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this weekend is our shops last Fate of Konor mission which involves Lords of War. Trying to debate if I should play fluffy and include scarab occult termies and possibly Ahriman? Or play for fun and just throw in a bunch of units. One thing that intrigues me is Prescience on a 4x Lascannon Predator (We are playing 75 PL so points dont matter) and possibly another Sorc using Death Hex on the Pred's target.

I've had good luck using a Predator in such a way, particularly if you can field a deamon prince in order to re-roll ones. Against opponents with more armor I'll often bring those three and a Helbrute to try and equalize things from a distance.

Azuza001 wrote:
Pink into blues into brimstone are super annoying and hard to get rid of. That is how I would do it.

I use flamers as screen units for things I don't want to get charged. It gets my opponent to shoot at them instead (they will die though so keep in mind this) or try and charge from outside flamer range. Even if they are successful it's a cheap bubble wrap unit that isn't bad.

Offensively I use them as objective holders or swarm dealers. Throw warp time on them to get them into position and things melt.

You cannot target Horrors of any kind with Warptime. They lack the Heretic Astartes Key word.

Deofuta wrote:
I've had good luck using a Predator in such a way, particularly if you can field a deamon prince in order to re-roll ones. Against opponents with more armor I'll often bring those three and a Helbrute to try and equalize things from a distance.

Well, I only took the one But it did some work.

First game was vs Tyranids. Had a Scythed Hierodule, Swarmlord, Stonecrusher Carni. 3 Spore spitters, 2 Exocrines, and a Malanthrope. The last group was all huddled up against the back wall. The first 3 charged my 30 man Tzaangor squad and just wiped out all 30 in one go lol. On my turn Magnus removed the Swarmlords Invuln save, the Pred hit with all 4 lascannons and dealt 13 wounds to the Swarmlord. The Daemon Prince killed the Carnifex, Helbrute crushed the Swarmlord, and Magnus dealt 15 wounds to the Hierodule. Terminators deep struck near the gun group but didn't really do anything. On his second turn, the Hierodule disengaged, ran to the back to get to the pred, attempted to charge..... and I got two hits in overwatch, killing the Hierodule. During his shooting though, the Spore mine thingies in the back got two direct hits, rolling two sixes, and a five and six for mortal wounds against my DP. They got a hole in one on that shot. After that, Magnus and the Helbrute made short work of the remaining models.

Game two was over before I got a turn. His Stormlord was decked out for 46 shots. Re-rolling all hits and wounds thanks to it being "cadian" vs a chaos army. With 40 guys inside who all got to shoot. His new Leman Russ killed the Helbrute in one shot doing 8 wounds. The Stormlord killed Magnus, after averaging 48 wounds. I scooped at this point. AM is just too over the top for me.

I have an 800 point game coming up soon.

I'm thinking of a Demon Prince for Warlord with wings 189 points, Warp Bolter and Talons (Warp Time). Exalted Sorceror 125 points with Force Sword (Prescience, Weavers of Fate). Two units of 14 horrors (4 blue, 10 brim) 50 points each. Two burning chariots of tzeentch 98 points each and one predator annihilator 190 points.

My plan is to take a turn and shoot with the predator to soften a hard target up from afar. Protect it with a unit of the horrors and keep the prince and exalted near by for buffing. I will likely try to fly the burning chariots to a flank to get some decent shots off and distract. Maybe Fly the DP with them as well as his entourage after the first round of shooting.

The DP won't stand up to concentrated firepower. I think you need to get him up into combat as soon as possible. He's almost a guaranteed 7 hits, or more if you're fighting imperial.

Hello there, i hope this thread is correct,

I wonder if someone could help me with my Thousand Sons. I'm a new player to 8th edition, i only have some five games in this edition, but so far all have been defeats. And clear, massive, overkill, defeats .

I have really bad luck with dice, but of course, maybe i'm doing many things wrong, and besides this, i don't know how to do a little bit more 'tough' lists, and perhaps the lack of codex makes this army weaker.

We are a small gaming group, and have not many time, so we play 1000 pts in a 'hard-casual' or semi-competitive or whatever you call it. Nice looking lists but focused to deal damage and try to win...

I'm an old player from 3-5th editions, so i have a painted army with no many 'new' units or models. I have, and therefore can use, these figures:

- 3 rubrics squads with 9 man each, including aspiring sorcerer.
- 2 chaos predators with auto-cannon and lascannons
- 1 chaos vindicator
- 1 chaos dreadnought
- 9 converted TS terminators, i guess i can use them as 'scarab occult' termis
- 1 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
- 1 Daemon prince
- 2 Rhinos
- 2 Chaos spawns

In these last weeks i have converted 10 minis to count as Tzeentch cultists, but i find them in games a bit underwhelming (or... useless).

I usually have run in my games 2 squads of rubrics, the DP and the 2 predators. I've tried one unit all with warpflamers (count as...), but the 8" range mean that they got butchered by deepstrike units without being able to fire overwatch (deepstriking and charging from 9").

I don't know what can i include in my lists or what i'm doing wrong, so if somebody could help me so i can win some game from time to time, or at least be a bit more 'hard' to beat, i really really would appreciate it.

Thanks

I agree cultists are practically worthless for us.

Also not a fan of warp flamers. I find that I only get into such range against opponents that want to get to such range (or think they want, not realizing they can't actually kill rubrics in CC in any fashion resembling effective with simple 'throw more dice" tactics)
Plus, they make an expensive unit more expensive

What kind of games you play?
Ethernal? malstorm? narrative? it changes a lot more than most people realize.
Who do you play against?
Do you have soulreaper cannons for your rubrics? how are your predators equipped?
Can you afford some chaff units? (tazzangors are one option, a secondary patrol detachment to bring some horrors is the other. cultists are a waste of points ATM.)


The more info you give, the more we can help.



On another note, I'm taking the following list to a local mini-turny tomorrow, 1500 points


I'll let you know how it went.
Alpha because we yet to have any legion tactics, stratagems, traits and relics, ergo we are FAR behind in power level. so having a large alpha detachment for whoever can be alpha helps close the gap.
Ahriman and the prince are the major threats, with SoT and helbrute to run interference/scares and assist them.
The big rubric squad as "forward operatives" to have early pressure (and counter-deployment)
Horrors as objective holders. unfortunatly don't have enough brimes at the moment, I'd prefer 3 squads of 2 blues and 8 brimes each for a few more points to go around, but alas.
Maybe I should be less loyal to the changer of ways and make the prince a khorne with burning blood instead...losing casting, but gaining powerful assault tool. not like the eye of tzeentch is worth much. or slannesh with elixer?

 nintura wrote:
The DP won't stand up to concentrated firepower. I think you need to get him up into combat as soon as possible. He's almost a guaranteed 7 hits, or more if you're fighting imperial.

Ive changed it a bit now.

It's a demon prince same load out, herald on a disc (staff of change), Horrors (10 brim, 1 blue) x 2, Horrors (Blue x 10), Burning Chariot, Burning Chariot, Predator Annihilator.

My main idea is to use the predator with my dp to soften up a tough target or two right away. Rerolls of 1, plus weavers to give it a 5++ will hopefully make it resilient enough to get that job done. At 800 points I don't suspect there to be alot of tank potential but I could be wrong. After the first turn if shooting has gone well for me I will move more liberally with the horrors and chariots and dp.

Herald on a disc instead of Ahriman? Staff of Change? Can we take artifacts?

 BoomWolf wrote:

On another note, I'm taking the following list to a local mini-turny tomorrow, 1500 points

Spoiler:

Vanguard-Alpha Legion
Daemon Prince with Wings
Daemon of Tzeentch
Eye Of Tzeentch (+1 Smite casting)
Malefic Talon x2
Psyker-Diabolic Strength, Smite (C1, D1)
Warlord-Unholy Fortitude

Helbrute
Power Scourge
Twin Heavy Bolter

Rubric Marines
Aspiring Sorcerer-Force Axe, Inferno Pistol
x4 Rubrics w/ Inferno Bolter
Rubric w/ soulreaper cannon

Rubric Marines
Aspiring Sorcerer-Force Axe, Inferno Pistol
x4 Rubrics w/ Inferno Bolter
Rubric w/ soulreaper cannon

Rubric Marines
Aspiring Sorcerer-Force Axe, Inferno Pistol
x9 Rubrics w/ Inferno Bolter
Rubric w/ soulreaper cannon


Battalion-Tzeentch
Ahriman on Disk of Tzeentch
Psyker-Smite, Death Hex, Warptime, Precience (C3D3, +1)

Herald of Tzeentch
Psyker-Smite, Bolt of Change, Treason of Tzeentch (C1,D1)

Horrors
x10 Blue Horror

Horrors
x6 Blue Horror
x4 Brimestone Horror

Horrors
x6 Blue Horror
x4 Brimestone Horror

Scarab Occult Terminators
Scarab Occult Sorcerer-Force stave, Inferno Combibolter
x3 Scarab Occult Terminator w/ Power Sword, Inferno Combibolter
Scarab Occult Terminator w/ Power Sword, Soulreaper Cannon, Hellfyre Missiles

I'll let you know how it went.
Alpha because we yet to have any legion tactics, stratagems, traits and relics, ergo we are FAR behind in power level. so having a large alpha detachment for whoever can be alpha helps close the gap.
Ahriman and the prince are the major threats, with SoT and helbrute to run interference/scares and assist them.
The big rubric squad as "forward operatives" to have early pressure (and counter-deployment)
Horrors as objective holders. unfortunatly don't have enough brimes at the moment, I'd prefer 3 squads of 2 blues and 8 brimes each for a few more points to go around, but alas.
Maybe I should be less loyal to the changer of ways and make the prince a khorne with burning blood instead...losing casting, but gaining powerful assault tool. not like the eye of tzeentch is worth much. or slannesh with elixer?

Well, update how it went.

Apperantly playing an army you are not used to the first time in a tourney is a BAD idea.
Couple that with the list being built to ply the "long game", and time constraints being way too pressing and forcing me to play more agressive than I'd like, this just went poorly.

Game one, against an AM list. lots of scions, a plane (forgot name), manticore, some dudes and outflanking helhounds, playing scouring.
Got beaten badly, as as mentioned-game too short. we had to end it by turn 2, and seeing that coming I played far FAR too agressive, leading to taking far too many early losses.
Honestly, I played poorly. completely forgot to sue stratagems (not sued to having these) and by that did far less on turn 1 than I could have done.

Game two, against iron warriors. rather fluffy with his own prince and just pack sorcerer almost copying mine, a big squad of termies, two sets of oblits, a biker team and a few backfield troopers. dawn of war in the plain old 6 objective mission (forgot name).
Went pretty well. he came up ahead by a tiny margin (by the end of turn 5 time was up, we each held 2 objectives, both slayed the warlord and both had linebraker, but he had first blood) I stil didnt play quite well, not using stratagems as I should nor taking advantage of the alpha trait. I started, but too little too late and I could have done better.

Game three, here I finally played the army how it should be played.
The enemy bround BA and BT, mostly primaris (quite a few intercessors, some inceptors and hellblasters), the small plane SM has, and a baal predator with autocannon and flamers, a vindicare and some aura chars spread around (lieutenants, captain, ancient)
The missions was no mercy, and I had none. the game ended at the top of 4 with him having one last surviving intercessor (we agreed he's dead. he was surrounded by the large rubric team, the helbrute, the prince AND ahriman within charge range), while I suffered only minimal casualties (in fact, not a single squad was completely destroyed.)
To be fair, this time my opponent wasn't very good. he gave me easy sniping with my forward operative squad and my terminator on some chars-and a blasy daemon price diving fowrad with ahriman, followed by successful warptime meant a brutal charge that took several units out of the game (one got wiped, another and the vindi consolidated into and disabled), leading to the army as a whole quickly collapsing.


So overall, the list failed mostly because I had a bad day and couldn't use it properly-once I finally learned to take advantage of my abilities-it began to function.
Much refining required though. can't really tell who was the MVP or fail of the list though, as my first game was a total blunder, and the third was a butchering in my favor. based on game 2 alone, I can't tell much as I made some glaring errors with some units.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I agree cultists are practically worthless for us.

Also not a fan of warp flamers. I find that I only get into such range against opponents that want to get to such range (or think they want, not realizing they can't actually kill rubrics in CC in any fashion resembling effective with simple 'throw more dice" tactics)
Plus, they make an expensive unit more expensive

What kind of games you play?
Ethernal? malstorm? narrative? it changes a lot more than most people realize.
Who do you play against?
Do you have soulreaper cannons for your rubrics? how are your predators equipped?
Can you afford some chaff units? (tazzangors are one option, a secondary patrol detachment to bring some horrors is the other. cultists are a waste of points ATM.)


The more info you give, the more we can help.

Hello, thanks. Yes, i think i said it before but i will answer to your questions:

- We play "matched play" games, currently at 1000 points each army. We usually play "Eternal War" missions. We play in a store with few scenery that is always the same, as it is all what there are in the store. We play on a 180 cm x 120 cm table.
- I play against various players with Space Marines, some Eldar, and then Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Iron Warriors (CSM) and Adeptus Mechanicus.
- As i said in my previous post, i have the models from old editions. However there are no problems to simply say "model X carries this weapon", so i can use whatever weapon i wish. In my lists i have equipped the predators with Autocannon and 2 lascannons. The list of the models is, again:



- Afford how? I have bought many of the new models boxes, but i'm very slow in assembling and painting them, so it will take some time before i can play with them. If you mean in the lists, i'm open to try your suggestions.


I hope this help

Hey guys.

I think I'll start a 40k TS army next year, using 30k models (that I have yet to buy). I've been reading this and other threads about TS, and the question on 'can we use the Rubric Marines sheet on the CSM codex' may have been answered by GW in its latest Designers' Commentary:

That...actually does not answer anything.

TS=/=CSM, so its a different slate, but when again its the same models
Its still a limbo of uncertainty.

 BoomWolf wrote:
That...actually does not answer anything.

TS=/=CSM, so its a different slate, but when again its the same models
Its still a limbo of uncertainty.

Of course it does.

"Does your model have a datasheet in a codex?"

'a codex' is not the same of 'its faction codex'. Any codex with 'Rubric Marines' datasheet on it would be able to be used by a player fielding Rubric Marines.

 Vector Strike wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
That...actually does not answer anything.

TS=/=CSM, so its a different slate, but when again its the same models
Its still a limbo of uncertainty.

Of course it does.

"Does your model have a datasheet in a codex?"

'a codex' is not the same of 'its faction codex'. Any codex with 'Rubric Marines' datasheet on it would be able to be used by a player fielding Rubric Marines.

The problem is, we have rubrics with the Thousand Sons keyword. because, yaknow, thousand sons.
<legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.

So if the two are truly one and the same-can we even TAKE rubrics any more?


The bigger question, given that the TS rubrics and the CSM rubrics had two dataslates in the index-are the two the same unit?
Because while the "common sense" answer is yes, we all know common sense does not apply to game rules and you have to use the written rule, but the written rule says nothing of this weird scenario, and if anything, it says that we cannot take rubrics at all.

 BoomWolf wrote:
<legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.

You're nitpicking, seriously.

Say you have a Thousand Sons army. You want to play THOUSAND SONS.

Where's the Thousand Sons army list ? Index: Chaos. From now on we follow THESE rules.
What's the name of your model ? Rubric Marine
Does your model have a datasheet in a codex ? Yes. So you use the Rubric Marines datasheet and point costs in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.
Does the datasheet have the <LEGION> keyword ? Yes.
Can you, by the rules of your army (Thousand Sons army rules, p.49, Index:Chaos) replace it with the THOUSAND SONS keyword ? Yes.

Congratulations, your Rubric Marines are now THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines. And Troops, because "the Battlefield Role of THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines is Troops instead of Elites."

 Warpspy wrote:
Hello there, i hope this thread is correct,

I wonder if someone could help me with my Thousand Sons. I'm a new player to 8th edition, i only have some five games in this edition, but so far all have been defeats. And clear, massive, overkill, defeats .

I have really bad luck with dice, but of course, maybe i'm doing many things wrong, and besides this, i don't know how to do a little bit more 'tough' lists, and perhaps the lack of codex makes this army weaker.

We are a small gaming group, and have not many time, so we play 1000 pts in a 'hard-casual' or semi-competitive or whatever you call it. Nice looking lists but focused to deal damage and try to win...

I'm an old player from 3-5th editions, so i have a painted army with no many 'new' units or models. I have, and therefore can use, these figures:

- 3 rubrics squads with 9 man each, including aspiring sorcerer.
- 2 chaos predators with auto-cannon and lascannons
- 1 chaos vindicator
- 1 chaos dreadnought
- 9 converted TS terminators, i guess i can use them as 'scarab occult' termis
- 1 chaos sorcerer in terminator armour
- 1 Daemon prince
- 2 Rhinos
- 2 Chaos spawns

In these last weeks i have converted 10 minis to count as Tzeentch cultists, but i find them in games a bit underwhelming (or... useless).

I usually have run in my games 2 squads of rubrics, the DP and the 2 predators. I've tried one unit all with warpflamers (count as...), but the 8" range mean that they got butchered by deepstrike units without being able to fire overwatch (deepstriking and charging from 9").

I don't know what can i include in my lists or what i'm doing wrong, so if somebody could help me so i can win some game from time to time, or at least be a bit more 'hard' to beat, i really really would appreciate it.

Thanks

So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...

1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.

2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.

3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.

Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)

 Nym wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
<legion> cannot be made Thousand Sons, as per the rules of that codex.

You're nitpicking, seriously.

Say you have a Thousand Sons army. You want to play THOUSAND SONS.

Where's the Thousand Sons army list ? Index: Chaos. From now on we follow THESE rules.
What's the name of your model ? Rubric Marine
Does your model have a datasheet in a codex ? Yes. So you use the Rubric Marines datasheet and point costs in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.
Does the datasheet have the <LEGION> keyword ? Yes.
Can you, by the rules of your army (Thousand Sons army rules, p.49, Index:Chaos) replace it with the THOUSAND SONS keyword ? Yes.

Congratulations, your Rubric Marines are now THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines. And Troops, because "the Battlefield Role of THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines is Troops instead of Elites."

I'm sorry, if you can't understand why doing something you were explicitly forbidden to do isn't legal, there is no point having a rational discussion here.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I'm sorry, if you can't understand why doing something you were explicitly forbidden to do isn't legal, there is no point having a rational discussion here.

Obviously, we can't have a rational discussion if your sole argument is "I don't want to talk".

MY argument is that you use the rules of the Index:Chaos to build your army, and here the <LEGION> can explicitly be replaced by the THOUSAND SONS keyword. The only thing you take from the Chaos Space Marines codex is a datasheet, as GW told us to do.

You're *not* building a Chaos Space Marines army, you're building a Thousand Sons army. The restrictions from the CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply to your army, since you're not using the CSM codex rules.

Look.
The CSM codex clearly states, without ANY room for argument, that any and all units in it CANNOT under ANY circumstances replace <legion> with Thousand Sons.

The fact its not a "chaos space marine" army is not relevant. you got a <legion> keyword, and you are trying to replace it with Thousand Sons-and that is simply not a legal choice.

There are no ifs or buts in this. you cant use part index part codex mismash of the same mechanic to blend it together as some sort of hybrid to get the results you want.

Especially when the thing you base it on, the index, HAD two separate datasheets, one for elite <legion> rubrics, and another or troop Thousand Sons rubrics.
The two were not, at any point during 8th, presented as the same unit to begin with.

Because by your logic, the limits in CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply if i'm building another army?
So....I can have Imperial Fists Noise Marines.

The FAQ clearly also noted that the <legion> and the likes are NOT to be cheesed around, they have a clear set of what they can and cannot be-and while you can make up your own, trying to use another armies keyword is not how it works, and like it or not Thousand Sons is a completely separate army from CSM now.

Just like you can't have Gray Knight sternguard, you can't use CSM dataslates for TS.


If your arguement is that you are using index rules-they USE index rules. they tell you to take the unit slates AS PRESENTED IN THE INDEX, not as presented in the codex.


You can claim its stupid, because it is.
You can say its not RAI, because it probably ins't.
But this is RAW, and as long as this is RAW-that's the way TO are most likely to go.

the_scotsman wrote:

So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...

1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.

2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.

3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.

Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)

Many thanks!

You give me here many good ideas, the rhinos with 2 combibolters and havoc launchers is certainly a respectable amount of shooting at short range. I never thought about that. Terminators have to have warptime, how? The range of that power is 3", so i would need to deep strike a terminator sorcerer with them, or perhaps deploy them just where the daemon prince would be (?).

However, i'm not sure about what you say that we can use the Codex entry for rubrics. I think is not clear, as it is being discussed right here. It would be logical to replace the index entry for the codex one, but GW didn't say anything about that in the Faqs. I don't know if that would be "legal"...
I see that more people have doubts about this matter, so what we can do?

 Warpspy wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

So, how I would run Thousand Sons at 1000 points...

1) Daemon Prince is almost always going to be my go-to HQ for this point value. We really like that reroll aura, and since he's a psyker and gives the aura I feel he's among our best deals, he also helps as a counter assault unit to smash encroaching melee units.

2) I've had great success running "pseudo combat squads" with my actual Rubrics. Thanks to the new Codex datasheet, 5 man squads can have the Soulreaper Cannon in them, which helps me get a bit more firepower out of my rubrics without being in 8" range. I'd run one rhino with 2 5-man rubric squads, each with a Soulreaper. My Rhinos I also up-gun, because you can now make use of two combi-bolters and a Havoc launcher at full effectiveness, so I use them as little anti-horde blocker tools. You can give or take the Havoc Launcher, it's not that great, but the two combi bolters are excellent.

3) My Terminators have had good success as a single unit (in my full 2k-2.5k list games I've run 10 Scarabs, fully kitted out in an almost 500-man squad, alongside a jump pack sorceror) but they HAVE to have warptime when they come in. That gets them into combat immediately and lets them return their maximum points value the turn they come in. For 1000 points though I question the value of terminators, they need some juicy elite targets to butcher to be effective.

Overall, the list I would likely run would be Daemon Prince HQ, a rhino full of rubrics as I described, and both of your predators (or 2 rhinos of rubrics and 1 predator, depending on whether people more frequently bring Infantry or Tanks where you play. I play in a tank heavy group)

Many thanks!

You give me here many good ideas, the rhinos with 2 combibolters and havoc launchers is certainly a respectable amount of shooting at short range. I never thought about that. Terminators have to have warptime, how? The range of that power is 3", so i would need to deep strike a terminator sorcerer with them, or perhaps deploy them just where the daemon prince would be (?).

However, i'm not sure about what you say that we can use the Codex entry for rubrics. I think is not clear, as it is being discussed right here. It would be logical to replace the index entry for the codex one, but GW didn't say anything about that in the Faqs. I don't know if that would be "legal"...
I see that more people have doubts about this matter, so what we can do?

There are tons of options for how to get the Terminators warptime. You could either bring a terminator/jump pack sorceror along with them, you could move out one of our highly mobile psyker options out to them like a Daemon prince or Ahriman on a Disc, or if you're bringing a CSM detachment for the stratagems, you can use the "Spell Familiar" stratagem (I think that's what it's called) to swap the Aspiring Sorceror's "Smite" psychic power with Warptime.

I have been asking my opponent if it's alright if I use the new entry in the CSM codex for a long time, so far nobody has complained about it. If you're going to a big event, you may run into some resistance from a TO or something, but to 99% of reasonable people it just makes sense - it's not like you aren't actively making your army worse by putting more rubrics in it as opposed to other stronger chaos units.

It's a lot like the stratagems. Every single stratagem that Thousand Sons can sneakily get access to by bringing an allied contingent of other CSMs (I just declare one of my sorcs and a unit of cultists to be "alpha legion"), the Death Guard also kept explicitly in their own codex, so it's perfectly reasonable that Thousand Sons also get them. Its not like they're not "veterans of the long war" or "Master Sorcerors" or whatever.

So with pieces of the Faeit leaks confirmed in today's article, it looks like Thousand Sons are getting...

Thousand Sons
Warlord Trait- re-roll deny witch tests
Relic- rolling doubles for psychic tests means the opponent may not resist with deny the witch or negate it by any means.
Psychic Power- warp charge of 7. Select an enemy unit within 18" and roll 9 dice. The unit suffers mortal wounds on each roll of a 6
Stratagems
1CP If within 6" of at least 2 other friendly TS psykers, you can add 2 to your psychic test.

Which is. not good, really. Only the stratagem is decent and even then I'm not sure I would spend our extremely limited CP on it.

I don't know, that stratagem looks pretty easy to do if they count aspiring sorcerers as psychers, which obviously they are. The rest looks fluffy at least, helps show tzeench is psychic based and can help make them look so much tougher in the psychic phase. And at least it's a bone, I will take whatever I can get at this point.

I think those are worthless...

The stratagem could be useful if it is for all the psychic phase, if it is only for one power is really expensive in CP and i don't see why it would be better than simply re-rolling the lowest result via re-roll stratagem.

I disagree about being fluffy... Warlord trait: "re-roll deny the witch" So, for powers against the TS army... in an army (potentially) with psykers in every squad. In the fluff they are capable of firing lighnings, bolts and fireballs with ease, i think a "fluffy" rules would be making easier to actually cast powers, like, for example, "re-roll psychic tests"... Re-roll the deny the witch is useless unless you are facing a heavy psychic army. I don't know, perhaps its me, because in my gaming group i'm the only one who uses psychic powers, so...
The relic is utterly random. "Doubles for psychic test", means that only double 3s, 4s and 5s would count. I don't know what are the probabilities, but i find it extremely random, difficult and unlikely. Could be useful if, again, it would be "sucessful psychic test of the bearer of this relic cannot be resisted or negated..." Which considering that you have to roll and pass the psychic test first, is not actually that bad...
Psychic power... More random. The fact that you can select your target is negated by the fact that potentially you can do literally nothing. Rolling 9 dice means that you could get one or two 6s results, while Smite guarantee 1 mortal wound at least. With one of my standard rolls it would mean doing nothing (not a single 6), so only useful if you have wild good luck... And I think that according to fluff TS would be more than capable to actually cast some psychic powers able to destroy and kill things, not "maybe if this and that and those happens, then i maaaaybe could kill one poor guy there".

From a background and story point of view, i find these rules extremely dissappointing. As i said, I think Thousand Sons should have a proper representation of their psychic prowess, that is, make easier to cast powers, make those powers actually meaningful and dangerous and make that they cannot kill themselves casting those powers... In the current situation, you can lose the army only trying to do what they supposedly do in the fluff (perils of the warp, dies, explodes, etc.)

Well, sorry for the rant...

 BoomWolf wrote:
Look.
The CSM codex clearly states, without ANY room for argument, that any and all units in it CANNOT under ANY circumstances replace <legion> with Thousand Sons.

The fact its not a "chaos space marine" army is not relevant. you got a <legion> keyword, and you are trying to replace it with Thousand Sons-and that is simply not a legal choice.

There are no ifs or buts in this. you cant use part index part codex mismash of the same mechanic to blend it together as some sort of hybrid to get the results you want.

Especially when the thing you base it on, the index, HAD two separate datasheets, one for elite <legion> rubrics, and another or troop Thousand Sons rubrics.
The two were not, at any point during 8th, presented as the same unit to begin with.

Because by your logic, the limits in CSM codex regarding keywords do not apply if i'm building another army?
So....I can have Imperial Fists Noise Marines.

The FAQ clearly also noted that the <legion> and the likes are NOT to be cheesed around, they have a clear set of what they can and cannot be-and while you can make up your own, trying to use another armies keyword is not how it works, and like it or not Thousand Sons is a completely separate army from CSM now.

Just like you can't have Gray Knight sternguard, you can't use CSM dataslates for TS.


If your arguement is that you are using index rules-they USE index rules. they tell you to take the unit slates AS PRESENTED IN THE INDEX, not as presented in the codex.


You can claim its stupid, because it is.
You can say its not RAI, because it probably ins't.
But this is RAW, and as long as this is RAW-that's the way TO are most likely to go.

I think you may be right to a certain point. Though I disagree with you about the fact that the Thousand Sons are a completely separate army. I think eventually they will be for sure. However, Like most index specific legions like thousand sons the index states that you include certain units from heretic astartes profiles into your thousand sons army (ie: heldrake). GW has pointed out in the past, for example, that the Dark Angels could use updated profiles from codex astartes because the index referenced they pull information for these slates from the codex astartes portion of the index. I do think it's an easy way for them to relieve the pressure of codex creep so to speak. I do not see why that philosophy wouldn't continue here? This was addressed in a community posting from GW and it just makes sense. The logic being because it states clearly to use those profiles from the heretic astartes portion of the index that it should also apply to heretic astartes units from the codex of the same name (to receive the same updates to points that will eventually find their way to our codex im sure). The psykers spells followed the same philosophy obviously Thousand Sons were given access to the full list of spells because the index calls on them to use the powers of the dark hereticus which is shared between the codex and index. However, where I think it might get murky is with units like the Rubrics where they had their own specific thousand sons entry. Other than that I feel it's kind've obvious how this applies, regardless of the Heretic Astartes book stating that these units cannot have thousand sons keywords. I think that is there in readiness for their eventual codices to come forward.

I'm seriusly hoping the faeit leak to be highly inaccurate, because these rules are HORRIBLE.

Who cares about the trait? its even worse than the rulebook ones.

The relic is also useless as hell, for the simple reason that double 1/2 is a fail cast anyway, double 5/6 highly unlikely to be denied (and double 6 is perils!)
So it leaves it to trigger only on double 3 or 4. 3's not always even cast anyway so I'll count it as half value, so there are 4s.
Congrats, the relic says that once in about 27 casts, it will do anything.
If the opponent even CAN deny to begin with.
YAY.

Unique psyker power-worse than smite, by far. WC7 for an average of lousy 1.5 MW?
It would hardly be noteworthy at WC5, but at 7 its pure trash.
Its a lousy downgraded infernal gaze-and gaze itself is bad already.

Stratagem, great. if your units are in a darn cluster. not like we got a massive unit count to begin with. oh, did I forget to mention we are TS and have a low unit count?
Sure, every rubric and scarab unit counts. but if they didn't it would be outright unusable.
It would be great, if psykers in general weren't bad in 8th (with the exception of smite spammers, or outright monsters)


Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I'm seriusly hoping the faeit leak to be highly inaccurate, because these rules are HORRIBLE.

Who cares about the trait? its even worse than the rulebook ones.

The relic is also useless as hell, for the simple reason that double 1/2 is a fail cast anyway, double 5/6 highly unlikely to be denied (and double 6 is perils!)
So it leaves it to trigger only on double 3 or 4. 3's not always even cast anyway so I'll count it as half value, so there are 4s.
Congrats, the relic says that once in about 27 casts, it will do anything.
If the opponent even CAN deny to begin with.
YAY.

Unique psyker power-worse than smite, by far. WC7 for an average of lousy 1.5 MW?
It would hardly be noteworthy at WC5, but at 7 its pure trash.
Its a lousy downgraded infernal gaze-and gaze itself is bad already.

Stratagem, great. if your units are in a darn cluster. not like we got a massive unit count to begin with. oh, did I forget to mention we are TS and have a low unit count?
Sure, every rubric and scarab unit counts. but if they didn't it would be outright unusable.
It would be great, if psykers in general weren't bad in 8th (with the exception of smite spammers, or outright monsters)


Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.

Me too. Those power and abilities are pretty lame to be honest. There are better ways to capture the magical mastery of the Thousand Sons than that. It's not very competitive.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Its not quite, but pretty darn close to getting nothing at all.
And it will give people the right to point out that we "have rules" despite them being completely useless.

You said it all much better than me, +1 to all you said.

And this last sentence from you is actually happening to me right now. "I should not complain as we have our own rules and units and even a future codex". Yes, but i would like that those rules would be at least a little bit like the background says that TS are, and not "those"...