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Play undivided, prefer undivided. Homebrew warband.

Much love for Alpha Legion and Night Lords though.

 ChazSexington wrote:
I play Alpha Legion, so Chaos Undivided.

 changerofways wrote:

 goblinking201 wrote:

 changerofways wrote:

 goblinking201 wrote:
I mean, it depends on how you play each army.

Certainly, but I think everyone can agree that certain factions of the CSM codex are more powerful than others.

I mean if we are talking about flat power, its hard to pass up AP 3 bolters from the TS.

At 23 points a pop and a 60 point sergeant? I'd much rather take a Plague Marine for one more point and a lower cost sergeant.

I did the maths comparing Thousand Sons to CSMs. The tl;dr is that they aren't as bad as people make them out to be, but really need to be fighting MEQs.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/621919.page

Thank you very much for this!

It's funny... I love me some Tzeentch, but I've never been a big fan of the Thousand Sons. But if I'm picking from the four Legion Cults, that's the direction I'm gonna go.

 ChazSexington wrote:
I did the maths comparing Thousand Sons to CSMs. The tl;dr is that they aren't as bad as people make them out to be, but really need to be fighting MEQs.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/621919.page

Unfortunately, your comparison is flawed in multiple ways. You're not comparing equal squads (230 points of TSons vs 212 points of CSM), and magically removing the sorceror from the Sons buys 2 extra contributing members, not to mention you're fighting your guys against TSons, but you're not comparing the damage output of TSons vs the equivalent amount of CSM's with plasma, which is the real question.

So, ideal targets for the TSons is a marine squad caught in the open with no cover or invulnerable.

5x Thousand Sons + Aspiring Sorceror is 173 points vs 9x CSM with 2x Plasma guns + Aspiring Champion (with bolt pistol/CCW).

Vs Marines in the open, No Cover/Invulnerable

TSons = 1.67 wounds per round at 12 - 24"
CSM = 2.28 wounds per round at 12 - 24"

Even in ideal circumstances for the TSons speciality, they get trounced by >35% based on damage output! In every other engagement I can think of, this only gets worse for the TSons.

OK, so, they can't be used as offensive powerhouses. What about on the defensive side of things?

Lets assume that our same units are caught out in the open by the same Plasma wielding CSM squad and our hapless CSM squad doesn't bother to go to ground since that's again, best case scenario for the TSons.

TSons = take 1.33 wounds per round at 12 - 24"
CSM = take 1.89 wounds per round at 12 - 24"

But, TSons only have 6 guys and the CSM have 10. So, if the same squad just stood there taking weapons fire;

The TSons would have 5.33 dead on round 4 and 6.66 dead on round 5.
The CSm would have 7.55 dead on round 4 and 9.44 dead on round 5.

Again, even assuming best possible conditions for the TSons and the worst possible case for the generic double plasma CSM, the CSM are both more durable and more killy when compared to TSons.

I believe the only time you get actual benefit out of the TSons is when you're getting shot out in the middle of nowhere with no cover saves with Battle Cannons/Ion Accelerators/Demolisher Cannons/Baleflamers etc where you can deny a large amount of models their normal armour and cover saves. In those very specific cases, granted the IA and baleflamer aren't exactly niche, then the TSons can lay claim to trading offense for a defensive advantage. Unfortunately, Thousand Sons are almost exactly as bad as people think they are.

Yes, the Asp. sorceror could possibly make up some of the lost ground with psychic powers, but now you're stealing dice from your HQ (which you had to take to make them troops) who is far more efficient given that he's got a spell familiar. Yes, they have fearless so they're not going to run. Yes, the Aspiring sorceror has a force axe. Shut up, yes, they all have axes if they know what's good for them. Thos last points means they can tarpit stuff very well, but look at the cost of the unit and then decide if it's really worth it. Then again, they're slow and purposeful, so they can't run, nor can they fire overwatch and having smaller units means you are far more subject to streaks of dice luck. They have a reasonable amount of stuff that can't be mathhammered out, but don't ever argue that TSons have a niche killing marines, it's just not true.

Hrm... Would have preferred to have all the legions pickable as a favourite and for what I play.

I love Night Lords and would like to be able to do a full army list with them.

However the book forces me to use a hodgepodge of other units to stand a chance, and also the 4th ed book made me start painting up other units in legion colours to show the legion units.

But the majority of my figures are BL colours (yes I was/am a lazy painter).

So would love to play Khorne, NL or IW but have to play vanilla with smatterings of Nurgle against most armies.

Until then I have about 10-20 of each elite gathering dust and rarely getting used in lists.