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The story behind this list is that Ive always wanted a pure thousand sons army, but the fact of the matter is, a pure thousand sons list would suck, so I've tried to make a half decent list, with everything modelled to be thousand sons.

The way the army plays is by getting in the enemy's face early in the game, (flying daemon prince, 3 units of spawn, DSing Oblits and a Sorcerer on a Bike) hopefully causing them to panic, and make poor decisions. I wanted to have at least one actual unit of thousand sons, and to have them as troops, hence the sorcerer with MoT, unfortunately this means he cant have the superior mark of nurgle, and also that one of the spawn units he'll be with must remain unmarked. (a character with one mark can't join a unit with a different mark).

Sorcerer, Bike, Burning brand, melta bombs, Sigil, MoT - 155 (warlord)

Daemon Prince Power Armour DoT Wings Black Mace - 265

Cultists - 50

thousand sons - 150

9 chaos marines, 2 plasma guns, votlw - 166

9 Chaos Marines, 2 plasma guns - 157

3 spawn - 90

4 spawn, MoN - 144

4 spawn, MoN - 144

Heldrake - 170

6 Havocs, 4 Autocannons - 128

2 obliterators, MoN - 152

3 obliterators, MoN - 222

TOTAL 1993

Pros: very fast army, lots of high toughness, multi wound melee units to put the pressure on an enemy early in the game.

Cons: The list in general is weak to flyers, having to rely on Havocs and Oblits for anti air.

My main question I'd like feedback on is whether or not the daemon prince is too big of a points sink. For his cost I could get a second drake and another unit of spawn. On the other hand, he hits hard, is an intimidating unit for opponents and the black mace provides some reasonable anti blob punch that the list is otherwise not strong on. Even if he distracts enemy shooting for a turn, that gives the spawn who are the backbone of the army time to close with the enemy and get stuck in. I've only playtested the 1500 pt variation of this list, which doesnt include the DP. What do you guys reckon?

I've not played much in the past few months so what i'm going to say may not be all that useful or in any way right, but...

Personally I really like the Daemon Prince, the Black Mace is awesome, and worth taking in my opinion. He is of course a big target, and against some opponents he could very well be down first turn without doing anything. Its up too you to be clever with deployment and positioning. Maybe the Daemon Prince shouldn't be going after the opponents biggest threat (or biggest threat to the Daemon prince) send the spawn after them to force their hand a little.

I'm not really sure where you're going with your troops though. Personally, what i'd do with the troops. Without changing anything else anyway, is take out either one CSM squad or the 1K sons, and add in two Rhinos. They won't be high priority targets early on i the Spawn and Prince are rushing forwards, gives them a bit of manoeuvrability and hides them away. You'd then probably have the points to add an extra spawn or two to the 3 squad, presumably that is the Sorcerers squad? I'd want a couple extra bodies in there.

I also wouldn't go into games planning on deep striking the Oblits, you probably just said that as a general tactic, but I used to do that. Plan my deployment/reserves before even knowing who I was playing and sticking too it. When in many cases its not the right thing to do. I like Oblits on the table as they're tough and the extra fire support from turn one is nice.

Edit:
Although I have just realised, having never played 2K points, you need the four troops to be able to take extra fast attack don't you?
Also according to Battlescribe, your CSM squads are under pointed or illegal. You need 10 men to get two Plasma, which makes the squad 170 without anything else.

What i'd do at 2K points if I were making this list:

Oh yeah, the deep striking is something Id obviously decide on a game by game basis, it's just a general idea, sometimes it's nice to be able to pop down right next to heavy armour and slag it, y'know?

The whole army works, as you say, on forcing the opponent's hand. With the prince, the biker sorc and the spawn right in someone's face early on, a lot of people will be caught out on target priority, and even then, they're unlikely to catch everything before it hits.

Troop wise, (and this is something I've come to after playtesting similar lists at lower points) the army hits in two waves, the faster spawn based wave, followed by the troops, and people generally ignore the troops entirely because they're panicking about the spawn, plus with thousand sons I want them to be able to use those ap3 bolters as soon as the opportunity arises, without having to worry about disembarking. Im not sure if it's worth the swap, 5 thousand sons are more durable than 10 cultists, and your list only has 7 more troop models than mine.

I have enough spawn models & cultist models to test your version of the list though, so I'll give it a go just to see what switching the troops out offers.

I understand the high-threat fast-moving units idea, but keep in mind that a single FMC is a waste. FMC's are like rhinos- Lots or none at all. Lots of armies can get rid of him quickly.

Why the 5man unit of Tsons? They are absolutely terrible and will do nothing but disappoint you (not Tsons in general.. just taking a 5man foot-slogging unit). Prime example: A space marine drop pod will slaughter 5 Thousand Sons as they waddle across the board, and there's nothing they can do about it. I would drop the 3 nekkid spawn to mount up those Tsons and try to find a way to give them 2 more bodies. You are taking a Tzeentch Sorcerer so you might as well have a nice-sized unit of scoring Tsons. You are purposefuly handicapping yourself to the Tzeentch Discipline for no reason if you just take 5 Tsons. What a ramble.. You get my point. Sorry

Not read entire thread yet but if your sorceror is Tzeentch marked i would use the Disc of Tzeentch for a few more points...

Since you're double foc you could drop the daemon prince and have four lord/sorcs on discs with raptors for a big unit of fast hitting pain. Once one raptor dies (if you take minimum) the average toughness of the unit would also go up to 5.

 Opera wrote:
Not read entire thread yet but if your sorceror is Tzeentch marked i would use the Disc of Tzeentch for a few more points...

Since you're double foc you could drop the daemon prince and have four lord/sorcs on discs with raptors for a big unit of fast hitting pain. Once one raptor dies (if you take minimum) the average toughness of the unit would also go up to 5.

I like the idea of four mounted sorcs, on discs if points permit it, bikes if not. On the other hand I'd rather put them with spawn over raptors, spawn just hit harder and are more durable, plus being beasts they ignore terrain. Definitely something to experiment with there.


1ksons thing, which Brometheus brought up, I would like a larger unit, and I definitely want them to be scoring, but they're pretty expensive. Ive generally found their invul makes them half decent for marching up the board and camping when they find a mid field objective to sit on. Theyre safer than they might be in a normal list because most people are too busy worrying about the assault units to bother with them. I'm considering dropping them altogether in favour of a unit of CSM, but we'll see what playtesting brings.

As for the FMC thing, do you reckon the DP is a waste of time altogether then?

You could either drop the DP for a massive squad of Tsons on foot, combined with that other 5man unit, or just run 2x 5man units of CSM with Plasma in Rhinos for extra threat since this list is absolutely more powerful when everything is deployed and lined up.

Hmm, I feel that there are better ways to spend those 265 points than on more thousand sons.

The army relies on opponents panicking and making bad decisions when that first wave of spawn hits. The less units there are in that wave, the easier it is for the opponent to have good target priority and deal with them. And if that wave falls apart, well. This codex isnt going to be winning any shootouts...

The DP is a big, threatening unit that will cause problems if the opponent ignores it. But it is massively overcosted. If the best thing to do is to lose it from the list, I feel its position in the first wave needs to be filled.

Also, with no DP, I have the points to take a second heldrake. Is that a good idea, or am I sinking points into something that might not arrive til late game?

 Brometheus wrote:
You could either drop the DP for a massive squad of Tsons on foot, combined with that other 5man unit, or just run 2x 5man units of CSM with Plasma in Rhinos for extra threat since this list is absolutely more powerful when everything is deployed and lined up.

Have you had much success with a large 10+ foot slogging Thousand Sons? Infiltrating and not infiltrating...

Ive considered running huron to infiltrate multiple units, but he's hamstrung by the fact he can only infiltrate infantry, and what I really need to infiltrate are invariably non infantry models.

Opera- yes. They are actually more likely to get a good rapid fire off if they Outflank on foot. You should only Infiltrate them if they are in a Rhino (which those in our example are not) and you are pretty sure you'll be getting first turn. Outflanking means they have a good chance of arriving to rapid fire *something*, vs. just being deployed close and shot to pieces. The bad thing with Outflank is that the OPs army is most powerful when everything is deployed.. So sometimes you might be better off Infiltrating and making the Tsons soak up fire!! If that's the case, you shouldn't even be taking Tsons. Sigh.

Otherwise, 10+ Tsons Infiltrated up close will just get shredded no different than 10+ CSM by small arms fire, as you well know.

If you are interested in finding a good Infiltrating unit to add threat, Throw in 5 Raptors with 2x Melta. They absolutely MUST be killed, and by that method you are controlling the enemy if they have valuable armor. Secondly, there is nothing wrong with Infiltrating those two units of CSM if you roll well on Master of Deception. Sure, you want the Spawn up close.. but you put additional pressure on the enemy in order to take some heat from them.

Sometimes I ramble, but I mean well. I really do. Does that make sense?