, but just splitting those squads and adding rhinos will make the army play much more aggressively. You will have an easier time exploiting your opponent's mistakes, and correcting your own. And more units will always make you more flexible.

You can fix most of the weaknesses here just by meching up a little bit. If you do it right, you won't really need to get too many new models to update it. If you don't want to spring for some shiny new Rhinos, at least break up the squads so you can move/react better.

Good luck.

Thank you very much for your help, it gives me a lot to think about.

Fluff is dead, don't let that restrict your army