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What is better in the current meta where we have tons of Meltas, Missile Launchers, Wolf riding Marines and tons of Dark Matter Weaponry???

Bearing in mind they also have to claim objectives.

Plague Marines, no question. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

nurgle. My friend plays them (keeps forgetting about T5, but anyway)- They are incredibly frustrating to play against.

Thousand sons I would prefer model-wise. I've never liked the look of nurgle forces.

I take both, two troops of each normally. This follows with a lash sorcerer who just pulls MEQ out of cover and my TS just remove them from the battle. The ol PM's can do a lot of other things for me, but SAP ap3 marines with +4 invun are hard to deal with

In general, Plague Marines. Given a Power fist, and they're pretty effective against anything, has a hell of a lot more survivability than normal Marines (T5 mean on average 1/6 less wounds, and FnP means on average 1/2 of the failed wounds are ignored). PF's main drawback is nonexistant, since PMs tend to go after normal MEQs, Nids and Eldar anyways. Defensive grenades means that out of all the MEQs they're actually suited to poping out of rhinos and shooting stuff up.

Thousand Sons look good on paper, but as juraigamer said, you need a Lash Sorceror to get the most out of them. a 4+ invul save is nothing since near everything has a 4+ cover save now. AP3 is also kinda useless for the above reaon, since again everything now has a 4+ cover save. TS squads are mainly there so you can use extra Sorcerors (who only have access to Tzeentch spells anyways) and are ridiculously overcosted.

I got ya guys - TY.

I wish I could take both, but with a 750 pt HQ and Elite choice, it only leaves me with 750 points.

MinMax wrote:Plague Marines, no question. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

Blessed is the mind too small for doubt...

The Thousand Suns have many advantages over the Plague Marines, just as the Plague Marines have many over the Thousand Suns:

Plague Marines
T4(5)
Feel No Pain
Defensive Grenades
Frag Grenades
Close Combat Weapons and Pistols
Special Weapons
I3
Plague Champion

Thousand Suns
Iv4+
Slow and Purposeful (move and fire Bolters out to 24", move, shoot, and charge with Bolters)
Inferno Bolts
I4
Aspiring Sorcerer

What does this mean? It means that the Thousand Suns will have half the casualties of Plague Marines against Plasma, Krak Missiles, Battlecannons, etc, and Plague Marines will have a third the casualties against small arms.

Thousand Suns will have an effective range, moving towards a target an average of ~5", of 29". The Plague Marines will have an effective range of 18".

Against Space Marines in cover, 10 Plague Marines can expect 16 shots from their Bolters, 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 2- to fail saves: 1.77. They can also expect 2 shots from their Melta Guns, 3+ to hit, 2+ to wound, 3- to fail saves: 0.56
So about three Space Marines.

Against Space Marines in cover, 10 Thousand Suns can expect 19 shots from the Bolter and Bolt Pistol, 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 3- to fail saves: 3.18
So about three Space Marines.

If those Space Marines are caught outside of cover, either because you relied in the Lash of Submission, or simply good tactics, then you see the Plague Marine results stay flat because the Melta Guns just kick up to 1.11. The Thousand Suns, on the other hand, get 19 shots, 3+ to hit, and 4+ to wound, or 6.37.

Plague Marines also attack at I3, meaning they'll attack after all the Power Weapons have finished making a mockery of their Armour and Feel No Pain. Conversely the Thousand Suns are I1 on the charge, thanks to Slow and Purposeful. But they attack at I4 thereafter and if charged. If they charge, the Thousand Suns will get two Inferno Bolter Shots at 3+ to hit, and then 2 attacks at I1, whereas the Plague Marines will get one Bolt Pistol shot at 3+ to hit, and then 3 attacks at I3. The balance of the most attacks at the right time goes to the Thousand Suns. Enemies will also get fewer attacks charging the Thousand Suns.

Speaking of being charged:

If Plague Marines have a choice of moving away from an enemy that comes within a 12" charge range, or shooting at it. The Thousand Suns can do both. This ability to fire on the move up to 24" away, whether moving towards, away, or laterally, is really useful.

The Plague Champion and Aspiring Sorcerer are pretty much even, with both able to cause Instant Death at ~60pts, the Plague Champion armed with a Power Fist, but the Sorcerer can attack at I4 with 3 attacks. Because the Sorcerer has the Mark of Tzeentch, it can cast non-shooting psychic powers twice. That means it can cast Force Weapon on the same turn as Warptime, or Gift of Chaos twice.

Now there's the question of Special Weapons. That certainly puts the ball in the Plague Marine's court, until you realize that the Aspiring Sorcerer can take the Bolt of Tzeentch, a 24" S8 AP1 weapon. Sure, you won't get 2D6 penetration, but a Melta Gun will have to be within 6" for that, giving the Thousand Suns +12" of Melta shot, and the Plague Marines +1 shot between 6"-12" and Melta at really close range.

I disagree with Plague Marines suffering more casualties against AP3 and 2 weapons. With Cover saves all over the place, they can easily get a 4+ one. Fact of the matter is, it's mainly the new cover saves rules that make TS seem unfavourable in terms of competitive play.

Also, Slow and Purposeful no longer forces you to fight at I1 at any point at all.

Your arguments for Thousand Sons are quite valid and that there are indeed things from the PMs that they can replicate or outright outdo. However, the majority of the time the TS are going to be facing down small arms fire, which the PMs are much more resistant to. Power weapon proferation is also not that big of a problem, as the only ones who possess them are either terminators (which PMs will go before) or Banshees and Khorne Daemon stuff. Banshees wound PMs on a 6, meaning very few would actually be wounded, and against Thousand Sons, the initiative penalty is nonexistant. Against Khorne Daemons, they can be easily shot up before they get within charging range (not to mention they have to deepstrike). In addition, Khorne Daemons all have Furious Charge, meaning that (again) the initiative penalty is a non-issue. These opponents also possess small arms when it comes to ranged attacks (or no range attack at all in the case of Khorne Daemons) so PMs will have more wounds going into the fight. Against smaller, Sarge-level Power Weapons, it is still debatable. PMs would put out twice the amount of attacks, and decrease the amount of attacks the charging squad has. Higher Toughness means that unless they're facing a Power Fist (which would again render the Initiative penalty moot) they're also gonna be harder to actually wound, meaning less wounds overall suffered by the squad. Against Tanks, PMs can ride up in a rhino and fire out twice the amount of melta shots into the metal box, meaning they are far superior at taking it down.

TS would be vastly superior at MC hunting though. With the Force Weapon, they can easily take it down in one round of combat. High AP shots means that most of the time the MC's armor would be rendered useless, and because of their size they will rarely get that precious Cover Save. Against everything else however, PMs do just as well.

MechaEmperor7000:

See p.76 of the Rulebook: Slow and Purposeful models always count as moving through difficult terrain, including in assaults. Moving through difficult terrain on the charge means that you attack at I1. This is a change from the 4th edition where Slow and Purposeful merely negated one's bonus attack from charging.

Let's consider the following:
Plague Marines (10) shooting Banshees (10):
(8)(1)(4/6)(4/6)(3/6) = 1.80 expected casualties, so ~2
Howling Banshees (8) attacking Doomed Plague Marines (10)
(8)(2)(3/6)(1/6) = 2.00 expected casualties, or 2
Thousand Suns (10) shooting Banshees (10)
(9)(2)(4/6)(4/6) = 8.08 expected casualties, so ~8
Howling Banshees attacking Doomed Thousand Suns
(2)(3)(3/6)(2/6)(3/6) = 0.74 expected casualties, so ~1.

The difference in shots? Plague Marines can't leave cover, or they lose their Cv4, so they're stuck shooting at a unit that can charge from over 12" away. Thousand Suns don't need the cover, and can be expected to move 4.5" closer to the enemy and get within 12" rapid fire range. Their Inferno rounds negate the Banshee's armour, capitalizing on the shots. It turns out prevention is better than the cure...

Whoa whoa whoa! I totally forgot about how the mark on the aspiring sorcerer worked! Blast it all! I was only using doombolt! Must rework some points it seems now...

PMs against Banshees would actually leave cover. That was one of the arguments I made for them since their profile and FnP made them largely resistant to their Shuriken Pistols. They would not sit idly in cover when up against Banshees in this case, especially if they were going to be charged. Sure there is also other factors on the field that could change this, but same goes for the Thousand Sons (who might be more susceptable to mass fire from other sources). On top of that, you also claimed that Thousand Sons would not sit idly while being charged, so they would back up. In this case, PMs would get more shots off than TS due to the type of tactics you employ. In addition, assuming there is cover, the Banshees would take it, thus (again) negating the Inferno's AP3.

A Comparison like this must take in to account all factors if you decide to include any, otherwise there is an obvious bias towards one side. This is why I tend to prefer calculations based in a total vaccum, as that leaves less to bias (not saying you intentionally did it, but giving factors such as PMs stayin in cover is largely dependant on what the enemy has and what the field looks like. The event of them staying in cover in lieu of shooting up the banshees is rather null given how widespread cover saves are right now, even intervening enemy troops can give you cover)

I believe IIIIIIII have an air of authority on this one. (Army of Thousand Sons)
Rather than looking at just the casualties inflicted by bolters and what not I like to look at the versatility of each unit.

Plague Marines have the ability to take two special weapons (melta/plasma) making them able to kill any high armor/high toughness enemies they come across. Land Raiders are reduced to melted slag and terminators are left with a crippled squad (as long as it isn't SS TH termies...). Plauge Marines are not slot like the boys in blue (and yellow) and are not reliant on the 90+ pt sgt to stay alive. T 5 is really what saves the PM and the FNP is just an extra middle finger to anyone who isn't using an armor ignoring weapon. The Problem is TS die just as easy to small arms fire like any marine would.

MechaEmperor7000:

There is no vacuum in the game, and we should include additional information. Take your assertion about the Plague Marines leaving cover: If there was cover, they would not because outside of cover there are plenty of Eldar weapons that make a mockery of their Toughness bonus and Feel No Pain. The Thousand Suns can leave cover without that risk.

If they move towards the Banshees, then they can get them with more shots, and perhaps negate their armour. That risks the charge from the surviving Banshees, but if they move away, then they only get as many shots, give or take 1, as the Plague Marines camping in cover, perhaps negate their armour and they forgo the risk of a charge by the Banshees.

But backing up out of charge range does not demonstrate the superiority of the Thousand Suns in both mobility, range, and firepower, just mobility and range.

Personally I find it amusing that people go on about how widespread cover saves are. One of the advantages to Slow and Purposeful (one that Obliterators share...) is that they can move laterally to the enemy to deny cover saves.

Plus there's plenty of ways to either force or draw units out of cover besides the Lash of Submission. And, as the case of shooting at the Space Marines showed, there's often great benefit to reducing a unit's saving throw from Sv3+ to Cv4+.

Regarding Tyranids, either the small Broods are going to ignore the Plague Marine Toughness bonus with Toxin Sacs, thanks to Poison (4+), or the Monstrous Creatures are going to ignore their Armour and Feel No Pain. It's a wash with the small creatures except the Thousand Suns can run away more effectively, and the presence of Invulnerble saves and a Force weapon (and AP3 guns) gives them a tremendous advantage against Monstrous Creatures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pen≥Sword:

Plague Marines and Thousand Suns share the problem of vulnerability to specific types of weapons; one that Chaos Space Marines lack. If anything Thousand Suns are more vulnerable to anti-infantry weapons than regular Chaos Space Marines because they're so expensive. Likewise Plague Marines are more vulnerable to stuff which ignores their bonuses because one wound on them is more costly than one wound on a Chaos Space Marine.

Nurglitch wrote:

MinMax wrote:Plague Marines, no question. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

Blessed is the mind too small for doubt...

The Thousand Suns have many advantages over the Plague Marines, just as the Plague Marines have many over the Thousand Suns:

Plague Marines
T4(5)
Feel No Pain
Defensive Grenades
Frag Grenades
Close Combat Weapons and Pistols
Special Weapons
I3
Plague Champion

Thousand Suns
Iv4+
Slow and Purposeful (move and fire Bolters out to 24", move, shoot, and charge with Bolters)
Inferno Bolts
I4
Aspiring Sorcerer

What does this mean? It means that the Thousand Suns will have half the casualties of Plague Marines against Plasma, Krak Missiles, Battlecannons, etc, and Plague Marines will have a third the casualties against small arms.

Thousand Suns will have an effective range, moving towards a target an average of ~5", of 29". The Plague Marines will have an effective range of 18".

Against Space Marines in cover, 10 Plague Marines can expect 16 shots from their Bolters, 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 2- to fail saves: 1.77. They can also expect 2 shots from their Melta Guns, 3+ to hit, 2+ to wound, 3- to fail saves: 0.56
So about three Space Marines.

Against Space Marines in cover, 10 Thousand Suns can expect 19 shots from the Bolter and Bolt Pistol, 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 3- to fail saves: 3.18
So about three Space Marines.

If those Space Marines are caught outside of cover, either because you relied in the Lash of Submission, or simply good tactics, then you see the Plague Marine results stay flat because the Melta Guns just kick up to 1.11. The Thousand Suns, on the other hand, get 19 shots, 3+ to hit, and 4+ to wound, or 6.37.

Plague Marines also attack at I3, meaning they'll attack after all the Power Weapons have finished making a mockery of their Armour and Feel No Pain. Conversely the Thousand Suns are I1 on the charge, thanks to Slow and Purposeful. But they attack at I4 thereafter and if charged. If they charge, the Thousand Suns will get two Inferno Bolter Shots at 3+ to hit, and then 2 attacks at I1, whereas the Plague Marines will get one Bolt Pistol shot at 3+ to hit, and then 3 attacks at I3. The balance of the most attacks at the right time goes to the Thousand Suns. Enemies will also get fewer attacks charging the Thousand Suns.

Speaking of being charged:

If Plague Marines have a choice of moving away from an enemy that comes within a 12" charge range, or shooting at it. The Thousand Suns can do both. This ability to fire on the move up to 24" away, whether moving towards, away, or laterally, is really useful.

The Plague Champion and Aspiring Sorcerer are pretty much even, with both able to cause Instant Death at ~60pts, the Plague Champion armed with a Power Fist, but the Sorcerer can attack at I4 with 3 attacks. Because the Sorcerer has the Mark of Tzeentch, it can cast non-shooting psychic powers twice. That means it can cast Force Weapon on the same turn as Warptime, or Gift of Chaos twice.

Now there's the question of Special Weapons. That certainly puts the ball in the Plague Marine's court, until you realize that the Aspiring Sorcerer can take the Bolt of Tzeentch, a 24" S8 AP1 weapon. Sure, you won't get 2D6 penetration, but a Melta Gun will have to be within 6" for that, giving the Thousand Suns +12" of Melta shot, and the Plague Marines +1 shot between 6"-12" and Melta at really close range.

All of what you wrote there is what has been going through my head while writing my army list.

The armies I face tend to have more "big guns" than small ones. It tends to be MSU instead of large units which usually have lots of small guns.

Now with DE being quite a new army in regards to their new codex, the Thousand Sons tend to be a lot more beneficial than the Plague Marines as the DE I've used and played against have tons of Dark Matter weaponry that fry Plague Marines and have only a 50% chance of killing Thousand Sons Marines in the open.

In regards to the Lash Prince, does it become an auto include when an army contains Thousand Sons???

I currently have Abaddon as my HQ in 1.5k and I don't think he will disappoint, but as for Lash Prince, I've never used them or know what the hoohah is about them.

All of what I wrote there didn't need to be quoted...

Back in 4th edition when Codex: Chaos Space Marines was new and scary people liked to combine Daemon Princes of Slaanesh with units of Thousand Suns to drag Space Marines out of cover. It can still happen, but it's inefficient.

The "hoohah" is basically that people don't recognize the deficiencies of Daemon Princes with the Lash of Submission, such as not being able to use the Lash of Submission in combat, being a big target that needs to be within 24" and line of sight to use the Lash of Submission, and not being able to use it on units in vehicles.

You're better off with a Sorcerer of Slaanesh with the Lash of Submission, a Familiar, and another psychic power like Warptime or Gift of Chaos. They can also have Wings, use transports, hide in units, and have an Icon (and be possessed by Greater Daemons in a pinch). Or if you have to go the Daemon Prince route, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Nurgle's Rot is going to do way more damage.

I duely pointed out that TS are far superior at MC hunting than Plague Marines, never denied that point. However Termagaunts and Hormagaunts are just as susceptable to Bolter fire from PMs as TSs, and the PM's FnP means that they suffer half the casualties from Hormies. Being charged by a Tervigon-buffed (with Adrenal Gland) Gaunt squad means that the initiative penalty is removed, and against hormagaunts both the TS and PMs go last. The ability of TS to run away more effectively is subjective, as their movement per turn is random. Given that most of the assaulting units in the Tyranid Codex has Fleet, this means they actually run slower than PMs and would be caught faster unless they decide to use the "Run" rule, by which they loose their bolter fire entirely. PMs are not hampered by this at all and could just sit and fire at the buggers.

As for the subject of cover saves, you are relying on a hasty generalization. SaP means that most of the time they probably wont move far enough to deny cover saves, unless they were just on the edge. Against static cover saves, they would literally have to turn all the way around to negate it. And "plenty of ways" would factor in (again) a bunch of situational things that are far too complicated for a theoretical comparison, and would give alot of leway to PMs too. Lash is used in these comparisions because they are definitive way of pushing enemies out of cover. Once it works, there's no doubt the enemy is going to walk straight into open ground. Also, in your example, the far higher shooting casualty on the banshees was due to the TS moving CLOSER to the Banshees, so I think that was rather bias. Looking at the numbers you calculated, 1 TS died from 2 banshees, while only 2 PMs died from 8 Banshees. I think in that situation, the Sons would rather move away and keep the banshees at bay until they can whittle down their numbers (in the above case you gave, it's much more sensible to constantly back up every turn and pelt the Banshees with the 24" bolter fire, allowing even less banshees to survive. When they do close the distance, move in and inflict the "8" casualties to finish the squad off without ever getting into CC). PMs charging into the fray would kill far more banshees (by my calculations, around 4 for the Bolter fire alone, and 1-2 for the Melta guns, although I prefer Plasma Guns on my PMs) which would resulting in far less casualties (in that example, less than 1 PM would die according to your calculations). This is again why I leave out other factors, as in the hands of a good commander TS can perform just as well or even better than PMs, but PMs can make stupid decisions and still suffer no worse casualties than TS.

EDIT: Just now realised I got ninja'd TWICE.

seconded on the lash sorcerer> prince

Nurglitch wrote:All of what I wrote there didn't need to be quoted...

Back in 4th edition when Codex: Chaos Space Marines was new and scary people liked to combine Daemon Princes of Slaanesh with units of Thousand Suns to drag Space Marines out of cover. It can still happen, but it's inefficient.

The "hoohah" is basically that people don't recognize the deficiencies of Daemon Princes with the Lash of Submission, such as not being able to use the Lash of Submission in combat, being a big target that needs to be within 24" and line of sight to use the Lash of Submission, and not being able to use it on units in vehicles.

You're better off with a Sorcerer of Slaanesh with the Lash of Submission, a Familiar, and another psychic power like Warptime or Gift of Chaos. They can also have Wings, use transports, hide in units, and have an Icon (and be possessed by Greater Daemons in a pinch). Or if you have to go the Daemon Prince route, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Nurgle's Rot is going to do way more damage.

Yup, as I said I use a sorc with lash whenever I want the power, to me though a DP with MOT and warptime + winds of chaos is the best way to "Change" the battlefield in your favor, hurr hurr.

I always take warptime on my aspiring sorcerers. Troops usually see cc in most games, instead of avoiding it, I make every effort to see it happen on my terms. A squad with 3/4 save and a warptimed force weapon is brutal if employed correctly. Warptimed meltabombs give me 1/3 of a chance to stick something, I'll take it. I enjoy and abuse the ability to advance and fire @ full range or to fall back and fire @ range. Slowly moving up and killing elites or just staying out of assault while thinning out the horde is frustrating, even to competent opponents. The psychology of ap3 is amazing! Folks seem to stay tight in cover to avoid Inferno rounds, great! It's funny how often people allow map control due to fear of ap3. I voted Thousand Sons