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Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






Design Goals: Create 3 Thousand Sons Detachments that are each geared toward a thematic warfare strategy Thousand Sons employ and give different playstyles and experiences while allowing the use of an almost infinite number of lists within each detachment. These detachments are meant to be balanced against eachother and not against the official Thousand Sons Detachments, because those Detachments provide very little benefit, meaning the design space I have to work with would be too small. How much points of Thousand Sons would have to increase to account for these more powerful detachments is hard to say and would differ from unit to unit and guessing all the impacts is not within the scope of this project unfortunately. If you wanted to play with these detachments I strongly suggest you bring up this topic and figure something out among yourselves, like a 5% or 20% points handicap.

Arcane Cult
Detachment Ability: Eldritch Knowledge
The Sorcerers of the Arcane Cult draw upon their mastery of the warp to pierce the veil of reality, striking at their enemies with devastating precision and uncovering their most dire vulnerabilities.

Weapons equipped by THOUSAND SONS models within 3" of an objective marker from your army gain the DEVASTATING WOUNDS ability when targeting enemy units below half-strength.

Stratagems

Warp Sight – 2CP
The arcane arts reveal paths unseen, allowing sorcerers to strike even from obscured vantage points.

WHEN: In your Shooting phase.
TARGET: One THOUSAND SONS unit from your army.
EFFECT: Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in that unit gain the INDIRECT FIRE ability.

Malefic Scroll – 1CP
The sorcerer pens a malefic scroll using forbidden words of a Daemonic tongue to manifest his spells at their most awesome potential.

WHEN: In your Shooting phase when a THOUSAND SONS unit destroys a unit with a PSYCHIC weapon.
TARGET: The PSYCHIC weapon.
EFFECT: That psychic weapon gains the SUSTAINED HITS 2 ability until the end of the game.

Fell Sacrifice – 1CP
The blood of the fallen empowers the psychic resonance of the warp, spreading terror among the enemy ranks.

WHEN: In the Fight phase, after a friendly THOUSAND SONS unit destroys an enemy unit that was on an objective marker.
TARGET: The THOUSAND SONS unit from your army that destroyed the enemy unit.
EFFECT: Enemy units within 12" of the target may not use the Feel No Pain ability against mortal wounds until the end of the turn.

Coruscating Beam – 1CP
A sudden, lethal beam of magic is released from a Silver Tower.

WHEN: In your Command phase.
TARGET: One enemy unit.
EFFECT: That unit suffers a number of mortal wounds equal to the number of objective markers you control with a PSYKER unit within 3".

Time Flux – 1CP
The sorcerers of the Cult of Time reach through the warp to restore the fallen, knitting flesh and soul back together.

WHEN: At the start of your Command phase.
TARGET: One THOUSAND SONS unit from your army.
EFFECT: One model in the unit regains up to 3 lost wounds. If the unit is below its Starting Strength, return one destroyed model (excluding CHARACTER models) to the unit with its full wounds remaining.

Chronoshatter – 1CP
By fragmenting the flow of time, the cult creates a shield of temporal distortion, confounding the advance of their enemies.

WHEN: In your opponent’s Charge phase, when an enemy unit declares a charge against a THOUSAND SONS unit from your army.
TARGET: The charging unit.
EFFECT: Until the end of the phase, subtract 2 from that unit’s Charge roll.

Enhancements

Lord of Forbidden Lore – 35 pts
This sorcerer has committed many a grimoire and unholy tome to memory, giving him unparalleled knowledge of hexes, curses, and destructive rites.

THOUSAND SONS PSYKER model only. The bearer can be selected to use a Ritual even if another PSYKER from your army has already been selected to use that Ritual this phase.

Athenaean Scrolls – 20 pts
Ahriman consumed the knowledge contained in the Athenaeum of Kallimakus long ago, but not all of the Athenaeum’s founders were slain when their repository of knowledge was destroyed. Some of their lore has since been transcribed to keep an echo of that great library in existence. One who possesses these texts has access to techniques that make his spells exceptionally potent.

THOUSAND SONS PSYKER model only. In your Command phase, if the bearer is on the battlefield and is not Battle-shocked, it generates you 1 additional Cabal point this phase.

Umbralefic Crystal – 20 pts
By siphoning the perpetual gloom from the location where the cursed planet Mangel III once existed in realspace, a cabal of sorcerers from the Cult of Magic created the Umbralefic Crystal. One in command of this powerful relic can use its energies to temporarily fold space, creating a gate of sorcerous translocation through which he or his allies can step.

THOUSAND SONS model only. Once per battle, in your Command phase, you can remove the bearer’s unit from the battlefield. If you do, in the Reinforcements step of your next Movement phase, set that unit back up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" horizontally away from all enemy models.

Arcane Vortex – 25 pts
This ritualistic locus is formed from the matter of arcane objects, their substance broken down at a molecular level and added to a nexus of energy surrounding the creator. When battle is joined, the sorcerer draws upon this power, all the better to unleash warp-fuelled destruction upon the enemy.

THOUSAND SONS model only. Add 1 to the Strength and Damage characteristics of Psychic weapons equipped by the bearer.

Deceiver’s Thralls
Detachment Ability
Grand Scheme
The battlefield is but a canvas for the schemes of Tzeentch. The sorcerers of the Deceiver’s Thralls weave intricate plans, creating zones of strategic dominance where illusions, ambushes, and psychic manipulations unravel the enemy’s efforts. Each move they make is but another thread in an endless web of deceit.

Certain areas of the battlefield are within your army’s Grand Scheme, as follows:
Your deployment zone is always within your army’s Grand Scheme.

At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the objective markers within No Man’s Land, until the end of that phase, No Man’s Land is within your army’s Grand Scheme.

At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the objective markers within your opponent’s deployment zone, until the end of that phase, your opponent’s deployment zone is within your army’s Grand Scheme.

After both sides have deployed, but before you have determined who will have the first turn, you must assign a scheme below to each battle round, and note this down secretly on your army roster.

Glamour of Tzeentch: Grants Stealth to THOUSAND SONS units from your army within the Grand Scheme area.

Webway Infiltration: THOUSAND SONS units from your army arriving from reserves within the Grand Scheme area can be set up more than 6" away from enemy units instead of the usual 9".

Attempt Possessions: Inflicts 1 mortal wound on each enemy unit and each character within those units in the Grand Scheme area in your Command phase.

Stratagems

Perfidious Reversal
1CP
Tzeentch’s plans are a labyrinth of lies, and even your enemies’ actions serve his purpose.

WHEN: In your Shooting phase.
TARGET: One friendly unit within Engagement Range of enemy units.
EFFECT: The target unit can shoot this phase even while within Engagement Range of enemy units. It can only target enemy units it is within Engagement Range of.

Phantasmal Force
1CP
A mirage of dominance, the illusion of control. Your foes do not realize their doom until it is too late.

WHEN: In your Command phase.
TARGET: One objective marker with no enemy units within range.
EFFECT: Your army gains control of the target objective marker until the start of your next Command phase, even if no friendly units are within range of it. Your opponent may immediately use the Overwatch Stratagem against this effect if any of their units are eligible to do so.

Stoke Fear
1CP
Even the bravest crumble before the psychic onslaught of the Changer of Ways.

WHEN: At the start of your opponent’s turn.
TARGET: One friendly unit.
EFFECT: Until the end of your next turn, improve the Wound rolls made by weapons equipped by the target unit by 1.

Spread Distrust
1CP
Doubt is a weapon sharper than any blade; watch as alliances crumble to nothingness.

WHEN: At the start of your opponent’s turn.
TARGET: One enemy unit within 12".
EFFECT: Until the start of your next turn, the target unit gains the following aura ability: “While a friendly unit is within 6" of this unit, it does not benefit from Cover.”

Empyric Maelstrom
2CP
The weave of the warp is eternal, and those caught in its current are torn apart by its limitless fury.

WHEN: In your Shooting phase.
TARGET: One enemy unit.
EFFECT: Select three friendly units. Draw imaginary lines between each of those units to form a triangle. If the target enemy unit is crossed by all three sides of the triangle, increase the Attacks characteristic of psychic weapons targeting that unit by 2 until the end of the phase.

Vengeance for Prospero
1CP
The Thousand Sons never forget the flames of betrayal, nor do they forgive the destruction of their home.

WHEN: In your Charge phase.
TARGET: One friendly unit that Fell Back this turn.
EFFECT: The target unit is eligible to declare a charge this phase.

Enhancements

Duplicitous Tactician 20 pts
This deceitful sorcerer deploys false images of his warriors to confuse and confound the foe, the very act being a veneration of the Great Conspirator.

After both players have deployed their armies, select up to three THOUSAND SONS units from your army and redeploy them. When doing so, you can set those units up in Strategic Reserves if you wish, regardless of how many units are already in Strategic Reserves.

Self Delusion 20 pts
It is impossible to predict the actions of this sorcerer, for their plans and allegiances hidden even from themself. The only constant in such a battle is inconstancy, for perpetual misdirection and the sowing of confusion are the means by which they keep their enemies off balance.

Once per battle the bearer may change the battle round's scheme at the start of a battle round.

Sorthis Mirror 20 pts
This strangely named dagger is made of the purest reflective glass, its dazzling light shining into the minds of the foe. One afflicted by its brilliance becomes a helpless marionette as their mind convulses and they strike against themselves with their own weapons, or lash out at their allies as enemy fighters watch on in confusion and horror.

Each time the bearer is selected to fight, instead of fighting, you can select one enemy INFANTRY model with a Leadership characteristic of 9 or less that is within Engagement Range of it. If you do, the selected enemy model immediately makes close combat attacks against its own unit: until it has resolved these attacks it is treated as being a model from your army for all rules purposes. If, as a result of these attacks, the enemy model destroys its own unit, the bearer counts as having destroyed that unit for all rules purposes.

Grand Schemer 20 pts
A master of intricate planning and forethought, this sorcerer’s schemes have been decades in the making.

If you control an objective marker at the end of your Command phase and the bearer's unit is within range of that objective marker, that objective marker remains under your control, even if you have no models within range of it, until your opponent controls it at the start or end of any turn. At the start of the battle, select one objective marker on the battlefield. While this model is within range of that objective marker, it has an Objective Control characteristic of 10.

Freakish Host
The warriors of the Freakish Host embody the chaotic and ever-changing nature of Tzeentch. Their forms and tactics shift unpredictably, leaving their enemies bewildered and unable to adapt to the evolving battlefield.

At the start of each battle round, roll on the table below to determine the Evershifting Will effect active for your army during that round.

Evershifting Will Table:

Crystalline Armour: All THOUSAND SONS models in your army improve their invulnerable save by 1 (to a maximum of 3+).
Arcane Occulum: All ranged weapons equipped by THOUSAND SONS models in your army gain +1 to their Ballistic Skill.
Aetherflame: All melee weapons equipped by THOUSAND SONS models in your army gain +1 to their Weapon Skill.

If your army includes no KHORNE, NURGLE or SLAANESH models the Evershifting Will effects affect TZEENTCH LEGIONES DAEMONICA units from your army as well as THOUSAND SONS models from your army.
Boon of Tzeentch (1CP)
The Changer of Ways grants gifts of twisted perfection to those who serve his inscrutable designs.

When: In any phase, after a THOUSAND SONS CHARACTER destroys an enemy unit.
Target: One non-MONSTER CHARACTER unit from your army.
Effect: The target gains 5+ Feel No Pain and +2 Strength for all weapons permanently.

Exalted Mutation (1CP)
Through warp-touched evolution, warriors of the Freakish Host are blessed or cursed with new forms in the heat of battle.

When: When a THOUSAND SONS unit is attacked.
Target: The attacked THOUSAND SONS unit.
Effect: The unit gains one random benefit permanently, or the controlling player may choose one and suffer D6-3 mortal wounds.
1: Extra Limb: +1 Attack for melee weapons.
2: Flapping Wings: +2 Movement.
3: Iron Skin: +1 Toughness.

Bolt of Change (2CP)
The energy of the warp unravels its victim’s body and soul, replacing them with a chittering, mutated horror.

When: In your Shooting phase.
Target: One enemy unit damaged by a psychic weapon this phase.
Effect: Roll 2D6. Until the end of the turn, the target’s Toughness characteristic is reduced to the result of the roll.

Disturb Reality (1CP)
The barriers of existence waver, allowing the Freakish Host to traverse spaces their foes believe safe.

When: During your Movement phase.
Target: One THOUSAND SONS or TZEENTCH LEGIONES DAEMONICA unit arriving from Strategic Reserves.
Effect: The unit can ignore enemy models when setting up wholly within 6" of the bearer. However, it cannot declare a charge against enemy units within 9" until the end of the turn.

Guided by the Whispers (1CP)
Tzeentch’s whispers guide the Freakish Host to ever-shifting opportunities and dangers.

When: At the end of your opponent’s Movement phase.
Target: One THOUSAND SONS unit within 12" of an enemy unit that just moved or arrived from Strategic Reserves.
Effect: The target may move up to 6".

Divine the Future (1CP)
Through dark divinations, the Freakish Host glimpses the threads of fate.

When: At the start of your turn.
Effect: Generate a fate die by rolling a D6 and add it to your fate dice pool. Once per phase, before making a dice roll for a model or unit from your army or rolling for the detachment ability or a Stratagem, if you have one or more dice in your Fate dice pool, you can use one of those Fate dice. To do so, select one of those Fate dice to substitute that dice roll. The dice that is being substituted is not rolled; instead, the value of the selected Fate dice is used as if it had been rolled (this counts as an unmodified dice roll of that value for all rules purposes). Each Fate dice can only be used in this way once. After using a Fate dice, remove it from your Fate dice pool and roll all remaining dice that are part of that dice roll (if any). You can use Fate dice for any of the following types of dice roll:
Advance roll
Battle-shock test
Charge roll
Damage roll
Hit roll
Saving throw
Wound roll

Enhancements

Pythic Brazier 20 pts
This eldritch artifact radiates a flickering azure flame that whispers secrets of war to its wielder, revealing the enemy’s weaknesses before they strike.

The bearer’s unit can use the Overwatch Stratagem for free.

Capricious Familiar 15 pts
This mischievous warp-spawned creature latches onto its master, eagerly unleashing bursts of warp energy at nearby foes. However, its loyalty is as unreliable as its aim.
Shoots damage at enemies and sometimes at the bearer.

Ever Shifting 20 pts
The weapons carried by this sorcerer and their followers hum with arcane energy, their configurations changing in tune with the shifting tides of the warp.

The ranged weapons of the bearer’s unit gain ASSAULT during turns 1, 3, and 5, and HEAVY during turns 2 and 4.

Touch of Vicissitude 20 pts
The bearer’s connection to the warp is so profound that even the ravaged forms of Chaos Spawn are restored by their presence, as if touched by the Changer of Ways himself.

The bearer can join Chaos Spawn units. Once per Fight phase, when the bearer destroys an enemy model, a destroyed Chaos Spawn can be returned to the bearer’s unit.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2025/01/04 03:34:26


 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

The Arcane Cult giving Dev Wounds to the most important shots (those targeting units on objectives) seems really strong.

Edit: Looking at them all, everything is really strong. More than feels reasonable.

Edit II: What different playstyles are you hoping to promote?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/01/01 22:02:14


Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Scattered thoughts as I go through...

 vict0988 wrote:

Arcane Cult

This seems both too strong and otherwise pretty boring and/or redundant with things we already have.
* Eldritch Knowledge kind of renders our inferno weapon AP and icons of flame moot and also seems like it's scary strong. Also probably super annoying to deal with if you're playing an army that spends a lot of points on good saves. It's also just a boring lethality boost.
* Warp Sight is neat, but you've basically just copied it from the index and made it cheaper.
* Malefic Scroll is a boring lethality boost.
* Fell Sacrifice is probably about what you'd need to make a battleshock strat worth considering. That said, I'm still not sure I'd ever use it given the timing. It basically has a chance of preventing your opponent using strats for the rest of the turn, but most likely they'll pass their battleshocks on the following command phase and still score/act normally. So it's an unpredictable source of possible disruption against things like charge phase overwatch and the interrupt strat, but that's about it.
* Coruscating Beam is a just a baby doombolt. Pretty boring. Pretty frustrating to face, especially in addition to doom bolt. Also, the psychic phase doesn't exist in 10th.
* Time Flux is just the Exalted Sorcerer's Rebind Rubricae rule with slightly different wording. We already have this.
* Chronoshatter is a feelsbad rule for someone no matter how things turn out. If it stops a charge, your opponent will be annoyed that you just blandly made a charge harder for a CP. If it doesn't stop a charge, you'll be annoyed that you wasted a CP on this.
* Enhancements seem fine. Pretty sure these are all more or less lifted from the index?
* So on the whole, most of this feels redundant with existing options (the index), and the things that aren't redundant seem either unpleasant to face or too weak to get excited about.


Deceiver’s Thralls

* I like the high concept of the Sons basically setting up magical/illussory effects to defend territory. However, I think that the execution for a lot of these is kind of confusing.
* Also, and this is a personal preference/nitpick, a lot of the strats on this one seem *too* abstract for my liking. Kind of feels like you wanted the rule but weren't entirely sure what it was representing.
* Grand scheme. Having to write down which rules come into play on which turn feels more like a prophecy thing than an illussion/deception thing. It's also both kind of annoying to add that sort of bookkeeping and a big inhibitor to how useful each of these options is. You could probably tweak this to either be one set benefit all game (invasion fleet style; gives a strong sense that the Sons have committed to a particular brand of magical defenses) or to work like Doctrines (no bookkeeping, you can guarantee the effect you need goes off when you need it, arguably feels *more* like a successful prophecy effect if that's what you're going for).
* Glamour is a little redundant with the Sorcerer's special rule, but that's okay.
* Webway Infiltration seems like it's either OP or useless. If it allows charges out of reserves, then it means terminators (and stuff coming out of normal reserves I guess) are extremely likely to make a charge. Pretty sure this would be the strongest charge-out-of-deepstrike buff in the game. If it doesn't allow charges afterwards, then I'm not sure what unit this would really help. We don't have a bunch of super short-ranged or even rapid fire guns I'm not sure anyone is really struggling to get their warp flamers into range.
* Attempt Possessions should absolutely *not* hurt characters in addition to their units. A W2 warlock shouldn't be dying off purely because his unit of storm guardians is trying to fight for no man's land. A solitaire dies almost as fast. You also need to specify when/how often this damage happens.
* Perfidious Reversal - I feel like this is meant to be like, an illusion that lets your units disengage from the enemy enough to bring their guns to bare? I feel like this and Vengeance for Prospero could be rolled into a single generic fall back and shoot/charge strat.
* Phantasmal Force doesn't really make sense as worded. You can't overwatch an objective marker. Especially not in the command phase. I think what you're trying to say is that they can spend 1 CP and "use up" their overwatch strat for the turn to negate this stratagem? Presumably picturing some illusions of thousand sons standing on the objective? Also, what happens if the enemy walks onto the objective before the start of your next command phase? Do you still count as controlling it even though they have bodies on it at that point? The idea of a strat that lets you count as controlling an objective to extend your zone of control is neat.
* Stoke Fear is a boring lethality boost. Nothing wrong with that. I just find that type of rule kind of boring.
* Spread Distrust seems really specific and kind of low value for a Sons player. You need a target that's very close to you, simultaneously even closer to additional enemy units, and at least one of those units has to be a target you plan to shoot at and also they have to be benefitting from cover. And the end result is that those units have 1 worse save than they otherwise would against an army that has tons of solid AP attacks many of which already innately ignore cover. You could remove the 12" restriction to make this a lot more flexible while maintaining the flavor. I'm not sure it would be a great use of CP at that point, but it would be a lot less situational.
* Empyric Maelstrom is way too complicated for the end result. The triangle thing's wording would need to tweaked, but even then, it would only kick in if the enemy unit is sprawled out in like a Y-shaped blob in order to touch all three sides of the triangle. If you want this to represent a bunch of psykers teaming up to beat up a single enemy squad, just have this strat grant bonuses to any Psychic attacks targeting that squad.
* Duplicitous Tactician and Grand Schemer are fine. Self Delusion is fine, but I think you should reconsider how the grand scheme is handled per my earlier note.
* The Mirror's wording probably needs to be cleaned up. I think you think that Leadership is still a number you roll below instead of being an X+ value. For alternate wording, maybe just say that the bearer gains a melee weapon possessed by a model in an enemy unit within engagement range until the end of the phase. That's basically the same end result but probably avoids a bunch of messy interactions.


Freakish Host

* I feel like this one is the best designed of the three. Mostly just need some things tightened up.
* The three results on the Evershifting Will table vary dramatically in power/usefulness depending on the units and enemies involved. Like, a 3+ invuln is crazy good against any army with decent AP, but way less good if your squad doesn't have a 4+ invuln (from being terminators or lead by the right character) or if your opponent has more quantity attacks than quality attacks. +1 BS is really solid for our bolter units and any vehicles that you've strangely decided to field, but useless for the flamers that are among our best tools at the moment. And +1 WS is nice but clearly weaker except for units that aren't benefitting from one of the other options. I don't necessarily have advice here. I'm just noting that there will frequently be good and bad results depending on the situation, and people will feel good or bad *about* the results accordingly.
* Boon of Tzeentch feels like it should probably just be an enhancement, but it's fine as-is. A nice little reward for killing something. The FNP won't matter much until the character's squad is dead, but I know some people run disc sorcerers solo, soooo. That's fine.
* As worded, Exalted Mutation lets you mutate unit X when unit Y is attacked. Which is a weird disconnect. Also, the timing is such that only the Toughness boost is likely to matter depending on the timing. If the unit mutating has already attacked, then the +1 Attacks won't matter until the following player turn, and the movement boost won't matter until the next Thousand Sons movement phase. This feels like it should probably just be a thing you can do in the Command phase that lasts until your next turn. I'd also consider turning the Iron Skin into a Feel No Pain so that it will help against all incoming attacks. Going from T4 to T5, for instance, won't do you any good against S3 or S10+ attacks.
* I'm not sure what you were going for with Bolt of Change. The average result of 2d6 is 7 with a bell curve ensuring that you're pretty likely to stay near that value. So against most non-vehicle units, this is likely to actually *increase* their Toughness. So I assume your intent is that you use this against a vehicle to make said vehicle less durable. But most of our psychic shooting attacks are Strength 6 or less, meaning that they're fishing for 5s against something like a rhino and 6s against something like a land raider. So you have to hop around your army fishing for a successful wound into a suboptimal target with sorcerers in order to trigger this expensive strat, and then the end result is that any units that haven't already shot while you were fishing wound on 5+ instead of 6+ with their mostly strength 4 weapons.

And if an outlier *does* occur, it's going to feel bad for someone. Because you've either just caused your opponent's land raider to get wounded on 2+ by bolters, or you've wasted 2CP making your opponent's rhino as tough or tougher than it was before. I get that you're going for some lolrandom chaos hijinks here, but this should probably just be a simple +1 to-wound vs a target enemy unit or something.
* Disturb Reality - Stratagems don't have "bearers." Other than that, this is fine. Standard 6" deepstrike strat with a little more nuance. That said, who is this strat for? Terminators coming out of deepstrike seem like they shouldn't really be mutants (that's kind of the whole point of the rubric/all is dust thing), but without the umbralefic crystal, there's no way for Tzaangor (who seem like they should be the focus of this detachment) to deepstrike. So I guess it's nice for Tzaangor or rubricae who are walking on from the table edge when said table edge is kind of crowded but who intend to charge enemies that aren't currently crowding the area they arrive at? Maybe this strat should just let Tzaangor deepstrike when they arrive from strategic reserves.
* Guided by the Whispers doesn't feel very mutation-related, but it's mechanically fine. That said, it is a little stronger than most similar rules (most similar rules trigger when the enemy ends a move within 9" instead of 12"), so maybe consider going with the standard 9" instead. Unless you feel like there's a good reason not to.
* Divine the Future, again, feels like it would be more at home in a Raptorae/Cult of Fate detachment than a mutation one, but whatever. You can mutate to be an oracle, sure. You've clearly copied and pasted the Strands of Fate rule here, which means that this strat actually doesn't do anything because none of your units actually have the Strands of Fate ability. But the intent is clear. Just clean up the wording.
* Pythic Brazier would be fine in most armies and on most units. However, given that flamer rubrics are probably our army's most notorious/hated unit specifically because of how gnarly their overwatch is, this might be too much. It's basically a guaranteed free CP every turn until the bearer's unit dies.
* So the familiar is just an extra gun with the hazardous rule, right? Should be fine as long as you don't make it crazy strong.
* Ever Shifting is probably fine, but it's weird. Because if you're using it on a flamer squad, it will only be useful on odd-numbered turns and only if you're d6" out of range of the objective or target you're going for. And on a bolter squad, that d6" thing applies, but then also you have to give up more movement than you gained over the course of 2 turns in order to benefit from the Heavy rule. It's probably fine. Just very easy to find yourself in a scenario where it's not helping you. I feel like you could go as low as 10 points on this one due to how unreliable its buffs are.
* Touch just needs to specify how many wounds the spawn has when it comes back. Also, consider having it specifically come back to life once the bearer's unit finishes fighting. Otherwise, you have to specify whether or not the revived model gets to make attacks along with the rest of his squad if you're slow rolling and swing with the character first.


   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






Arcane Cult is magic, time and knowledge. Kill stuff with overwhelming psychic might, mortal wounds has been a major focus especially in 8th but also in 9th for Thousand Sons and I want to carry that forward with this detachment.

Deceiver's Thralls is scheming, duplicity and manipulation. Rubbing your hands together evilly as plans come to fruition.

Freakish Host change, mutation and prophecy. Embracing and adapting to randomness.

Each cult is represented by 2 Stratagems. I did manage to come up with an additional 6 concepts for Thousand Sons Detachments, like the double turn detachment and the everything turns into a spawn detachment, but I think the Thousand Sons Cults have too much overlap to make them distinct, healthy and unique. I think the overwhelming psychic might, tricksy sorcerers and random highjinks are very different and the 6 detachments I came up with would just be variants of that.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Scattered thoughts as I go through...

 vict0988 wrote:

Arcane Cult

This seems both too strong and otherwise pretty boring and/or redundant with things we already have.
* Eldritch Knowledge kind of renders our inferno weapon AP and icons of flame moot and also seems like it's scary strong. Also probably super annoying to deal with if you're playing an army that spends a lot of points on good saves. It's also just a boring lethality boost.
* Warp Sight is neat, but you've basically just copied it from the index and made it cheaper.
* Malefic Scroll is a boring lethality boost.
* Fell Sacrifice is probably about what you'd need to make a battleshock strat worth considering. That said, I'm still not sure I'd ever use it given the timing. It basically has a chance of preventing your opponent using strats for the rest of the turn, but most likely they'll pass their battleshocks on the following command phase and still score/act normally. So it's an unpredictable source of possible disruption against things like charge phase overwatch and the interrupt strat, but that's about it.
* Coruscating Beam is a just a baby doombolt. Pretty boring. Pretty frustrating to face, especially in addition to doom bolt. Also, the psychic phase doesn't exist in 10th.
* Time Flux is just the Exalted Sorcerer's Rebind Rubricae rule with slightly different wording. We already have this.
* Chronoshatter is a feelsbad rule for someone no matter how things turn out. If it stops a charge, your opponent will be annoyed that you just blandly made a charge harder for a CP. If it doesn't stop a charge, you'll be annoyed that you wasted a CP on this.
* Enhancements seem fine. Pretty sure these are all more or less lifted from the index?
* So on the whole, most of this feels redundant with existing options (the index), and the things that aren't redundant seem either unpleasant to face or too weak to get excited about.

Just to be clear this is a replacement for the Cult of Magic detachment. Enhancements are copy-pasted from index, not sure if they are ideal for what the detachment is supposed to be.
*Nerfed Eldritch Knowledge to the ground. I wanted something simpler given the other detachments are complex.
*Changed Warp Sight to 2CP.
*Malefic Scroll changed to improve the weapon for the rest of the game.
*Updated Fell Sacrifice to remove FNP against MW.
*Added psyker requirement for coruscating beam.

Deceiver’s Thralls

* I like the high concept of the Sons basically setting up magical/illussory effects to defend territory. However, I think that the execution for a lot of these is kind of confusing.
* Also, and this is a personal preference/nitpick, a lot of the strats on this one seem *too* abstract for my liking. Kind of feels like you wanted the rule but weren't entirely sure what it was representing.
* Grand scheme. Having to write down which rules come into play on which turn feels more like a prophecy thing than an illussion/deception thing. It's also both kind of annoying to add that sort of bookkeeping and a big inhibitor to how useful each of these options is. You could probably tweak this to either be one set benefit all game (invasion fleet style; gives a strong sense that the Sons have committed to a particular brand of magical defenses) or to work like Doctrines (no bookkeeping, you can guarantee the effect you need goes off when you need it, arguably feels *more* like a successful prophecy effect if that's what you're going for).
* Glamour is a little redundant with the Sorcerer's special rule, but that's okay.
* Webway Infiltration seems like it's either OP or useless. If it allows charges out of reserves, then it means terminators (and stuff coming out of normal reserves I guess) are extremely likely to make a charge. Pretty sure this would be the strongest charge-out-of-deepstrike buff in the game. If it doesn't allow charges afterwards, then I'm not sure what unit this would really help. We don't have a bunch of super short-ranged or even rapid fire guns I'm not sure anyone is really struggling to get their warp flamers into range.
* Attempt Possessions should absolutely *not* hurt characters in addition to their units. A W2 warlock shouldn't be dying off purely because his unit of storm guardians is trying to fight for no man's land. A solitaire dies almost as fast. You also need to specify when/how often this damage happens.
* Perfidious Reversal - I feel like this is meant to be like, an illusion that lets your units disengage from the enemy enough to bring their guns to bare? I feel like this and Vengeance for Prospero could be rolled into a single generic fall back and shoot/charge strat.
* Phantasmal Force doesn't really make sense as worded. You can't overwatch an objective marker. Especially not in the command phase. I think what you're trying to say is that they can spend 1 CP and "use up" their overwatch strat for the turn to negate this stratagem? Presumably picturing some illusions of thousand sons standing on the objective? Also, what happens if the enemy walks onto the objective before the start of your next command phase? Do you still count as controlling it even though they have bodies on it at that point? The idea of a strat that lets you count as controlling an objective to extend your zone of control is neat.
* Stoke Fear is a boring lethality boost. Nothing wrong with that. I just find that type of rule kind of boring.
* Spread Distrust seems really specific and kind of low value for a Sons player. You need a target that's very close to you, simultaneously even closer to additional enemy units, and at least one of those units has to be a target you plan to shoot at and also they have to be benefitting from cover. And the end result is that those units have 1 worse save than they otherwise would against an army that has tons of solid AP attacks many of which already innately ignore cover. You could remove the 12" restriction to make this a lot more flexible while maintaining the flavor. I'm not sure it would be a great use of CP at that point, but it would be a lot less situational.
* Empyric Maelstrom is way too complicated for the end result. The triangle thing's wording would need to tweaked, but even then, it would only kick in if the enemy unit is sprawled out in like a Y-shaped blob in order to touch all three sides of the triangle. If you want this to represent a bunch of psykers teaming up to beat up a single enemy squad, just have this strat grant bonuses to any Psychic attacks targeting that squad.
* Duplicitous Tactician and Grand Schemer are fine. Self Delusion is fine, but I think you should reconsider how the grand scheme is handled per my earlier note.
* The Mirror's wording probably needs to be cleaned up. I think you think that Leadership is still a number you roll below instead of being an X+ value. For alternate wording, maybe just say that the bearer gains a melee weapon possessed by a model in an enemy unit within engagement range until the end of the phase. That's basically the same end result but probably avoids a bunch of messy interactions.

*To me it's a scheme and not a prophecy when you choose them, if you randomly generated them then it would be prophecy is my opinion but I understand why you feel the way you do about it. I don't want to change the concept.
*Webway Infiltration depends on you controlling more than half the no-mans land objectives at the start of your movement phase to do anything, I think I wrote Arcane Cult's rule before writing the final version of this rule, so the strength level might be too high after the Arcane Cult nerfs.
*The intent is that it would take a Warlock 2 turns to die and then a couple of Guardians would die too. You have 2 turns to get out or take control of objectives before your warlock is gone. This and Webway Infiltration are riskier, so I think there needs to be a serious reward.
*Perfidious Illusion is call an ambulance but not for me meme.
*Phantasmal Force made perfect sense to you. I'm not rewriting it right now.???
*Stoke Fear gives your opponent a whole turn to respond, it can be used to encourage your opponent to shoot something or you can hide a unit and use it on it before bringing it out.
*I forgot Mirror needs fixing. ???

Freakish Host

* I feel like this one is the best designed of the three. Mostly just need some things tightened up.
* The three results on the Evershifting Will table vary dramatically in power/usefulness depending on the units and enemies involved. Like, a 3+ invuln is crazy good against any army with decent AP, but way less good if your squad doesn't have a 4+ invuln (from being terminators or lead by the right character) or if your opponent has more quantity attacks than quality attacks. +1 BS is really solid for our bolter units and any vehicles that you've strangely decided to field, but useless for the flamers that are among our best tools at the moment. And +1 WS is nice but clearly weaker except for units that aren't benefitting from one of the other options. I don't necessarily have advice here. I'm just noting that there will frequently be good and bad results depending on the situation, and people will feel good or bad *about* the results accordingly.
* Boon of Tzeentch feels like it should probably just be an enhancement, but it's fine as-is. A nice little reward for killing something. The FNP won't matter much until the character's squad is dead, but I know some people run disc sorcerers solo, soooo. That's fine.
* As worded, Exalted Mutation lets you mutate unit X when unit Y is attacked. Which is a weird disconnect. Also, the timing is such that only the Toughness boost is likely to matter depending on the timing. If the unit mutating has already attacked, then the +1 Attacks won't matter until the following player turn, and the movement boost won't matter until the next Thousand Sons movement phase. This feels like it should probably just be a thing you can do in the Command phase that lasts until your next turn. I'd also consider turning the Iron Skin into a Feel No Pain so that it will help against all incoming attacks. Going from T4 to T5, for instance, won't do you any good against S3 or S10+ attacks.
* I'm not sure what you were going for with Bolt of Change. The average result of 2d6 is 7 with a bell curve ensuring that you're pretty likely to stay near that value. So against most non-vehicle units, this is likely to actually *increase* their Toughness. So I assume your intent is that you use this against a vehicle to make said vehicle less durable. But most of our psychic shooting attacks are Strength 6 or less, meaning that they're fishing for 5s against something like a rhino and 6s against something like a land raider. So you have to hop around your army fishing for a successful wound into a suboptimal target with sorcerers in order to trigger this expensive strat, and then the end result is that any units that haven't already shot while you were fishing wound on 5+ instead of 6+ with their mostly strength 4 weapons.

And if an outlier *does* occur, it's going to feel bad for someone. Because you've either just caused your opponent's land raider to get wounded on 2+ by bolters, or you've wasted 2CP making your opponent's rhino as tough or tougher than it was before. I get that you're going for some lolrandom chaos hijinks here, but this should probably just be a simple +1 to-wound vs a target enemy unit or something.
* Disturb Reality - Stratagems don't have "bearers." Other than that, this is fine. Standard 6" deepstrike strat with a little more nuance. That said, who is this strat for? Terminators coming out of deepstrike seem like they shouldn't really be mutants (that's kind of the whole point of the rubric/all is dust thing), but without the umbralefic crystal, there's no way for Tzaangor (who seem like they should be the focus of this detachment) to deepstrike. So I guess it's nice for Tzaangor or rubricae who are walking on from the table edge when said table edge is kind of crowded but who intend to charge enemies that aren't currently crowding the area they arrive at? Maybe this strat should just let Tzaangor deepstrike when they arrive from strategic reserves.
* Guided by the Whispers doesn't feel very mutation-related, but it's mechanically fine. That said, it is a little stronger than most similar rules (most similar rules trigger when the enemy ends a move within 9" instead of 12"), so maybe consider going with the standard 9" instead. Unless you feel like there's a good reason not to.
* Divine the Future, again, feels like it would be more at home in a Raptorae/Cult of Fate detachment than a mutation one, but whatever. You can mutate to be an oracle, sure. You've clearly copied and pasted the Strands of Fate rule here, which means that this strat actually doesn't do anything because none of your units actually have the Strands of Fate ability. But the intent is clear. Just clean up the wording.
* Pythic Brazier would be fine in most armies and on most units. However, given that flamer rubrics are probably our army's most notorious/hated unit specifically because of how gnarly their overwatch is, this might be too much. It's basically a guaranteed free CP every turn until the bearer's unit dies.
* So the familiar is just an extra gun with the hazardous rule, right? Should be fine as long as you don't make it crazy strong.
* Ever Shifting is probably fine, but it's weird. Because if you're using it on a flamer squad, it will only be useful on odd-numbered turns and only if you're d6" out of range of the objective or target you're going for. And on a bolter squad, that d6" thing applies, but then also you have to give up more movement than you gained over the course of 2 turns in order to benefit from the Heavy rule. It's probably fine. Just very easy to find yourself in a scenario where it's not helping you. I feel like you could go as low as 10 points on this one due to how unreliable its buffs are.
* Touch just needs to specify how many wounds the spawn has when it comes back. Also, consider having it specifically come back to life once the bearer's unit finishes fighting. Otherwise, you have to specify whether or not the revived model gets to make attacks along with the rest of his squad if you're slow rolling and swing with the character first.

*Fixed Exalted Mutation.
*I think you know what Bolt of Change is for, you're just struggling with what kind of people would be insane enough to design or use a Stratagem like that.
*Disturb Reality and the faction ability were meant to affect Legiones Daemonica Tzeentch units. Mostly meant for Flamers, but could be useful for grabbing an objective or just when you run out of space.

Sorry about not cleaning things up more, but I just couldn't believe I didn't finish everything I had planned over Christmas, I just wanted to publish something, I've been brewing for months on various detachments.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/01/03 16:04:15


 
   
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 vict0988 wrote:
I think the Thousand Sons Cults have too much overlap to make them distinct, healthy and unique.

Agreed. There's a silly amount of overlap in the cults. They should have just left them as the old Heresy era cults or else tried harder to make the new cults feel like corruptions of the old cults. As-is, it feels like they just ran out of ideas before they met their detachment quota in previous editions.


Just to be clear this is a replacement for the Cult of Magic detachment. Enhancements are copy-pasted from index, not sure if they are ideal for what the detachment is supposed to be.
*Nerfed Eldritch Knowledge to the ground. I wanted something simpler given the other detachments are complex.
*Changed Warp Sight to 2CP.
*Malefic Scroll changed to improve the weapon for the rest of the game.
*Updated Fell Sacrifice to remove FNP against MW.
*Added psyker requirement for coruscating beam.

I still don't love Eldritch Knowledge. It's a lot less powerful now, but I'm not sure it would feel good to use. It's highly situational, very hard to use in combination with our flamer weapons, and when it does go off it's basically making our inferno weapon AP and our icons of flame moot. If this is the main rule of the detachment that's supposed to be all about overwhelming psychic power, maybe it should just buff psychic weapons? An always-on +1 to-wound buff for psychic weapons would be really potent but probably not broken. Or just keep the index detachment's LH/SH/DW rule for psychic weapons.

Is Fell Sacrifice also meant to last for the rest of the game? If not, it doesn't seem like the timing works out very well.

To clarify, does coruscating beam need a psyker to be within 3" of the target to work? Or are you just clarifying how close a psyker has to be to an objective to count as controlling it? If it's meant to be an unlimited range automatic mortal wounds type effect, I don't like it. I know I'd be very annoyed to have my expensive lone op characters randomly nuked from orbit without any saves or to-hit rolls just because my opponent controlled some objectives. For perspective, this strat lets you kill a solitaire anywhere on the table for 1CP if your army of durable meq+ bodies toting full squads of flamers ever control 3 objectives in your command phase. (So 2 no man's land objectives and your home objective).


*To me it's a scheme and not a prophecy when you choose them, if you randomly generated them then it would be prophecy is my opinion but I understand why you feel the way you do about it. I don't want to change the concept.
*Webway Infiltration depends on you controlling more than half the no-mans land objectives at the start of your movement phase to do anything, I think I wrote Arcane Cult's rule before writing the final version of this rule, so the strength level might be too high after the Arcane Cult nerfs.
*The intent is that it would take a Warlock 2 turns to die and then a couple of Guardians would die too. You have 2 turns to get out or take control of objectives before your warlock is gone. This and Webway Infiltration are riskier, so I think there needs to be a serious reward.
*Perfidious Illusion is call an ambulance but not for me meme.
*Phantasmal Force made perfect sense to you. I'm not rewriting it right now.???
*Stoke Fear gives your opponent a whole turn to respond, it can be used to encourage your opponent to shoot something or you can hide a unit and use it on it before bringing it out.
*I forgot Mirror needs fixing. ???

Webway Infiltration: controlling 2 no man's land objectives is not very difficult for an army whose basic meq troops can pack 10 flamers in a squad while having a 4+ invulnerable save. So giving Thousand Sons easy access to the best out of deepstrike charge rule in the game seems like a bad idea. To make this rule more useful to more units while also making it less of an auto charge, perhaps get rid of the 6" thing and instead simply allow units arriving from reserves within your zone of control to arrive more than 9" away using the deepstrike rule. So you're making your whole army feel like it used illusions to sneak up from unexpected angles rather than just giving terminators 6" charges out of deepstrike.

Attempt Possession - Still need to clarify when the mortal wounds are inflicted. Still seems like a feelsbad mechanic to me. This is horribly punishing to any army that isn't especially good at stealing objectives from rubric bricks. And rubric bricks are, again, quite good at holding objectives. I'd probably just ditch this rule entirely and start over. Bare minimum, ditch the part about doing automatic wounds to characters. Maybe do a delayed orbital bombardment type rule or something, where you can point to an area and your opponent has a full turn to make sure they're not standing in that area in order to avoid mortal wounds. That would still give the general vibe of making areas you control lethal to the enemy, but it would have way more counterplay and be less feelsbad in general. As written, this rule alone would probably make me turn down games against these rules if I were fielding any W2 characters.

Phantasmal Force and Mirror - Not sure what you're saying here. As written, it's not clear how these rules are meant to work. I encourage you to revise the wording.

Perfidious - Is there a reason not to make it a standard fall back + shoot/charge strat? That would still fit the theme well, and it would free up a slot for a another strat.

Stoke Fear - I missed that it has a "charge-up time." Not sure how I feel about that. The charge-up might make it more interesting.

*Fixed Exalted Mutation.
*I think you know what Bolt of Change is for, you're just struggling with what kind of people would be insane enough to design or use a Stratagem like that.
*Disturb Reality and the faction ability were meant to affect Legiones Daemonica Tzeentch units. Mostly meant for Flamers, but could be useful for grabbing an objective or just when you run out of space.

Was I correct in thinking that bolt of change is basically just meant to provide a +1 to-wound with a small chance of backfiring and a small chance of granting better than +1 to wound? If so, I think this counts as a feels-bad strat. If it just provides a +1 to-wound against tough targets, then it's way too complicated for that result. If it provides better than a +1, it's probably too powerful; bolters wounding land raiders on a 2+ is a bad thing, even if it only happens rarely. That's going to leave your opponent with a sour taste in their mouth. If it backfires and makes the target tougher to hurt or just does nothing, you're going to be annoyed that you wasted 2 CP.

Disturb Realitiy - Are we able to ally in Legiones Daemonica units with Sons? Been a while since I looked at how that works.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/01/03 19:09:54


 
   
Made in dk
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I don't want players to spam psychic weapons in the arcane cult detachment. I want it to be more death by a thousand cuts, like smite spam was in 8th/9th.

Holy hell, what is wrong with Eldar characters having less than 4 wounds Maybe monster/vehicle only, would make sense for an artillery-ish attack to target something big from far away, instead of it being a sniper shot for a scout squad. I plan to rewrite Phantasmal Force and Mirror, it's just not an easy fix to come up with perfect writing for them so I'll come back to it.

You were correct about bolt of change, I think I play too little 40k to care about it being feels-bad more than it fitting what I'm going with for the detachment. I might end up changing it were I to playtest it a few times.

Huh, I didn't notice Thousand Sons cannot have allies, well the third detachment should allow Tzeentch Legiones Daemonica allies.
   
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In My Lab

You can take up to 25% Tzeentch Daemon allies.

It’s a rule in the Daemons index.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






If every model from your army has the CHAOS keyword, you can include LEGIONES DAEMONICA units in your army, even if they do not have the Faction keyword you selected in the Select Army Faction step. The combined points cost of such units you can include depends on your battle size, as shown below.

Incursion Up to 250 pts
Strike Force Up to 500 pts

If your Army Faction is THOUSAND SONS, you can only include TZEENTCH LEGIONES DAEMONICA units using these rules.
   
 
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