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If you going to play Thousand Suns you're going to have to specialize though, as mixing anti-tank and anti-infantry just isn't going to fly when the Thousand Suns are so expensive. I figure my Elites, Fast Attack, or Heavy Support will crack open that Rhino so that the Thousand Suns can do what I brought them for: shooting up infantry.

I'll second the Warptime and Doombolt though. Doombolt is surprisingly deadly when it's carefully aimed through the mere manipulation of time itself.

If you're looking for fun, I think Abaddon is a great choice. He often gets put aside in sub-2000 point armies because he's so expensive. But since you're looking to bash around with glee, he's a great choice.

Another overlooked bag of fun is Fabius Bile. Chirurgion, Needler, and Rod of Torment are all fun by themselves, but add the Enhanced Warrior effect (a little expensive but the very meaning of fun) and the Chaos never stops!

Takling of shooting back armor is not exactly a serious reason.

As for willydstyle's rationale for Dust Buckets taking BoC....that's what the rest of the list is supposted to do: bust open transports.

The Dust Buckets are one of the few units that will not be able to suppliment their squads with options. You essentially must compliment them and focus on what makes them good, rather than add elements to make them multi-taskers...

So DoomBolt and Wind come to the fore-front (cheap/maximum offensive respectively)

The oppurtunity cost is huge for BoC and the number of dice to get it working properly is appauling.
If you are relying on them to pop tanks, gak has hit the fan already IMO.

Do you use Dust Buckets willydstyle?

{Just in case, for those who don't know, I nickname Thousand Sons as "Dust Buckets." There is a negative connotation to it}

And I'll agree with Nurglitch and Sanctjud some more...

I don't rely on my infantry to crack the enemy's transports themselves. They have the tools just in case, but it wastes everyone's time if I spend a turn or two opening their can before I can broadside them. To quote a great movie: "I like my food dead before it gets to my plate. Is that too much to ask?" The problem with giving the Thousand Sons a can-opener is that their's is not particularly effective or afflordable (which could describe the entire unit).

I don't use them, because honestly, they're not good no matter what you put on the sorcerer. However, when I watch my friend playing thousand sons against serious mech lists, I just can't help but notice how he often loses because it's the end of the game, there's a rhino sitting on his objective, and all of his stuff that can kill mech is dead because his opponent isn't a dummy.

willydstyle:

That's an interesting thing about flexibility as a property of armies: either you need to have the entire army flexible by balancing a set of specialized units, or you need to have the entire army flexible by balancing a set of flexible units.

A unit of Thousand Suns including an Aspiring Sorcerer with the Bolt of Change is a flexible unit. However, it's also an expensive unit if you don't go for the minimum number of models. And it's flexible in terms of shooting, but you give up synergy in terms of the Mark of Tzeentch allowing you to combine Warptime with Force Weapon or to case Gift of Chaos twice.

If you make them more flexible in terms of the variety of targets they can engage with shooting, then you either lower their redundancy in order to increase the number of flexible units in the army (two minimal units of Thousand Suns are more expensive than one despite the increase in the flexibility of engaging two units and being engaged as two units), or their synergy.

In terms of going the former route, that of specializing units by putting a Bolt of Change on a Sorcerer, again you have the problem of putting him in a unit, in which case he has to shoot at the same target as the unit, or not putting him in a unit so he can target independently and exposing him to fire. If you're going to expose an HQ to fire, it might as well be a Daemon Prince since you will have all the downsides of using a Daemon Prince with the advantages (such as using two psychic shooting powers).

I think you're better off with Chaos Dreadnoughts with Multi-Meltas and Predators with Autocannons/Lascannon sponsons if you're planning on anti-tank, rather than spending 25 points on a Bolt of Change on either an HQ or Troops choice. That said, I feel inspired to give the Troop Bolt of Change idea a whirl.

I think a usable troops choice for a thousand sons player is the following:

4 thousand sons, 1 sorcerer (min size squad) bolt of change.

Rhino

Combi melta -or- havoc launcher

The combi melta helps the 1k sons with mech, the havoc with horde.

If you are going MSU then it comes with the pros and cons of it...but...227 w/o the HL seems like an offensive cost for essentially 5 MEQs in a rhino.

I mean... even Legion of The Damned look more economical...and frankly, that's fethed up .

Sanctjud wrote:If you are going MSU then it comes with the pros and cons of it...but...227 w/o the HL seems like an offensive cost for essentially 5 MEQs in a rhino.

I mean... even Legion of The Damned look more economical...and frankly, that's fethed up .

Like I said, I don't really consider Tsons to really be a viable unit, but if you're going to try to cram them in there anyways, Bolt of Change is your best option.

Best? And what definition are you using? ...
If you go with them, go with IMO a total squad size of 7-8 in a rhino with wind of chaos.
Maximum carnage as the rest of the list should be concerned about tank busting cause...

BoC is stupid.

Psy Test, then to hit, then to penetrate, then cover saves if any, then vehicle table.

It's a wanna be multi-melta but without the melta and has the wonderful chance of killing the shooter.

I don't know what your definition of best is, but I guess the point of views are just that different, so far it's just dirt in my book.

Incidentally, I started an Army List thread about spamming multiple Bolts of Change here.