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 nintura wrote:
Also, all is dust is way worse than DR. DR gives you a save no matter what. Even against smite. On top of your regular and/or invuln save.

yup, also stacks with cover. Both models suffer against multiple damage weapons similarly though. The invuln is super useful, but so is T5. I think Deathguard are significantly more resilient against small arms (DR is roughly equivalent to +1 save, T5 is a flat upgrade). Only against -3 rend single damage (which is rare), the rubrics have a better save (4+ vs 6+/5+) otherwise, lower rend is either equivalent or worse I think due to T5.

I guess the issue is both tsons and deathguard are supposed to be tough units, but in different ways. I would totally agree that gw is trying to make them different, I would not want a 5+++ save like deathguard have, our thing has been invulnerable saves since times of old, but it just isn't good enough now. Maybe a 5++ invulnerable save that becomes a 4++ save if they don't move? Idk, I just hope they do something.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a change in how All Is Dust works. I'm just saying it's a weaker rule and therefore should be cheaper; this was the case prior to the CA Plague Marine buff, but for some reason we didn't get any buffs to our stuff. My hope is that our non-existence in Chapter Approved means our book is coming soon, but...

I would settle for a points reduction instead of increasing our toughness further. I want to be able to make my armies fluffy and larger with more options.

We definitely need a points reduction and some additional units. If plague marines go down to 17 I feel we are worth about the same. Maybe even 16 points because our weapons are so expensive.

But I think we are going to get the death guard treatment and get a full codex with a couple demon engines and probably a new character unit.

I’m very curious as to what our legion trait will be. If they make it just Psychic based then our dreadnoughta lose out unless they let us have psychic dreads. Personally I think it should be to reroll 1s on psychic tests. This makes us less prone to perils without being a copy paste of grey knights.

It would also be cool if we got some special rules for our units like what they did with blightlord terminators and their rust rule. I just hope our stratagems are cool and fluffy like the blood angels and they don’t give us the gack they did in the CA.

Our Legion Trait is gonna be weird because it has to be something that applies as well to a tzaangor as it does to a sorcerer. It can't involve the psychic phase because then half the units that are supposed to get the trait won't get anything out of it.

I honestly have no idea what it could be.

True, maybe a reroll a single 1 every turn per unit? Something like the salamanders got

too difficult to track by the unit. perhaps it will be the ridiculous roll 9 dice and substitute thing from AoS.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Our Legion Trait is gonna be weird because it has to be something that applies as well to a tzaangor as it does to a sorcerer. It can't involve the psychic phase because then half the units that are supposed to get the trait won't get anything out of it.

I honestly have no idea what it could be.

lets be real, it will involve the psychic phase and when asked about all the non-psykers, GW will just shrug.

We're a very short range shooting army. This is the worse kind of armies in the current meta, because you have all the drawbacks of Assault armies, without the benefits.

For us to be competitive, our Legion trait should be : +1 to Invulnerable saves and Psykers re-roll 1 on Psychic tests.

If we don't get a boost in resilience, there's no way we'll be able to compete with the crazy firepower some armies have these days.

Making our Legion Trait basically be Weaver that stacks with Weaver would allow for some pretty crazy shenanigans; you could have a big blob of Rubrics with a 2++ rerollable against 1 damage attacks. Now that is the kind of durability I want out of my army.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Making our Legion Trait basically be Weaver that stacks with Weaver would allow for some pretty crazy shenanigans; you could have a big blob of Rubrics with a 2++ rerollable against 1 damage attacks. Now that is the kind of durability I want out of my army.

I remember seeing an FAQ or something, somewhere, that says Weaver of fate doesn't go beyond 3++ though. But what leads me to think we'll get +1 invu is because TS have always had a 3++ or 4++.

So first off you can't use the CSM codex entry for Rubric Marines TS Rubric marines are an Entry unto themselves which means they have no entry in a Codex and as such you must use the index version.

Next the CA rules.

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

Stratagem- 1CP If within 6" of at least 2 other friendly TS psykers, you can add 2 to your psychic test.

So a couple things to address.

First the CA rules.

To say they are gak would be a insult to gak everywhere.

Warlord trait- This damn thing, I understand the reasoning behind it, which is something along the lines of its way too easy to blow up TS with other psykers because of the inability to DtW. Problem is this wont help at all the increase is marginal at best and unless you have Magnus. You really can't expect. But good for Magnus.

Relic- Oh Jesus really like 3 in 36 and that's not including the new spell which only work on a double 4 or 5...really thats less then a 10% chance of working. But good for Magnus

Spell- WC 7 that does maybe 1 wound? In fact your more likely to get 0 wounds then you are to get 2 wounds which is atrocious. About the only good thing about it is it can target anyone. But magnus would be able to cast on a 5, 3 with the Strat.

Stratagem- I have like 9 total CP and no way to recover them in an army that is literally able to lose the game in the first turn when I have the first round because I have 5 psykers that will more then likley die if they perils and kill everything around them, and you want me to spend my CP on anything that isn't fething rerolls? But good for Magnus.

Im senceing a theme here.

RM vs. PM

Rubrics are worse in every area except 2 -1 AP and - 4 AP which they preform the same as PM when it comes to durability. Offensive power stock Rubrics are better but once you add the fart guns PM rocket past Rubrics and the only way for rubrics to come close is to have add a feth ton of upgrades which spiral out of control and end up costing you so much money its ridiculous. Keep in mind PM are more mobile and have longer range with thier special weapons. So to sum up PM are more mobile, have better weapons, equal to or longer range, are more durable and cost 3 points less stock even though stock they are super effective against horde armies.


Winning with TS

Right now its hard to do. A couple of bad rolls in the Psychic and you can lose the game before it ever really starts. No access to any kind of actual chaff unit, and anti-armor is still hard to get.

First you should never have more then 1 squad of Tzzangors per 1000 points, and unless they are needed they should be stuffed into a Rhino, out of range for any unit that would be effective fire against them. They should only be employed in 1 of 2 ways. Either as a screen for your flamer squads against melee oriented armies, or as a deep strike prevention against shooty armies.

Second your chaff unit is, and I know this is going to sound crazy, CSM. Particularly while standing in cover, they are there to draw the fire of high AP weaponery, with no invul save and no extra +1 to get through people will more likely attack the CSM in cover then the Rubrics out of cover.

Third every Aspering Sorcerer gets a hand flamer they are the most effective weapon we have in the army. You should probably expect it to go up in price when the codex drops.

Forth sepcialize your RM squads as much as you can. You already have a sargent that's over priced and kitted put for CC in a unit that dosen't belong in CC. Your units should have either flamers or a Soulreaper but never both.

Fifth remember when deciding on the Legion you want keep in mind what you want out of your squads. I personally run Alpha because a unit of Rubricae sitting on a objective that have a 2+ save vs most fire and a -1 to hit (Caution: Side effects include; Being called terrible names by your opponet and loss of friends)

Personally I run 5 Rubric Squads (2 flamer 3 Soulreaper) with 2 units of Tzzangors, a 7 man Havoc squad, 3 squads of CSM, and 2 Rhinos accross 2 Battalions and 1 Vanguard.

Have anyone tried Chaos Land Raider with 2 squads of Runrics with flamers inside?

It should be more durable and will deliver them in flame range

A dreadclaw does the same for much cheaper. I think if you want to put a 9 man flame squad in there with a sorceror to warp time them in works just as well. Teleport in some scarab occult and jobs a good ‘un

Speaking of flames.

How do you people see exalted flamers as backup to our anti-heavy department?
Or maybe basic flamers are better for anti horde?

Assuming I happen to have 3 models, and need to decide using them as either one, and I happen to have daemons running around anyway (because horrors, though they currently lack ObjSec due to not being mentioned in CA, they are still the best chaff there is.)

Ive used rubrics from the codex at a dozen tourneys now and seen other people using them, so either TOs around the country dont know what theyre doing, or as usal dakka is wrong about something...

Apart from that you lost all credibility when you said its hard to win as TS at the moment

Mesokhornee wrote:
Ive used rubrics from the codex at a dozen tourneys now and seen other people using them, so either TOs around the country dont know what theyre doing, or as usal dakka is wrong about something...

Apart from that you lost all credibility when you said its hard to win as TS at the moment

Oh look, another fresh faced new user who has nothing to say except "get good". I'd love to hear your advice on how to breeze through the tournament scene with Thousand Sons, O Wise One.

My idea is to bring

4x5 Rubrics + 2 rhinos. Each squad of rubrics has 2-3 flamers + flame pistol.

Magnus + Changeling

So opponent has 2 options - shoot at Magnus (-1 to hit)
OR shoot 2 rhinos which advances very forward to flame opponent.

If he picks Magnus - rhinos will disembark turn 2 and flame opponent.
If he picks rhinos - Magnus will be safe and rubriks might loose some non-flamer guys.

SOT can be deepstriked but last couple of games they really did nothing for their points.

One of the problems when building TS lists, is that we have few native options for dealing with T7+ units. This of course depends on your local Meta (my own tends to run armor and tank heavy). Our good options aren't cheap, with the most obvious ones being a DP with double claws and Hellbrute. Smite only works for so long, and isn't able to do much to that enemy tank that's bubble wrapped.

Now, if only there was a reason to take an Exalted Sorcerer instead of Ahriman. Right now the priority seems to be Ahriman>Sorcerer in Terminator Armor>Exalted Sorcerer. Demon Prince and Magnus are in their own categories.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
So after getting my ass handed to me again (this time by an Alaitoc Craftworld army) I'm seriously at a loss as to what to do with my Thousand Sons. I'd like to know what's working for other Sons players because nothing seems to work for me. Or do I just accept that this army sucks and wait for the codex to hopefully fix it?

The big thing most people have been doing is partnering up close with Tzeentch demons. It makes the most sense as alot of tzeentch stuff is super cheap, and synergizes well. Then basically you take the better aspects of Thousand Sons and sprinkle it in. It's actually pretty thematic too from what I can tell.

So from my experience, horrors are really good cheap units that are hard to shift off objectives etc. The Changeling is pretty invaluable. Exalted Flamers and flamers in general are pretty decent fire support and cheap. Then heralds for extra smite options.

Lately, I've been experimenting with an Alpha Legion detachment to sneak in Obliterators and Havocs. This gives decent anti-armor which TSons and Demons seem to lack. Obliterators are very good. I actually often try and bring a screen of Scarab Occult to plunk in front of the Obliterators so my opponent then has to think about dealing with them. Plus Scarabs offer great anti-infantry and they are fairly durable.

Units from TS that are mainstays are obviously Magnus, some people like bringing 5 man units of Rubrics. I haven't tried that too much. Or 20-30 man blobs of Tzaangor (at small point games they are actually pretty good. I haven't tried them in larger point games. I have seen people make decent use of Heldrakes mostly using them to tie gak up so Magnus doesn't get as hurt.

Telling me that the way to win with Thousand Sons is to run anything else and just toss Magnus in there isn't exactly encouraging...

How do people kit out their Helbrutes? I was kinda thinking about running Missle/Lascannon for some ranged tank bustering

Widied wrote:

The big thing most people have been doing is partnering up close with Tzeentch demons.

I would be happy to run pure TS list but we are too elite army.
I think there are 2 ways how to run TS: with Magnus and without.
With Magnus you have to run daemons - Changeling is our the only protection from turn 1 killshot.
Without Magnus i like Alpha legion with Obliterators, Predators and cultists.

So, not a TS army but a Tzeench one.

Detachment 1: chaos supreme command

Changeling
2 x DP with wings and MoT
magnus

Det 2: alpha legion supreme command
3 x DP with wings and MOT

Det 3: alpha legion airwing
3 x helldrake with flamer

still like 30 points short

This would give much of the army -2 to be hit and would be many characters so would be unable to be focused down on the princes. Another iteration I toyed with was 4 princes and 3 exalted flamers, taking a vanguard daemon detachment instead of alpha legion supreme command.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Telling me that the way to win with Thousand Sons is to run anything else and just toss Magnus in there isn't exactly encouraging...

I think it's about finding the balance between Tzeentch and Thousand Sons. It's actually a pretty thematic pairing as well. The alpha legion is obviously the less fluffy more competitive route but I think you can get pretty competitive with just Tzeentch and Sons too if you'd rather stay truer to the fluff.

I wouldn't say you have to ignore the Sons, but more play to their strengths. They are a very elite army at heart, so typically when people build a pure list they are jamming Elite priced units in and coming up with dramatically smaller lists with fewer options than their opponents and wondering why they are getting smashed. You have to off-set their weaknesses and play to strengths. So strength: Smite obviously, mortal wound casting in general, and anti-infantry weaponry. Weaknesses: cost and anti-armor. Use demons to off-set these and you will find a pretty fluffy pairing I think that can work decently well.

I echo what alot of people are saying in this thread though and that's that we need a points adjustment in our book. Our units are wayyyyy to expensive to keep up either that or they are not elite enough. GW needs to decide. I think we will be getting a points decrease.

Yeah, at this point my Tsons list has a pretty significant horde component. 30x horrors with extra blues held in split reserve go in front (if they're targeted I split blues towards my opponent to try and tie things up t1), 30x Tzaangors making up the second row to charge towards the frontline as a someone pointier double-distraction. I do use 4x rubric squads (5 each in 2 rhinos), and a scarab occult termie squad plus an Osiron dread as a helbrute and a predator. But in terms of numbers, chaff bodies far outnumber actual thousand sons.

That new proposed Smite rule is going to screw us over HARD. Goddamn it, GW!

What is the new proposed smite rule?

Haven't heard about any changes to smite... Just that some were saying they were going to do something in Chapter Approved which they didn't do... thank goodness.