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This list will pretty much own every footslogger army out there(and there are a lot of those) and have a more than decent chance against others:

1 Lvl 3 Sorc of Tzeentch w/ Sigil, Disc
1 Herald of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch, MOS
1 Herald of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch, MOS

6 Flamers

9 Thousand Sons
9 Thousand Sons
6 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch (herald in here)
6 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch (herald in here)

9 Screamers of Tzeentch

2 Obliterators of Tzeentch
2 Obliterators of Tzeentch
1739 points

 mortetvie wrote:


You can easily build your army around the weaknesses of TS in the new codex.

1.) I think Ahriman (or a mastery 3 sorcerer with MoT) and a 3 mastery sorcerer with Telepathy is a good start. Mainly for invisibility and hallucination can really change the game for your units giving +3 to cover and making their targets in CC WS1 (consequently making the invisible unit hit on a 5+).

Telepathy also has access to a power that takes away the benefit of fearless so you can now run down Tyranids and full Ork mobs if you do well enough in combat.

2.) Anti tank-cheap havocs, predators or obliterators provide nice ranged anti tank while chaos bikers or Chosen or cheaper CSM marines with meltas are nice as well.

3.) Anti horde-obliterators and Helldrake with baleflamer is very nifty here. Bolters are bolters and they are still decent against hordes.

4.) Close Combat-Terminators and bike units seem to be able to fit this roll nicely and if you get invisibility, that power can make or break a particular combat-it will make your terminators insane killing machines.

5.) Allies-Flamers are great at punching terminator armor and dealing with hordes while Screamers are great at taking out all kinds of armor and are great in CC against anything without an invul save (and they can have invisibility cast on them thanks to being battle brothers).

Anyway, this is just to get the ball rolling with things you can include in your army to help make TS more viable and effective...After all, as people have pointed out, the TS come in very handy in certain situations and against certain targets JUST like a meltagun comes in handy against a tank or unit...against hordes, who cares but good players will always find good targets for their weapons.

Seems like your list is full of everything except thousand sons.

Kevlar, I said that those are things you can add to an army containing Thousand Sons to offset any weaknesses that Thousand Sons may have...since this whole post is about TS, I assumed it would be obvious that the army would have TS in them =/.

 Lokas wrote:

Forcemajeure wrote:

 Lokas wrote:
...although I can understand why some people (myself included) would salivate at the idea of AP 3 overwatch.

Too bad that they cant use overwatch, due to SaP.

...You do realize that the whole Slow And Purposeful not allowing Overwatch thing was what actually what led into my comment about AP 3 overwatch being an awesome pipe dream?

Or did you literally read nothing of my post but that one line out of context?

Sorry, misunderstood. English is only my second language.

 Valek wrote:
This list will pretty much own every footslogger army out there(and there are a lot of those) and have a more than decent chance against others:

1 Lvl 3 Sorc of Tzeentch w/ Sigil, Disc
1 Herald of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch, MOS
1 Herald of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch, MOS

6 Flamers

9 Thousand Sons
9 Thousand Sons
6 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch (herald in here)
6 Horrors of Tzeentch w/ Bolt of Tzeentch (herald in here)

9 Screamers of Tzeentch

2 Obliterators of Tzeentch
2 Obliterators of Tzeentch
1739 points

It's a good list, but saying it will own every footslogging list is naive, as is stating any army will own all the competition. The only units that are super good here against footsloggers are the Flamers and Horrors, and that's relying a lot on very little, especially when they are forced to DS. It also doesn't put out as much firepower as most footslogging armies, who should be able to match it or better in a firefight.

I hope I can explain my frustration with thousand sons properly. I think they are a very mediocre unit that could have had a lot of potential. I really think they were mishandled and might require a new direction.

When I look at Thousand Sons marines I see a fearless bolter CSM at almost double the cost of a normal CSM. They may come with a mildly more interesting gun and might have cover when they aren't behind cover or in close combat, but they still look an awful lot like a very expensive standard marine to me.

Now I guess that could be forgivable, but then you realize on top of the ludicrous cost, they've heaped on a couple drawbacks.

Thousand Sons marines make no use of their slow and purposeful. Rather hinders their purpose really. You can't move them around very well without a rhino and they lose out on overwatch, something I was really hoping would redeem their expensive gun. It's just a hindrance. On a guy that needs to be firing as often as possible to be justifying his expense poor movement and the loss of a firing mechanic is pretty damning.

The Sorcerer is a bit of a tax. No, there isn't any buying the sons for their own very specialized purpose and there isn't any buying a cheap unit of sons for the sorc because together they make a really expensive awkward unit with conflicting very specific applications. Who's all that into TZ powers anyway? I was really hoping the TZ powers would have a lot of utility and give an army some depth but they are all just mediocre shooting attacks, and usually shooting attacks that aren't meant for the same target as your expensive bolters. Wouldn't you rather just have been able to pick up some reasonable cheap special/heavy weapons that you could choose and rely on?

You could also say the lack of oppertunity to add depth via special weapons is a drawback, though TS are so prohibitively costed and specialized for very particular tasks it would be a real waste if they weren't constantly doing the job of forcing coversaves on 3+ and 4+. If they aren't you could have spent that money on more men or units that add depth. I guess TS add depth in a way of their own, it's just they're sort of bad at it.

Their abilities don't even work particularly well togther. We've been over the poor mobility vs expensive rapid fire weapons issue. The lack of over watch too. But fearless and 4++ are really really decent upgrades on melee guys, but TS are an incredible waste of points slugging it out in melee. The sorc isn't awful at it, but then he's wasting his witch fire and again the waste of the squads shooting.

Sorta in conclusion. They`re fearless marines that kill marines a little bit better than your 13 point ones do, have an awful lot less reliable utility and come with a bunch of dumb awkwardness to deal with, that, for the most part gets in the way of efficiently doing what you think the unit is costed for.

I really wish they could have been good. I was hoping GW would see the light and make ap3 more reasonably costed when paired with low strength and make the aspiring sorceror grant you the utility that a cryptek does for some clunky necron units but alas, they resolved to make it all expensive, hard to use and ill fitting again.

Dont forget the sorcerers and airman have champion of chaos which if fully against fluff as they can no longer mutate

muagenreaper wrote:
Dont forget the sorcerers and airman have champion of chaos which if fully against fluff as they can no longer mutate

Actually the sorcerers can still indeed mutate, the Rubric empowered them and removed all former mutations, but Tzeentch gives what he wants..Except to the now dust marines, who cannot be mutated for obvious reasons.

Lokas wrote: ... Keep in mind though, bolters are bolters and bolters aren't that great for killing hordes, vehicles or flyers ...

the_scotsman wrote: ... Cc? Suck. Hordes? Suck ...

I noticed an interesting combo yesterday that could help them deal with hordes.
Take the primaris power for your Tsons sorcerer, pack 'em in a rhino with a havoc launcher & warpflame gargoyles and blast away! I know rhinos are crap and all but if your opponent doesn't decide to take them out they could provide some decent all round anti infantry support (bar any 2+ models).
I'm no mathhammer expert but I'd imagine all the bolter shots + the blasts from the psychic power & havoc launcher, along with any extra wounds from the gargoyles & inferno rules you'd be causing a sufficient amount of casualties to thin out a horde.

Actually 1k sons are a pretty damn good unit. 3+, 4++ and AP 3 rapid fire weapons is pretty potent. Their cost is prohibitive but the real weakness of the unit is they have no solve for MCs, Terminators, or Vehicles outside the Aspiring Sorc .

I think they excel at moving to mid field and creating a 24" exclusion zone for MEQs, but there are so many units that 1k Sons cannot reasonably harm they just are way overcosted with very few options.

Actually I've been very happy with SaP on them this book, nothing like charging whats left of a tac squad after a rapid fire, cleaning house with VoTLW and getting that consolidat. Plus it means you dont have to choose between forcing saves on termies or tarpiting them with invulns, you get to do both.

 Bloodecho wrote:
Actually I've been very happy with SaP on them this book, nothing like charging whats left of a tac squad after a rapid fire, cleaning house with VoTLW and getting that consolidat. Plus it means you dont have to choose between forcing saves on termies or tarpiting them with invulns, you get to do both.

That is a good point, getting to rapid fire and assault gives you a lot more wounds than you'd otherwise inflict in one turn. Effectively gives them assault bolters ...

I've got a plan for my 1k sons army that I think can negate their drawbacks.

this is roughly around 2000 pts
Ahriman
3 terminators with combi-meltas, 1 powerfist, 1 chainfist
9 1k sons
9 1k sons
2 forgefiends
2 helldrakes
Dark Apostle with Mark of Khorne, Axe of blind fury
x35 cultists with mark of khorne

So the plan here, infiltrate the cultists/DApostle who have fearless, hatred, rage, counter-attack, and hopefully invisibility from Ahriman = ridiculous number of attack in a big fearless blob. Use this to tie up a big scary unit.

Infiltrate 1k sons or deploy normal, walk up slowly behind the cultist shield and rain down bolter fire on marines.

Aspiring sorcerer in the 1k sons squad either uses the shooting psychic attack to help out his squad, or uses boon of mutation hiding right behind the cultist/dark apostle squad to beef up the DA in the first one or two turns.

Terminators stay in between the two 1k sons squad to offer CC help. Combi-meltas/ chianfists just in case a vehicle gets to close.

Forgefiends take down any kind of armor short of A14 (save that for the terminators)

Helldrakes provide Anti-air with meteoric descent and the gun on one. Anti-horde from a baleflamer on the other.