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I've had a fascination with the Thousand Sons for a while now, and recently decided I would break out into something new and swap my Eldar for Chaos. I've put together a 1000 point basic list (for which I have already bought a couple of pieces), and a 2000 point extended list; I don't intend to go further than that, at least not for a good long while. I'm reltively happy with the starter list, but the extended one seems lacking somehow. It comes in at 16 points under value, which is a lot for me, and I wondered if anyone could suggest something to add or change which might give them a boost or just make them a bit spankier.

It's worth mentioning that I'm trying to run with a combined theme for both lists of flamey-firey-death ('cos everything looks better on fire), and damage-spread (such as with Soul Blaze and the Black Mace). I'm also erring more towards the 'rule of cool' than an army which can utterly destroy all of my enemies. Tha's wot my Orks iz for.

Thanks for all your help
xRuth

THOUSAND SONS
996/1000
Unit Cost Description
HQ 177 Sorceror: Terminator Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Combi-Melta, Mastery Level 3, Spell Familiar, Ichor Blood
TR 297 TS Marines: 8x Marines, 1x Sorceror, Icon of Flame, Rhino (Dirge Casters)
TR 297 TS Marines: As above
EL 115 Helbrute: Multi-Melta, Power Scourge
EL 110 Terminators: 3x Terminators, 1x Champion, Mark of Tzeentch

1984/2000
Unit Cost Description
HQ 177 Sorceror: Terminator Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Combi-Melta, Mastery Level 3, Spell Familiar, Ichor Blood
HQ 300 Daemon Prince: Mastery Level 3, Power Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, The Black Mace
TR 125 Cultists: 19x Cultists, 1x Champion, Autopistol & CCW, Mark of Tzeentch, 2x Flamers
TR 302 TS Marines: 8x Marines, 1x Sorceror, Icon of Flame, Rhino (Dirge Casters, Warpflame Gargoyles)
TR 302 TS Marines: as above
TR 302 TS Marines: as above
EL 115 Helbrute: Multi-Melta, Power Scourge
EL 161 Terminators: 3x Terminators, 1x Champion, Mark of Tzeentch, Icon of Flame
HS 200 Forge Fiend: Ectoplasma Cannons, Additional Ectoplasma Cannon

From what I have seen soul blaze isn't that great so no need for the icons and generally Thousand Sons squads are very Situational. Sure you will tear through marines and the like but 600 points for only 18 men is a lot! especially if they can be taken out by the same smalls arms fire marines can be taken out with, so seriously consider how much you take of these squads. 300 points for 3+ with a small ++ is very expensive.

Maybe take out the icon of flame and take out a TS squad and swap it for a normal squad of chaos marines in a rhino with plasma guns or meltas (depending on what you will be fighting) and that gives you about an extra 115 points.

Also in the errata the Hellbrute is 5 points cheaper so 110 points with the scourge. so with an extra 120 odd points you could add another helbrute or take ichor blood of your Sorc and try squeeze in a las pred for more anti tank.

hope this helped

I personally think that all this talk of fire spreading is a terrible idea.

Mainly considering that i will be MY poor lads on fire!!

Hush you. No-one listen to the Imperial Guard player!

1k sons are totally badass, and due to their less than stellar rules, are a totally fluffy, but fun(and sweet looking) army. If you ever have spare points in a chaos army, combi bolters on sarges

T marked terminators are great, and a termi sorcerer is good too. I would drop ichor blood though, it is pretty terrible...take melta bombs or a combi bolter or anything else. If you really want icons of flame, make sure they are on big squads only. The icon on the 3 terminators will rarely work, as you need to force a wound for soul blaze to work.

Dirge casters are good, but with 1k sons your probably not going to be assaulting all that often, so I would drop them. Warpflame gargyoles are also great for the points, but put em on something better than a rhino, like a vindicator or predator.

Hellbrutes are pretty meh. For far less points, you could take a dakka pred(autocannon turret, heavy bolter sponsons) with warpflame gargyoles which is very good against infantry and light armor. If you wanted even more dakka, throw on a havoc launcher.

Your DP needs a familiar if your going to be level 3, just in case you perils or something. Wings are basically required, then if you have points a gift of mutation is solid.

Cultists are best kept cheap. I know you want the theme, but the mark is terrible. Cultists work on cover, or just dying. I would go with a large blob(27 if you want the numeric theme) naked and camp backfield objectives. Dropping the toys and mark could get you more marked terminators, which you really need to escort your sorcerer.

Welcome to the Thousand Sons!

I've been playing with them for a few years now, modifying my army with the aim on being a mixture of competitiveness and a healthy dose of fluff.

I love the fact you're using two squads of x8 Rubricae with the Sorcerer, I personally (as mentioned by others) drop the dirge-casters from their rhinos. Thousand Sons are a very shooty unit and CC is the last place you want them (so the need for over-watch protection is moot)

I personally find that using a HQ like Ahriman to infiltrate a blob of cultists (Prospero Spireguard) and other expendable meat-shields is a good way to give your rhinos with the Thousand Son squads to trundle up the middle of the board. I would pick squads full of cultists with Dark Apostle (CC weapons only) to push the opponent into making one of two poor decisions - shoot the cultists and leave the rhinos alone OR shoot the rhinos and get charged by a swarm. Either way the Thousand Sons are left alone or at worst lose a transport.

Running a terminator sorcerer lord with a squad of MoT terminators is a great idea

There is also the option of having a normal sorcerer on a fast Disk (hope for Doombolt) who can harass and snipe units.


It may be of use / inspiration (or not!) but I have placed a link to one of my army lists below, I play this army quite regularly.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/564901.page#6281129

I love the list Wulfmar. Can it compete vs some of the competitive lists tho?

I love the 1000 Sons I wish the Emperor wasn't such an idiot. They would still be good guys. I am going to ban psykers for a chapter that is nothing but psykers. What he think would happen? Tell the knowledge guys that their main source of study is forbidden. Bah.

The Emp is such a failure the 2nd main goal was to bring an age of reason and for himself not to be worshiped. Well we see how that turned out.

Then he doesn't tell his primarchs about Chaos and lets them get infiltrated all kinds of ways including what happened to Magnus and Horus.

The list I linked is competitive against lists that aren't written to power game - for an average 40K game it works well and keeps it exciting

When used against power-gaming lists it's not competitive, but if it's any consolation, it's a pain in the backside to kill due to the flexibility/unexpected nature of units popping up in different places. I usually only play people who make lists for fun rather than face-rolling opponents so, in that respect I have a lot of fun with them!

I think the rule of cool over-rides any notion of being uber-competitive when picking opponents and armies - but I guess it depends on local meta and personal taste. I'm one of those gamers who uses the game as an excuse to drink a few beers and laugh when the spells misfire ^^

Yes! Excellent, another thousand sons player.

Consider taking Tzeentch Daemon allies, they give you access to nice cheap troops that are also fluffy, the mini-screamer-star, and the almighty fateweaver

If you're not taking ahriman at 2000 points, you're going to want to take 2 lvl 3 sorcerers and spam telepathy. Since you're going for the burninator build, i'd spam pyro though.

WHERE IS THE HELDRAKE? In a fire based list he truly belongs here. He will also make your army stronger.

I wouldn't ever take just one daemon prince. You need several to split up fire. Think of it this way: you're sending 300 or so points of your army up 24" turn 1 to face all 2000 points of your enemies firepower. Not so great when I put it that way huh? Hes gonna die. Put your points elsewhere or take more of them

Forgefiends are straight up not point efficient. If you want to take him though go right ahead dude

That helbrute will be great at the 1000 point mark, but at 2000 points i just see him getting annihilated. If you're going to take him at 2000 points id give him a more shooty loadout like RAC/ML



Heres the list I'm building:

Ahriman (Warlord)
5 Terminators-MoT, VoTLW, Power Axes, Heavy Flamer and Icon of Flame on one (Ahriman)
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
Vindicator- Daemonic Possession, Combi-Bolter, Siege Shield
Vindicator- Daemonic Possession, Combi-Bolter, Siege Shield
Heldrake- Baleflamer
Herald of Tzeentch- Disk of Tzeentch, Grimoire, Mastery Level 3
11 Pink Horrors
9 Screamers (Herald)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Welcome to the Thousand Sons!

I've been playing with them for a few years now, modifying my army with the aim on being a mixture of competitiveness and a healthy dose of fluff.

I love the fact you're using two squads of x8 Rubricae with the Sorcerer, I personally (as mentioned by others) drop the dirge-casters from their rhinos. Thousand Sons are a very shooty unit and CC is the last place you want them (so the need for over-watch protection is moot)

I personally find that using a HQ like Ahriman to infiltrate a blob of cultists (Prospero Spireguard) and other expendable meat-shields is a good way to give your rhinos with the Thousand Son squads to trundle up the middle of the board. I would pick squads full of cultists with Dark Apostle (CC weapons only) to push the opponent into making one of two poor decisions - shoot the cultists and leave the rhinos alone OR shoot the rhinos and get charged by a swarm. Either way the Thousand Sons are left alone or at worst lose a transport.

Running a terminator sorcerer lord with a squad of MoT terminators is a great idea

There is also the option of having a normal sorcerer on a fast Disk (hope for Doombolt) who can harass and snipe units.


It may be of use / inspiration (or not!) but I have placed a link to one of my army lists below, I play this army quite regularly.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/564901.page#6281129

The most interesting thing I see about this list is the dark apostle. Thousand Sons need ways to distract your opponent, and this idea adds another option to my list. So now I have:

Chaos Spawn-MoN
Mini-Screamer-Star (Daemon allies: 1 herald, 9 screamers, 10 pink horrors)
Dark Apostle, 2X30 cultists-3 flamers and 1 shotgun each

 changerofways wrote:
WHERE IS THE HELDRAKE?

I absolutely hate the way the Heldrake looks, it's a massive shame that my brain did that to me on one of the really good units :/

Thanks everyone for your help with this! I've made a few tweaks but tried to keep the flavour the same, so at the moment the 2000pt list sits like this:

HQ
Daemon Prince: Mastery Level 3, Power Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, The Black Mace, Spell Familiar, Wings
Sorceror: Terminator Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Combi-Melta, Mastery Level 3, Spell Familiar

TROOPS
27x Cultists: Autopistol & CCW, 2x Flamers
9x TS Marines: Sorceror, Icon of Flame, Rhino
9x TS Marines: Sorceror, Icon of Flame, Rhino

HEAVIES
Helbrute: Multi-Melta, Power Scourge
8x Terminators: Terminator Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Icon of Flame, Heavy Flamer, Champion (Power Weapon, Combi Bolter)
Forge Fiend: Ectoplasma Cannons, Additional Ectoplasma Cannon

FAST ATTACK
Chaos Spawn: Mark of Tzeentch



I've picked up the Spawn to give something fast to start harassing people while the boys get a bit closer. I hear what you say about sending the Daemon Prince in on his own; he's a bit expensive for getting mulched early on! Do you think the spawn will help? They're also a wonderful conversion opportunity - I do so love doing conversions!

I was thinking I might drop the helbrute and the cultists, and pick up some IG allies as traitor guard; they won't count as friendly for psychic power purposes, but I don't mind that so much. They'll be a bit more reliable that the cultists would, with orders etc, and the fluff would make me feel all warm inside.
I looked into Chaos Daemons as allies, but nothing really grabbed me. I might rethink if I go for a higher points list at some stage.

Im with you on the Heldrake thing, its a massively good model in game terms but it looks like an angry capon.