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Tau list (2k)

Commander 4x Fusion, 2x shield drone
Commander 4x Cyclic Ion, 2x Gun Drone
Commander 4x Cyclic Ion, 2x Gun Drone, Drone Controller
Coldstar Commander, 2x Shield Drone, thing that gives extra AP
Cadre Fireblade
Firesight Marksman with marker light
Commander Shadowsun, 2x special shield drones, 1x some other different drone

5x Fire Warriors, Marker Light
5x Fire Warriors, Marker Light
5x Fire Warriors, Marker Light

3x crisis suits with 2x flamers each, 6x Gun Drones
Fusion Piranha, 2x gun drones
Fusion Piranha, 2x gun drones
Ghostkeel, 2x stealth drones, ion raker
5x stealth suits with 1x Fusion, 2x Shield Drones
5x stealth suits with 1x Fusion, 2x Shield Drones

Detachments made 8CP total, so a battalion plus other stuff (sorry, not my list and not an army I play so I'm a bit unfamiliar)

Thousand Sons list (2k)

Battalion 1

Ahriman on disc
Terminator Sorceror (Warlord, +1 to cast trait, CP stealing hat relic)

10x Rubrics with Soulreaper and hand flamer in a Rhino with 2x Combi bolters
10x Rubrics with Soulreaper and hand flamer in a Rhino with 2x Combi bolters
23x Tzaangors with Brayhorn and Blades

5x Scarab Occult with Hellfyre Rocket and Heavy Warpflamer
Hellforged COntemptor with double butcher cannons

Battalion 2

Fateskimmer
The Changeling

10x Pink Horrors
5x Brims 5x Blues
5x Brims 5x Blues

3x Flamers
1x Exalted Flamer

Mission: New Chapter Approved Supply Drop. 6 objectives on the board, on turn 3 each player takes turns selecting 3 and randomly determining which one stays and becomes a real objective, which two are removed.

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil (or whatever they now call short edge 24" zone)

Psychic Powers: Ahriman grabbed Gift of Chaos, Prescience, Glamour of Tzeentch. Termie Sorc brought Warptime, Weaver of Fates. SOT sorc brought Boon of Mutation. Rubric Sorc 1 brought Temporal Distortion. Rubric sorc 2 brought Tzeentchs Firestorm. Changeling brought Gaze of Fate. Fateskimmer brought Flickering Flames and Infernal Gateway.

Mission rules: Both players agreed to use the Statuary rules for all terrain on the table save for the craters, since statuary tends to function better than Ruins in 8th.

Deployment from each player: The brimstones and Blues started by setting up a no deep strike/no stealth suit zone across my deployment zone front line and 9" away from one side. All Tau suits started in deep strike, stealth suits started 12" away from the brimstone line with Shadowsun. All other tau units started solidly in the backfield. Thousand Sons units started spread across the deployment zone such that the only deep strike location was in front of the brimstoneline, with Fateskimmer, Ahriman, and the Dreadnought in the back because they all had reasonable movement to get forward/didnt need to be forward in the case of the dread. Pinks and rhinos deployed behind the brimstoneline. Flamers, Tzaangors, Terminators, and Termie Sorc deep strike.

Tsons get +1 and win the first turn. Tzaangors and Termie sorc deep strike in, flamers also deep strike on the other side of the board to cause a distraction. Warptime and Weaver go off, Prescience fails on the Tzaangors. I notice that I moved the dread forward to get line of sight on a target across the board and left a spot behind it in the corner, so I opt to cast Glamour on the dread just in case fusion commander decides to drop in on him. Dread shoots his butcher cannons at a Piranha and one-shots it. Tzaangors charge in on both stealth teams and shadowsun and pop Cycle of Slaughter to fight twice. They kill 4.5 stealth suits and two shield drones in total. Darn -1 to hits. The flamers torch 4 members of a strike team and surround the sarge in melee so they cant be shot.

Tau respond by falling back the stealth suits, dropping in the flamers via Stealth Beacon that lets them get within 8" and dropping all the commanders except the fusion commander in near the tzaangors. everything else moves up. Tzaangors proceed to do an impression of that one scene with the walker robot in the corporate boardroom in Robocop, and all of them die, eventually. A rhino is also knocked out by 18" range fusion guns, killing 2 of the 10 rubrics inside, but does not explode. one unit of brims and blues is also shot to bits and dies to morale. The Terminator sorceror warlord takes 2 wounds from cyclic ion fire.

With most of the tau deep strikers now deployed, the rubrics form up around Ahriman and get into range along with the Scarab Occult who deep strike in and Warptime closer. The Scarab Sorceror and Rubric Sorceror uses Temporal Manipulation and Boon of mutation to heal up the termie sorc and give him another +1 to cast. Scarabs use VOTLW and along with the Rubrics, tear up all crisis suits, one of the units of stealth suits, both cyclic ion commanders, the piranha, and all the drones, leaving Shadowsun alive with 3 wounds and the Coldstar unhurt. The flamers torch the stealth drones and a crisis team before doing the exact same charge into combat and tie up thing against the cadre fireblade, continuing their merry adventure through the entire Tau backline.

The fusion commander drops in and between her, shadowsun, the ghostkeel, the remaining stealth suits and the coldstar kill the Fateskimmer and leave Ahriman with one wound. The already damaged rubrics take 2 casualties to cyclic ion fire from the ghostkeel, and the scarab terminators lose two to fusion guns.

Turn 3, and the objective rolled by the Thousand Sons is midfield in the thick of the fighting. The remaining horrors swarm towards it with Changeling. The coldstar commander who was out of protection trying to kill Ahriman is hit with Fire Frenzied butcher cannons and killed, and the Stealth Suits are killed by Gift of Chaos. Most firepower goes into trying to kill Shadowsun, and she's left with 1 wound. The Scarab Terminators charge to try and finish her off, but get hit with a For the Greater Good overwatch bomb and die. The flamers charge as well, but Shadowsun and the commander use Heroic Interventions and kick two of them to death.

Tau turn 3, the objective rolled is the other end of midfield where there are almost no units except an empty rhino. The fusion commander, shadowsun, and the ghostkeel mount a last ditch offensive, taking out Ahriman, killing all but two rubrics in the damaged squad, and dealing another three wounds to the terminator sorceror with an unlucky fusion damage roll.

Tsons turn 4, the Terminator sorceror is again healed, and the remaining suits are killed, with the Pyrocaster, sole survivor of the three Flamers, dealing the very last wound to the fusion commander ending his glorious and improbable reign of mayhem across the entire Tau side of the board.The game is called at that point with only a Firesight marksman, Cadre fireblade and a few drones left on the board for the tau meaning the sons will definitely win on objectives.

Overall thoughts:

-Thousand Sons still feel really good with their codex. Tau are a very good matchup because large volumes of good AP firepower work very well against the Drones' savior protocols rule and the psychich powers of the sorcerors work unopposed and are also quite good at reaching out and hurting the vital Commanders.

-Rubrics with real powers is a world of difference. I had my Warlord take his entire wounds value in damage over the course of the game and he ended up full health thanks to Temporal Distortion. Tzeentch's Firestorm dropped 6 mortal wounds in total. Boon of Mutation only worked once, but when it did it got my Termie Sorc to +3 on his first cast +2 on his second. We used the Beta Smite rule and the Characters Dont Block Characters rule, and beta smite did next to nothing to hurt my army, I honestly never used smite more than once per turn and never felt the need to.

-Tau need a codex. The suit characters, drones and stealth suits feel fine, but fire warriors and heavy suits just seem incredibly underpowered right now. Honestly, I never thought I'd say it after 7th, but I do think old markerlights should come back in some shape or form. BS4+ hurts the tau so bad especially on the heavy suits which lose BS with damage.

What are the Kairic acolytes proxying?

pismakron wrote:
What are the Kairic acolytes proxying?

Tzaangors. I run half my unit as Tzaangors, half my unit as Kairics, because I like the model variety and they're similar sizes/bases. I figure they're just a unit of "general mutants" with fantasy weapons, some of whom are more mutated than others.

Nice to see Tsons doing well with the new codex. I think they are going to be quite competitive.

Cheers for writing that up, always nice to know how the Sons are holding up with the new codex. I don't have any Tzaangors so not sure how to run them yet.

 Thousandeyes wrote:
Cheers for writing that up, always nice to know how the Sons are holding up with the new codex. I don't have any Tzaangors so not sure how to run them yet.

Tzaangors are solid, but not entirely necessary, especially if you're open to the option of some Chaos Daemon buddies as well. 30x Pink Horrors deep striking in can do very similar things to 30x tzaangors - clear hordes, distract, tie stuff up is pretty much the name of the game. A Chaos Daemon patrol of just 30x pinks and a Fateskimmer does good, a Battalion with that plus 2x units of cheap brimstone horrors and the Changeling is only a few points more and gives you 3 more CPs to spend on your Thousand Sons and provides a couple other highly useful services as well (Changeling casts Gaze of Fate and protects your Daemon Engines with his FNP aura, the brims give you a deep strike screen similar to what you'd do with cultists).

If you're going with only Thousand Sons with no tzaangors no daemons, take some cultists for a DS screen, put your Rubrics in squads of 10 with soulreapers in Rhinos, and then consider going for the deep strike tie up/alpha strike with a unit of 10 Scarab Occult Terminators and a terminator sorceror.