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After being out of the hobby for a few years, I've managed to find a local club and got back into the game. I've stuck with the army I had before back in 4th Ed., Chaos Space Marines, and I decided to start an Thousand Sons army, mainly because I love the fluff and the colour scheme (and my friend loves it as well, so much he very kindly paints some of my stuff!), and I also like messing around in the psychic phase. But after playing a few games with them, I have noticed that they're... lacking, in a few respects.

Now, I still want to play as Thousand Sons, but I figured taking allies would help fill in the gaps (i.e. something to take out vehicles/ 2+ saves more effectively). Now, I know Daemons count as Battle Brothers on the allies matrix, and I presume the FW Renegades also count as BB (though I could be mistaken). So I was wondering which of the two options people think is more effective, and also more fluffy? I'm tending towards the Daemons being the more fluffy of the two (especially AFAIK there are no specifically Tzeentch lists for renegades), but then again I like the idea of renegades as there's lots of room for cool conversions...

So yeah, any opinions either way?

IA13 renegade most certainly are battle brothers. Cheapish lascannons will help you, Leman Russ ain't bad and a Baneblade if so inclined. Plus plasma guns and anti aircraft are available, so that should plug any shortcomings. Unless your renegades just run off the board that is.

Well I love the renegades, but for TS you want daemons. Psychic heavy lists NEED warp charge to be effective and daemons allow you to do that. Horrors and heralds are the best cheap warp charge you can get . You can do all sorts of stuff with guys like belakor, fateweaver, princes, screamers. The portal glyph and grimoire of true names are excellent too.

You can get whole units of cheap psykers in a renegade list depending on your warlord. Make your renegade list primary and bolt on whatever you enjoy, go Tzeentch would approve!

IA13 for sure make the best allies... also they actually get a great benefit from their Tzeentch abilities (BS2 snap shot) which makes it even more fluffy.

Also like NoiseMarine said you can cram in lots of cheap psykers, so you don't need Daemons to boost your warp charges.

.. cheap terrible psychers guys. Really terrible



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Dont get me wrong, the rest of the renegade stuff is pretty great. The best thing about mark of tzeentch is the cheap spawn you can field.

The problem with taking Renegades for cheap psychers is that it must be your primary, and if it is your primary than Thousand Sons can't be troops. I have been crying about the fact that CSM must be my primary for a while because I really want to have the cheap psychers from Renegades, the warp storm from demons and Thousand Sons as troops, but you just can't do it.

I've always thought of Ahriman's followers and those that followed Magnus as very different armys. Magnus's followers imho would work with demons and renegades while Ahriman's forces would be more legion-centric. His hatred of what happened to his legion leading him away from chaos.

Which means...Forge World! All the best 30k stuff to fill the gaps.

OK, appreciate your views. I didn't say they were good psykers but they contribute dice. Nuff said really.

Azoqu wrote:
The problem with taking Renegades for cheap psychers is that it must be your primary, and if it is your primary than Thousand Sons can't be troops. I have been crying about the fact that CSM must be my primary for a while because I really want to have the cheap psychers from Renegades, the warp storm from demons and Thousand Sons as troops, but you just can't do it.

That's somewhat annoying, then. I can maybe see why to a degree if GW don't want people to benefit from multiple army's special rules, but not being able to use cheap psykers from one set of allies but being able to use cheap psykers from another seems pointless.

Basically I guess the choice is do I want to boost my psychic phase with Daemon allies, or boost my shooting phase with Renegades?

It doesn't have to be your primary. You can still take 5 cheap psykers without the arch demagogue being your warlord. Just as the 2nd HQ choice. Any more than 5 and your really beginning to throw points away considering how pee poor they are.
You only need the arch demagogue to be your warlord if taking the psykers as elites.

You can take both.. obviously it becomes a bit points tight but the compulsory units are pretty cheap so you can build 3 factions lists OK. I mean a daemonic allied detachment with 16 horrors and a level 3 heralds is 6 WC is around 200, Then a demagogue and some mutants is only 75 pts, so the rest can be spent on sons and guns.

As an aside,you can also fill the gaps with a fortification. Like vengeance weapons batteries, a firestorm redoubt or, even better, a fortress of redemption. Give your sorcerers a secluded arcane workshop, or model up some servitors to some big cannons and enjoy the grim dark satisfaction that only an av14 bulwark full of cultists and daemons can bring.

Daemons are best for warp charges and a psychic phase.

Renegades are best for anti-vehicle and drowning the table in bodies. Rapier Laser Destroyer Batteries are brutal.

If you are already looking at forgeworld then you don't actually need any allies to add more anti tank and Sv2+ killing stuff. You can take a sicaran or fire raptor to help with cracking vehicles open. You could get conversion beamer rapier batteries or plasma chosen in a dreadclaw to help with Sv2+ stuff. Now if you want allies that is an entirely different thing. The only problem with any solution you use to make a thousands sons list work is that the thousand sons units are so expensive and so niche that you have to build a daemon summoning list around them to make them really carry their weight.

Thus if you don't mind spending some pretty serious money I would recommend a daemon summoning list with Thousand Sons primary and a daemon allies detachment with; 4 ML3 Tz Heralds and 2 units of 11 or 16 pink horrors. This would give you an additional 16-18 power dice in the psychic phase. It also gives you a number of malefic psykers which can use their powers to conjure units that can kill Sv2+ and vehicles. The units you will need to conjure the most are; Lots of Screamers of Tz (Daemon anti tank and Sv2+), lots of Daemonettes of Slaanesh (decent against vehicle and good against Sv2+), a couple of Lords of Change, and perhaps a smattering of other units. The best part of the daemon allies is that you can keep your primary as thousands sons and actually benefit from not having to use the daemons comedy chart, you also maximize on the strengths of a thousands sons army. The down side is that you don't gain any long range weapons to help.

Renegades and Heretics (RH) is probably my favorite army right now. They are also an excellent army for price and looks as you can use pretty much any model you want, paint it however you want, and come up with pretty much any lore you want. If you want to take a thousands sons sorcerer who leads a large warband of heretics this can be a great fit. RH is a great primary army as they can take one of the best units in the game...ObjSec Spawn, lol. The RH list is also extremely starved for FOC slots as the units are each so cheap. They would definitely fulfill your needs for Sv2+ and anti armour. A single unit of medusa heavy artillery carriages could almost fulfill the need by itself. Units of cheap sentinels and rapier batteries are also incredible.

R&H is actually a very fun list to use. If you go full fluff for your KSons, hordes of cheap renegade infantry to act as anti-assault bubbles for your sons is good, as Tzeench covenant allows overwatch on BS2! Plus they are cheaper than chips, allowing you to spam disposable plasma guns like you wouldn't believe. For about the same cost as a fully kitted out Black Mace prince, you can get 60 bodies with 8 plasma guns in the mix.