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I am confused as to why people like thousand sons space marines over say zerkers or plague marines... or noise marines?

Okay.. they are regular marines with AP3 bolters. Awesome... but then you have to take a 60 points leader.. no questions asked? What tactics do people have with this? how does this helps people, especially when mechanized it the current trend?

AP3 bolters, their champ can have a str 8 ap 1 shot. They have a 3+ 4++ saves slow and purposeful so they may always fire 24"

TS are my least favorite of the four cult troops but they are far from bad. Effective armies can be built around a TS theme.

3++ invuln, a str8 ap1 shot from the Aspiring Sorc, and ap3 bolters that eat MEQ? Why wouldn't you like that?

They are good as a lead force on the ground as there 4+ invulnerable is just as good as cover saves. Speaking of cover saves, they will provide one to units behind them. Take a unit and have it sit near your objective with Oblits behind. The whole shebang will have 4+ saves vs. lascannons.

The 60pt champ can have a nice psychic power, but he always comes with a force weapon and can't be picked out in combat.

I've seen them embarked in a rhino. They zoom up, disembark and rapid fire sixteen ap3 bolters into the marines.

Yes mech is popular, but I have never seen a game where no tank was blown up. The passengers will disembark at some point and then you bolter them.

Also, the sorceror makes them decent at close combat
he can only take one psychic power, but because of MoT he can use two a turn
So basically free force weapon, and if you want to pay it, warptime makes them good at close combat
even crazy units have trouble taking them down because of their 4++, and the sorceror owns people

*sets down brief case, marked "Devil's Advocate"*

DarthDiggler wrote:They are good as a lead force on the ground as their 4+ invulnerable is just as good as cover saves. Speaking of cover saves, they will provide one to units behind them. Take a unit and have it sit near your objective with Oblits behind. The whole shebang will have 4+ saves vs. lascannons.

It is this reason that I'd argue is one that does *not* favor them:

5e is full of Cover Saves, so why have an Inuvln (yeah, yeah, h2h vs. MCs & Pfists)? Otherwise, 1k Sons go down to regular volume like all other marines, except PlagueMarines, who will get back up half the time, and err, be wounded less, due to higher T.

More reasons:
1. 'Sons only have bolters meaning:
a. All other CSM have CC&BP, and thus an add'l h2h attack.
b. Lousy at h2h given other CSM can shoot the BP, then assault with an add'l h2h. Whereas ...
c. ... 'Sons will have to holster their bolters before assault (which, of course, is really lame to assault at all, even given their Invuln).
2. Above mentioned Cover Saves neuter the AP3 ammo.

Those are all decent points, but the same can be said in reverse of Plague Marines vs Thousand Sons. If you're playing against alot of AP 1/2 weapons or high strength, or power weapons, the PM's effectiveness is just as bad as the Thousand Sons vs volume of fire. PM's also have to contend with I3 (although Blight Grenades are pretty handy).

That means there are situations where each is valuable and the other is not.

whitedragon wrote:Those are all decent points, but the same can be said in reverse of Plague Marines vs Thousand Sons. If you're playing against alot of AP 1/2 weapons or high strength, or power weapons, the PM's effectiveness is just as bad as the Thousand Sons vs volume of fire.

I'd counter with ... there's a lack of AP1/2 high STR in any army compared to volume fire at less lethal APs. Most armies simply aren't packing that kind of anti-MEq fun. And I play tau too, with all of that railgun/plasmarifle/fusionblaster goodness.

Let's put it this way; I'd bet that you need one hand to count the number of players you know that use 1k Sons. You'll need all 20 fingers and toes for the players you encounter who use PMs.

They key to 1000 sons working is to give the unit champion warptime, and not a ranged psychic power. The squad is to expensive to lose their AP3 bolter shots so that the aspiring sorcerer can take a single S8 shot at at transport. Something else needs to crack open the transport, so don't worry about cracking a transport with the sorcerer because if the chaos army can't crack a transport without the help of the aspiring sorcerer the battle is already lost.

The champ is downright deadly to IC when given warptime, and as long as the champ can get his warptime off they will actually grind down most MEQ in CC. The power fist does most of the heavy lifting in MEQ v MEQ CC, and they don't work well against thousand sons. IF warptime goes off a sorcerer with warptime will kill more MEQ/turn than a Pfist. The thing to keep in mind when shooting AP3 bolters is it will kill most of a MEQ squad, but not all of them. On the next turn the battered squad will shoot back and charge the 1000 sons, and will then lose the CC because a battered less than half strength squad that relies on a Pfist to do the heavy lifting can't take out 1000 sons with a warptime sorcerer.

They also work best with Lash pulling units out of cover, blasting them with AP3 bolters, and charge with the deamon prince &/or Thousand sons. Where the system fails in the meta game is most MEQ armies have good psychic defense making thousand sons difficult to use in the current game.

Brothererekose wrote:c. ... 'Sons will have to holster their bolters before assault (which, of course, is really lame to assault at all, even given their Invuln).

Thousand Sons are Slow and Purposeful, which will allow them to assault, even after firing their rapid-fire weapons.

MinMax wrote:

Brothererekose wrote:c. ... 'Sons will have to holster their bolters before assault (which, of course, is really lame to assault at all, even given their Invuln).

Thousand Sons are Slow and Purposeful, which will allow them to assault, even after firing their rapid-fire weapons.

Right. Okay, (flips pencil around and attempts to erase 1.c.)

Their huge weakness is the fact that they go down to massed fire just as quickly as normal CSM and are about twice the cost. They can make great MEQ-hunters if you play them right, but you need to be shooting at something really expensive (veterans, battlesuits, tyranid warriors, etc.) in order to make back your points without being a liability.

I like the warptime asp sorc idea. Thow in a normal I5 sorc to back them up, lash prince, and thats monsterous!

Psychic defence sure is important. Worth CSM getting in and wiping it out early if their packing Tz.

I feel like they're an overall good army when facing armies with high armour saves. They're really not going to do a whole lot of damage to an Ork army or a Nid army, but when facing SM, or CSM, that AP 3 really comes in handy.

I’ve had of an interesting strategy of using a Land Raider mounted Thousand Sons squad as an objective camper. Daemonically possessed AV14 packing a full squad of Thousand Sons is something nasty to contend with.

The major flaw with Thousand Sons in my opinion is their cost. When using the CSM codex in 5th edition, you have to be somewhat thrifty when spending points (due to the difference in how 4th edition and 5th edition units are costed). Spending 23pts per model plus a 60pt aspiring sorcerer plus an additional 10-25pts for a psychic power can really hurt.

If I were to personally use Thousand Sons, I’d probably field a single unit as an objective camper (using the strategy above) and recoup the points via trimming a few upgrades or running a cheapish unit or 2 (like Lesser Daemons or Dakka preds).

I'd take at most 2 units of TS in transports, not more.
Otherwise, the pt costs stack up tremendously.
I'd integrate a normal CSM unit as three scoring units should suffice also in larger pt games.

candy.man wrote:I’ve had of an interesting strategy of using a Land Raider mounted Thousand Sons squad as an objective camper. Daemonically possessed AV14 packing a full squad of Thousand Sons is something nasty to contend with. The major flaw with Thousand Sons in my opinion is their cost.

As you've said yourself, TS are costly, so why would you take them in a Land Raider as an objective camper? As good as that may sound, you still only keep 1 objective with them. Unless you're playing a TS themed army, I wouldn't recommend taking Land Raiders with TS as objective campers simply because other units are cheaper and can hold objectives just as well

Pm in a 4+ cover are superior objective campers.

Ts are meq killers, if they are not killing meq they are not doing their primary job.

MekanobSamael wrote:Their huge weakness is the fact that they go down to massed fire just as quickly as normal CSM and are about twice the cost. They can make great MEQ-hunters if you play them right, but you need to be shooting at something really expensive (veterans, battlesuits, tyranid warriors, etc.) in order to make back your points without being a liability.

Spot on here.

The advantages of Thousand Sons have been well documented in this thread so far, but they also have significant and - IMHO - overwhelming flaws.

- 4++ has limited use on a troop choice that would lose in close combat anyway and has even less use against shooting due to the abundance of cover and are as 'tough' against small arms as CSM's. Their 4++ is only really useful against heavy weapons which will unlikely be directed against them.

- Plague Marines are tougher, cheaper and can take special weapons.

- Expensive, particularly for a troop choice.

- Aspiring Sorcerer doesn't mesh well with the standard TS, only Warptime (CC), Doombolt (Cheap, Ap3) and Wind (anti-cover) are of any use and add even more in terms of cost.

- Lack manoeuvrability due to S+P and a Rhino adds EVEN more to their cost and isn't particularly tough.

- Are only effective against MeQ's and Tyranid warriors but that's a limited market and they're unlikely to make their points back.

- Ultimately, due to all these flaws, other units can do it better and for less.

They're by no means useless, they're just far from good.

I reckon if you played TS you would figure out how to get milage out of them.

Two possessed vindis, some flame wielding csm for horde with mark tz for theme and fist for CC hitting power, then DP with wings to get into soft objective campers and you have a pretty solid core.