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I'm going to jump in at the deep end with my first game of 6th Edition soon, and it's going to be a pretty massive one vs. a friends pure Thousand Sons army. He know that I typically like Fireknife or Deathrain suits, and Railheads as my go to units, with meched up FW's as troops. So, to that end, i want to catch him by surprise with a whole mess of plasma. This is the list I'm thinking about running. Is it viable? What should i watch out for? Is there something in an FAQ that makes this list illegal?

HQ 1
Commander Shas'el
Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle
Targeting Array
2 Shas'vre Bodyguard
2 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles
2 Targeting Arrays
--
240pts


HQ 2
Commander Shas'el
Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle
Targeting Array
2 Shas'vre Bodyguard
2 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles
2 Targeting Arrays
--
240pts

ELITE 1
3 Crisis Shas'ui
3 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles
3 Targeting Arrays
--
195pts

ELITE 2
3 Crisis Shas'ui
3 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles
3 Targeting Arrays
--
195pts

ELITE 3
3 Crisis Shas'ui
3 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles
3 Targeting Arrays
--
195pts

TROOPS 1
12 Fire Warriors
12 Pulse Rifles
1 Devilfish APC
1 Disruption Pod
--
205pts

TROOPS 2
10 Fire Warriors
10 Pulse Rifles
1 Devilfish APC
1 Disruption Pod
--
185pts

TROOPS 3
10 Fire Warriors
10 Pulse Rifles
1 Devilfish APC
1 Disruption Pod
--
185pts

TROOPS 4
10 Fire Warriors
10 Pulse Rifles
1 Devilfish APC
1 Disruption Pod
--
185pts

HEAVY SUPPORT 1
3 Broadside Shas'ui
1 Blacksun Filter
2 Target Locks
--
223pts

HEAVY SUPPORT 2
3 Broadside Shas'ui
1 Blacksun Filter
2 Target Locks
--
223pts

HEAVY SUPPORT 3
3 Broadside Shas'ui
1 Blacksun Filter
2 Target Locks
--
223pts

TOTAL: 2494pts

Am I insane for trying to run a 24-suit list with 15 twin-linked Plasma Rifles and 9 twin-linked Railguns? I figure that's a whole lot of AP2...

Helios suits (FB+BR+MT) do a better job at killing meq and TEQ than the Burning eyes, And agianst a Tsons army, you want quantity vs quality as most things in his army will have a 4++ save and his Tsons are just going to bolter down your crisis suits.

Should be interesting at least. You are going have to run those suits in tight concert to knock down those sons. You should easily out run him, just take care of the Broadsides.

Running plasma spam against 1k sons!? You might as well bring a fireknife to a gunfight...

Lame puns aside,

Twin linking plasma and then using a target array is pretty overkill. Do one or the other, both is a bit wasteful. If you are JSJ ing in and out of range, unless you get into double tap range you are looking at killing 1-2 sons per squad, tops. God forbid they get you next turn, as their AP3 bolters will do a lot of damage.

Not to say the plasma is bad, just don't go overboard when your fighting an army with a 4++ across the board.I would say bladestorms might be a good bet(PR+BC) to combine weight of fire with effective damage. The S5 spam tau can generate is your best bet to just force them down with wounds. 1ksons hate to be cut down by small arms that laugh at their fancy invul save, and love to eat the few low AP shots you have.

Going with warfish might be a good option. As 1ksons don't have special weapons really, you could go in smart missiles and burst cannons blazing, using your jink to ward off a doombolt or something, while their fancy bolters bounce off. Drop out the fire warriors against wounded squads to pump more fire into them.

A railhead(or even ionhead) could provide a mobile, hard to kill target,

Only 2 troops at 2.5K is also a problem. All that plasma is worthless if you cant score. Shifting sons off objectives will not be easy for you, but killing 22 fire warriors is not a huge challenge.

Dang forgot the 1ksons were 4++. Bladestorms look better for the fire volume, however, Deathrains look like a nice choice to just becuase you can stay out of the ap3 bolter range while getting 6 shots a squad.

LIke Sterling suggested, an Ionhead with SMS, MT and Dpod could be real useful for dropping wounds. Sort of the Tau answer to the Dakka Predator.

Just as said before... TA+TLPR its too much overkill when fightinh 4++ go FK you need shoots from a safe distance with those bolters being a real threat, and also i will pick 1 or 2 Railheads instead of 3 full Broadside teams... Too much points for not so much shots, even if he brings a lot of mechanized units, the problem is the marines not the rhinos they might ride.

Maybe pick some gun drones for cheap wounds or shield drones for the warlord.

Ninjacommando wrote:Helios suits (FB+BR+MT) do a better job at killing meq and TEQ than the Burning eyes, And agianst a Tsons army, you want quantity vs quality as most things in his army will have a 4++ save and his Tsons are just going to bolter down your crisis suits.

What's a BR? Also, one day I'll figure out all these suit names. I can remember Fireknife & Deathrain, but beyond that...

Also, I'd forgotten about the 4++ for Thousand Sons. I'll have to refit my suits for weight of fire. Will have to run the numbers for a few configurations and see what kills the most per turn. As for the range, was planning on using JSJ to stay just out of range of those AP3 bolters with the suits.

barnowl wrote:Should be interesting at least. You are going have to run those suits in tight concert to knock down those sons. You should easily out run him, just take care of the Broadsides.

You pretty much have to use suits in tight concert to knock down any army.

Dr. Serling wrote:Running plasma spam against 1k sons!? You might as well bring a fireknife to a gunfight...

Lame puns aside,

Twin linking plasma and then using a target array is pretty overkill. Do one or the other, both is a bit wasteful. If you are JSJ ing in and out of range, unless you get into double tap range you are looking at killing 1-2 sons per squad, tops. God forbid they get you next turn, as their AP3 bolters will do a lot of damage.

Well, I wanted to make sure I got a lot of hits, and TL+TA does that. As I said, I'll need to run the numbers and figure out what to spam instead of the double plasma.

Dr. Serling wrote:Going with warfish might be a good option.

I'm out of the jargon loop, what's a warfish? i assume it's a devilfish with a specific load out.

Dr. Serling wrote:Only 2 troops at 2.5K is also a problem. All that plasma is worthless if you cant score. Shifting sons off objectives will not be easy for you, but killing 22 fire warriors is not a huge challenge.

I think you may have misread. I have 4 troops for a total of 42 Fire Warriors and 4 Devilfish

barnowl wrote:Dang forgot the 1ksons were 4++. Bladestorms look better for the fire volume, however, Deathrains look like a nice choice to just becuase you can stay out of the ap3 bolter range while getting 6 shots a squad.

I've got to run the numbers, but I'm leaning to deathrain just for the range thing.

barnowl wrote:LIke Sterling suggested, an Ionhead with SMS, MT and Dpod could be real useful for dropping wounds. Sort of the Tau answer to the Dakka Predator.

Intriguing. Will have to look at it. Only reason I loaded up on Broadsides was because i wanted to max out suits, and Target Locks gives me potentially 9 different things I can railgun. Definitely open to Hammerheads though. Dakkapred equivalent is a good thought, especially as I'm sure the Sons player will load up on Dakkapreds (He loves those things)

KaiserEddie wrote: even if he brings a lot of mechanized units, the problem is the marines not the rhinos they might ride.

Maybe pick some gun drones for cheap wounds or shield drones for the warlord.

It's not Rhinos I worry about, it's things like Predators, Land Raiders and Vindicators, all of which get a lot of shots or pie plates that are very good at destroying my troops. Not really used drones much in 5th, so not sure how good they will be in 6th. Mostly due to how mixed toughness/saves worked with allocation in 5th. Also, because I just plain didn't see the point of gun drones.

If you can use forgeworld, the Plasmahead is also really fun for a midrange support tank.