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Why in the world was this thread started? We really don't know anything because the entire codex had to be sent back because GW doesn't have an editing staff and they forgot to include ALL of the special rules. How about we all just be patient and live our lives. It mystifies me as to why gamers have the obsessive need to pretend like they have the inside scoop when, in fact, no one actually does. You might, but you can't prove it in any way, shape, or form.

Some of us have already looked into the codex.
I found copied versions at a GW store and a retailer.

Call us back in six months when you've played a few games with your new Tyranid army then.

You might, but you can't prove it in any way, shape, or form.

Except by PMing me a rapidshare link to the codex. I'd take that as proof

Call us back in six months when you've played a few games with your new Tyranid army then.

Why, does speculation kill your soul or something? I find it entertaining to compare the groupthink about a codex pre-release and in intervals from then on. Sometimes people get it right, but often times the predictions miss the mark entirely.

Doesn't make the discussion any less interesting, poigniant or entertaining. Even predictions based on false rumors have value, as they illuminate why a particular design choice was made.

Actually yes, speculation does kill my soul. It would be entertaining if it wasn't so repetitive. There's the same pointless jabber codex after codex. The surprise is when people get it right about how a particular army will be positioned after its new codex has been released and in play for several months. You know why it'll be surprising? Because it has yet to happen.

If you want insight into particular design decisions, and constructive discussion, then wait for evidence rather than engage in pointless speculation.

DarkHound wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:Thousand sons are actually good Carnifax killers in CC. The sorcerer has 4 attacks with his bolt pistol on a charge. With the mark of Tzeentch a sorcerer can use 2 psychic powers a turn so the sorcerer can activate warptime and then active his force weapon killing the carnifax after scoring a single wound. My 1750 rouge trader list has a squad of 8 thousand sons + the sorcerer in it primarily for the job of killing MEQ, but they do very well against big nids. The squad killed 3 carnifexes in a single game.

My Sorcerer Lord has killed Carnifexi before, but that doesn't mean he's good at it. You are very unlikely to get the charge given Slow and Purposeful, so you'll only have 3 attacks to work with. He has a 10.8% chance per swing of downing the Carnifex, so statistically it'll take 3 rounds of close combat to kill a Carnifex, while a CC Carnifex by this edition's standard will down about 2 Thousand Sons a turn. 6 scoring bodies for a Carnifex? I'll take the equivalent (138 points) in Lascannons, thank you.

2 base attacks+1 for weapon and pistol so that's 3, or 4 on a charge.

Slow and purposeful does cause some charges to fail, but opponents tend to be sloppy and underestimate thousand sons in CC.

The 10.8% chance per swing is without the re rolls to hit and to wound from warp time. With warp time it' about 25% chance of wounding a carnifex per swing, followed by an 83% change of successfully activating the force weapon. So statistically speaking if warptime is activated at the beginning of a turn a charging sorcerer with 4 attacks will have a 100% chance (25*4=100) of wounding a carnifax, followed by an 83% change of killing it by activating a force weapon.

It's not an ideal way of fighting a carnifex because it requires passing psychic tests, but it does work well as long as the sorcerer doesn't die from a perils of the warp attack.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't Carnifexi under the effect of Synapse immune to Instant Death?

Part of the notion is to isolate them from Synapse. That's what Havocs are for!

@Shelegelah:
Please read the Topic, notice the "NEW" in front of the Tyranids?
Which would then help to read the rumor thread.

On a similar note, Shelegelah is an example of why it's (at least) frustrating to start a tactica thread on rumors (even as concrete as they seem).

Shelegelah wrote:Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't Carnifexi under the effect of Synapse immune to Instant Death?

Synapse gives immunity to instant death from doubling toughness, but doesn't give immunity to instant death from other sources such as force weapons of wraithcannons.

Synapse gives immunity to instant death from doubling toughness, but doesn't give immunity to instant death from other sources such as force weapons of wraithcannons.

Except the errata as found in the current Tyranid FAQ states they ignore Instant Death rule completely.

Both our math was off. I forgot about the re-roll on the to-wound, and I don't know where you erred. The total chance of the Sorcerer killing a Carnifex is 18.6% per swing (including the psychic roll for the Force Weapon). While not utterly terrible, it will still take three rounds of combat to kill the Carnifex, and that beast will still claim atleast 6 Thousand Sons. Even if you kill the Carnifex, your squad is crippled, and unreliable as a scoring unit. Its a desperation move at best.

Also, I found Shep's analysis really interesting. While I don't think I'll be putting away the Plague Marines, I'll have to be more careful with them. It'll be interesting when my Obliterators actually have to use their short ranged weapons. Twin-linked Flamers, hoo!

Both our math was off.

And it is still wrong because you are assuming every wound has a chance to force weapon -- only one chance per player turn, regardless of how many actual wounds are caused.

Correct math (assuming WS3 carnifex and warptime)
Chance to inflict a wound with one attack = 8/9 to hit * 11/36 to wound = ~27.16% = w
Chance to wound at least once with 3 attacks = 1- chance to not wound 3 times in a row = 1-(1-w)^3 = ~61.35% = W
Chance to FW a carni with warptime on 3 attacks = 11/12 * W = ~56.24%

The math for 4 attacks is similar, but you'd want to include the chance of 4 successful wounds as well as the FW chance. It is around 66% by rough calc. Also should probably figure in the chance of failing the warptime and the results without it to be perfectly fair, but I have better things to do

Ah, that would be why. Carnifexi that you'd be close enough to melee are going to be WS4. That is the game breaker for you.

Anyway, it is a bad idea, don't do it. Thousand Sons are bad, leave them in your box.

If wild speculation is correct and Carnifex are to be limited to Sv3+, then we may have another reason to put Thousand Suns on the board.

No, no, rapid firing and trying to roll 6s with what is still an incredably over-specialized model is not a viable solution. Get a Lascannon, or a Plasma Gun, or something that has over a 40% chance of doing damage per shot (not to mention being useful against any other army aswell).

Considering that the Thousand Suns can walk away from the Carnifex and still shoot up to 24" range, I'd be willing to risk rolling lots of 5-.

Take 9 Thousand Suns, because it's easy to crunch the numbers. At 12" and under, you would get 18 shots. On average 12 would hit. On average 2 would wound. At 13-24" you would get 9 shots, 6 hits, 1 wound. In fact, this is one of the few situations where an Aspiring Sorcerer with a Bolt of Change would be a good idea.

Thousand Suns are plenty useful against other armies. Their ability to shoot up to 24" as they advance, resist AP3- weapons, rapid fire prior to assaulting, and have AP3 shots is handy. They also make good escorts for Sorcerers of Tzeentch.

A challenger appears! This'll be fun.

Nurglitch wrote:Considering that the Thousand Suns can walk away from the Carnifex and still shoot up to 24" range, I'd be willing to risk rolling lots of 5-.

wat

Take 9 Thousand Suns, because it's easy to crunch the numbers. At 12" and under, you would get 18 shots. On average 12 would hit. On average 2 would wound. At 13-24" you would get 9 shots, 6 hits, 1 wound. In fact, this is one of the few situations where an Aspiring Sorcerer with a Bolt of Change would be a good idea.

Or you can spend just as many points on Lascannons or Plasmaguns and deal wounds faster and more efficiently.

Thousand Suns are plenty useful against other armies. Their ability to shoot up to 24" as they advance, resist AP3- weapons, rapid fire prior to assaulting, and have AP3 shots is handy. They also make good escorts for Sorcerers of Tzeentch.

I'll adress these in the order presented. The first two I'll deal with together. You know why we ride in Rhinos; it isn't to move any faster, but to ignore anti-infantry weapons while we move. We don't want to fire while we advance, because even Marines go down to anti-infantry fire. Without the Rhino you leave yourself incredably vulnerable to all sorts of potshots, and Thousand Sons are very expensive to lose. You shouldn't be firing while you're advancing, and if you are they won't be wasting AP3 or better weapons at you. You just force all the anti-infantry rounds that can't go anywhere else yet down on them.

"...rapid fire prior to assaulting" with the only unit not equiped with 2 close combat weapons? The only time this is viable is when you need the 4++ for tarpitting, and there are more cost efficient choices for that (Lesser Daemons).

AP3 shots are handy, but your opponent knows this too. Swarm armies don't care, and MEQs will hug to cover and focus fire on the TS until they aren't a threat (which will take a turn or so). The fact that the AP3 shots are backed up by S4 let them down.

A defiler might be of use then?

You know what Winterman, you're right. This is absolutely entertaining... Because no one knows the real stats, what's happening with synapse, how fexes will be affected by it, or what rules they'll be under or not under. But the thread still goes on! And it lapses into discussions of the current codex, which is, of course, the only thing we know about for certain.

So, Angry Gretchin, enjoy the tactics thread for the current bugs list until it gets replaced and all of the old dogs get to learn a bunch of new tricks and everyone gets to be confused again for a month or so.

And, in case you're wondering, defilers are great against bugs. Big ones, small ones, any of them. Flamers and big templates are the bane of any horde army, no matter how tough they might be. And since bugs have no AT that's reliably effective at range, just keep the big spider safe from outflankers and it'll do plenty of damage.

Well, some of us already looked into the new codex.
The GW stores and my retailer, Spieleland HH, got copied versions.
So not all comments are as innocent as they might look.

But it's then a pretty limited discussion...how far do you expect to get.
Certainly the juices are flowing, but it's not wildly useful at the moment IMO.

People are mixing things up, people are uninformed, I guess it's a love/hate thing to these sorts of things.

I enjoy getting the information, but it sort of sounds like people are just showing off they got to see the codex behind the counter first...at least I get that sort of vibe a little.

Nurglitch wrote:Considering that the Thousand Suns can walk away from the Carnifex and still shoot up to 24" range, I'd be willing to risk rolling lots of 5-.

Take 9 Thousand Suns, because it's easy to crunch the numbers. At 12" and under, you would get 18 shots. On average 12 would hit. On average 2 would wound. At 13-24" you would get 9 shots, 6 hits, 1 wound. In fact, this is one of the few situations where an Aspiring Sorcerer with a Bolt of Change would be a good idea.

Thousand Suns are plenty useful against other armies. Their ability to shoot up to 24" as they advance, resist AP3- weapons, rapid fire prior to assaulting, and have AP3 shots is handy. They also make good escorts for Sorcerers of Tzeentch.

and what is your game plan when I don't expose my carni's to your single short/medium range counter squad o wise one? XD

Thousand Sons are going to be just as bad against the new Nids as they were and are against anything else.

Reason #1 is that 1k Sons are simply grossly overcosted for 5th "Cover Saves Are Everywhere" Edition, and they still die just like a normal marine to anything Ap4 or higher (which is basically every gun in the 'Nid codex).

Reason #2 is that the new Tyranid codex has created multiple new dynamic deployment options for Big Nids. Drop pods and tunneling give MCs new options for getting into their huggable range, presenting far greater mobility than when they previously had to footslog across the table. Thinking that you'll somehow get to stand your Slow and Purposeful gunline in the corner and take pot shots at charging MCs for 24" is bogus.

Reason #3 is that with the changes to synapse, unit classifications, deployment options, and point costs, little bugs, especially little bugs with Poison/Furious Charge, are going to be very viable. 1k Sons are complete failure against Orks and they'll continue to be a complete failure against swarms of Horma/Termagaunts and Gargoyles.

Reason #4 is that to really take advantage of 1kSon's only real offensive measure, Ap3 boltguns, you have to not be in a transport (or content with the utter failure that is 2 boltguns firing from the top hatch). 25-50 ppm Marines simply can't afford to be standing in a field against a list that can drop 20 Termagaunts spewing dakka on their heads.

The units that will be useful for CSM are the same units that are useful against everybody else. Small Plague Marine squads will be pretty good because of their ability to shrug off little bugs in the shooting or assault phase, and their ability to ignore the majority of Tyranid long range firepower with 3+/FNP. Zerks will be pretty good at killing bugs of all sizes. Basic CSM will be good because they're just a cheap, solid troop choice that can tote two special weapons. Havok-launcher Rhinos, Oblits, Preds, CC Defilers, and Daemon Princes round out the army.

1kSons, Bikes, Raptors, and Possessed did not somehow become any better or more viable than they already were. Chaos players will take the exact same fundamental cookie-cutter units that they were before, and continue to do about as well as before.

Grundz:

Then the Thousand Suns volley whatever target is in range. Duh.

Darkhound:

Just as "5+" means rolling 5 & 6, "5-" means rolling 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5. Taking the risk of rolling these is not the same as actually rolling these however, so limiting the value of weapons to efficiency and speed of wounding really misses the efficacy of high volumes of fire - if you get even slightly lucky then the Thousand Suns will murder a Carnifex each turn. Plasma Guns, for example, are more dangerous to use, and Lascannons costly (and may have other targets), and both come on more vulnerable platforms.

Something I think you fail to appreciate, Darkhound, is that despite the Tyranid Codex being an unknown quantity, the Tyranids themselves will not change except to increase their anti-tank. Cowering your Thousand Suns in a Rhino is the wrong way to go about using them because the Tyranids will close quickly and will shred those Rhinos.

If the Thousand Suns absorb a metric fuq-ton of anti-infantry fire, then that's anti-infantry fire that's not going into the rest of your army, because depending on vehicles to protect your squads is conventional thinking that does not apply to fighting an army that does not itself have vehicles, and that will need every last drop of firepower. Holding back on your own anti-infantry firepower will see the list-hammer CSM armies mulched. Speaking of firepower, of course you should assault with Thousand Suns. They add a volume of attacks to any assault. Now, if you're stupid enough to engage in single-unit assaults, of course that's going to look like a bad idea, but using them as part of an assault, say in combination with Lesser Daemons, Chaos Dreadnoughts, etc, then you can start applying leverage.

For example, suppose your Thousand Suns are faced with a Carnifex and a swarm of 30 Termagants. You don't want to sit back and let the Termagants shoot you up and the Carnifex to gain charging bonuses. You shoot the Termagants, charge both units (minimal Carnifex, maximal Termagants), and use the over-flow of wounds caused on the Termagants to win the combat and inflict No Retreat! wounds on the Carnifex. That's if the Aspiring Sorcerer doesn't murder the Carnifex first.

It's the same with Orks. You don't charge a mob of 30 Orks with a unit of Thousand Suns because you expect them to perform as well as Berzerkers, or even Chaos Space Marines, you charge that mob because receiving the charge would be handing the advantage to the Ork player - you deny them a shooting phase, charge advantage, and lock them into combat with something nasty to wander over and wipe them out.

Using the AP3 shots to lower the Tyranid's saving throws from Sv3+ to Cv4+ and so on will

In other words, the fact that the Thousand Suns will roll 1/6 wounds on average has little to say about what they actually will roll.

Nurglitch wrote:If the Thousand Suns absorb a metric fuq-ton of anti-infantry fire...

They won't. Against Ap4+ weapons, they're just Marines. Really, really expensive Marines. This statement would be true of Plague Marines, but definitely not 1k Sons.

and use the over-flow of wounds caused on the Termagants to win the combat and inflict No Retreat! wounds on the Carnifex. That's if the Aspiring Sorcerer doesn't murder the Carnifex first.

Even if such mythical situations exist (considering the giant squad of footslogging Slow and Purposeful 1ksons would somehow have to get this close without being shot to pieces) Plague Marines or Khorne Berzerkers do it better and cheaper.

It's the same with Orks. You don't charge a mob of 30 Orks with a unit of Thousand Suns because you expect them to perform as well as Berzerkers, or even Chaos Space Marines, you charge that mob because receiving the charge would be handing the advantage to the Ork player - you deny them a shooting phase, charge advantage, and lock them into combat with something nasty to wander over and wipe them out.

The difference being that while Plague Marines are durable enough to weather the assault and Berzerkers are powerful enough to win through CC resolution, 1kSons are going to get hacked to pieces. It's like killing a grizzly bear by shoving your body into its mouth to choke it to death. Lose/Lose.

And then you consider that your squad is running 300 points to "tie up" a 180 point unit.... You're willingly allowing an expensive firebase unit to get tarpitted by a squad of inexpensive blob bugs. That's definitely not Tactical Genius.

In other words, the fact that the Thousand Suns will roll 1/6 wounds on average has little to say about what they actually will roll.

Any "plan" that relies on rolling a bunch of 6s invariably fails far more often than not.

Instead of discussing hour after hour I'll just give you a simple advice:
Play your sons in some real fights on the table and see how they'll do against Nids and the rest. If they work for you and kill fex after fex they're just fine, play 'em. And if not... that's how things work. Murphy's law is cruel, I know it from my own experiences .
I don't believe that the sons are actually bad, they're just overcostet 2 points per model and the bloody magus you're forced to take makes em really expensive (60 points for an unequiped sarge...). It's a shame, as a Space Wolf I would like the idea to actually face the sons in battle for some real fluffy duel. But outside fluff lists you won't find them too quickly.
If you like the models (like I do), take them and play them, not everything in the hobby is about "point-effectivnes" .

AK-47 will eliminate any nid players. Otherwise, wait till the codex out before making any conclusion.

Ragnar Blackmane:

That's some good advice, but the problem is that you can't just throw units on the table and just them by your experience. You have to have some pre-existing criteria by which to judge them because it may be the case that you, the player, misuse them, and don't recognize that you're misusing them.

Speaking of pre-existing criteria, what we do know is their capabilities, which is really what most people know about them. Unfortunately this is about as far as discussions in the Tactics Forum go, which is unfortunate because it doesn't really reach a tactical level, which is both what you have and what you can do with it in combination with other elements of the army. If it goes any further, it's usually something screamingly obvious, like the Lash of Submission.

So what are the capabilities of the Thousand Suns? Let's consider the Aspiring Sorcerer. Sixty points bare. Pretty expensive, eh? No, actually.

Take an Aspiring Champion, who is 30 points. Then add a Power Weapon. That's 45 points. Then add Iv5+ and a Mark of Tzeentch on top of that for Iv4+. Let's call that 5 points. Then add the Inferno Bolts on the Aspiring Sorcerer's Bolt Pistol. And then factor in Instant Kill power of the Force Weapon. Call those 5 points altogther. And then add in the Psychic Powers, two of which can be cast in combination thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch. Another 5 points.

The Aspiring Sorcerer is therefore pretty much equivalent in points value to any other Champion character in the Codex. With Warptime he'll outfight and outshoot them.

But that's almost irrelevant compared to how you should use that Aspiring Sorcerer and his minions. Tyranids bring out how they need to be used, or at least the last Codex did, because you can't play Tyranids and win by skulking around in transports hoping that Heavy Weapons and special weapons will be able to do all the work.

No you don't skulk around in your transports. You drive up and broadside Genestealers or Gaunts with your rapid firing bolters. Anything bigger than that does get killed by heavy and special weapons because bolters are ineffective. Chaos Space Marines don't sprinkle fire into the enemy for a few turns. We make large strokes. Thousand Sons want to be used like Space Marines, firing at range to wear the enemy down, but nothing else in the codex fights like that. Noise Marines, Obliterators, and Predators all aim to annihilate their targets at range. Berserkers, Plague Marines, and just about everything else in the codex fight in close, unafraid of melee. Thousand Sons are an awkward middle; need to rapid fire to maximize their damage, but this risks close combat where they are ineffective. They are bad because the codex they are in doesn't want to synergize with them.

As for your analysis of the Champion: so the Sorcerer is priced about right. That still doesn't mean the 60 point investment is worth it. With Warptime he makes one really good pistol shot, and he fights some-what well in close combat, but he can't pull the entire squad through in combat. A regular Champion fights almost as well for less points, but he also has a squad backing him up that can fight in close.