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 Jancoran wrote:
18 Tzeentch Bolter shots cause 6 Unsaved MEQ wounds. I'm curious why you think that not important? You think perhaps that the 4 remaining will have cause to forge forth for a second round, MAYBE get the charge and win against the unit and its Force Weapon wielding Sorcerer? Okay. Maybe but...

And how bout 36 Bolter shots? Do the math for me. How many MEQ's survived that? So really...

Not getting Overwatch is a bummer. I didn't say otherwise. Why are you accentuating this? The point is that the FEW that remain may well lose against the Tzeentch soldiers and if they do and run, the Tzeentch soldiers will then mow them down on their turn. And they Shall Know No Fear will not work against them. Guess what 70% of your opponents are playing?

You're splitting hairs about how LONG it takes them to beat a remnant squad.

Icons of Flame add damage output. This is good. Are all the armies you face without number? An extra couple wounds adds up over time. But if you don't LIKE the option... Don't take it. I'm fine with that.

Is that with cover though? My real gripe with them is they cost an arm and a leg for... not that much. Their 4++ will rarely come up and their slow and purposeful kills a lot of their effectiveness. Now, onto the overwatch. What makes one assume that marines are standing in the open begging to get shot by all these shots without a single one of the Thousand Son members dying. Now onto the cc, if they jump into cc and escape though, this likely means they lost too many units (plus most cc oriented units I know of have fearless or a special rule like daemons to utterly ignore this problem). and fast units (beasts, jump, etc) don't need to be standing close to get off a charge. They can move 12" and then declare a charge! Now let us say they fail their assault and escape from the Thousand Sons. Now they can mow down the few that survived. But wait! That means they are doing something a plague marine could have done a turn later (plague marines, noise marines, etc could have swept moved forward and begun to fire at other more important targets on your own turn rather than being relegated to aim at the whittled down foe).

Icon of Flame would be great for free. However, it is another target that can easily be sniped out and isn't useful against hordes nor marines. Marines get their 3+ save as per usual whilst hordy units laugh at their loss.

I won't say they are absolutely worthless. You can bring a small squad of them for the fluff and fun, not to mention forcing marines behind cover and to move carefully, but their effectiveness is extremely limited, to become a troop requires a sub par hq be brought along, and are extremely expensive for units that die to las fire as easily as the next guy and even without that (4+ 5+ cover saves) will even mitigate much of this advantage.

 StarTrotter wrote:

Is that with cover though? My real gripe with them is they cost an arm and a leg for... not that much. Their 4++ will rarely come up and their slow and purposeful kills a lot of their effectiveness. Now, onto the overwatch. What makes one assume that marines are standing in the open begging to get shot by all these shots without a single one of the Thousand Son members dying. Now onto the cc, if they jump into cc and escape though, this likely means they lost too many units (plus most cc oriented units I know of have fearless or a special rule like daemons to utterly ignore this problem). and fast units (beasts, jump, etc) don't need to be standing close to get off a charge. They can move 12" and then declare a charge! Now let us say they fail their assault and escape from the Thousand Sons. Now they can mow down the few that survived. But wait! That means they are doing something a plague marine could have done a turn later (plague marines, noise marines, etc could have swept moved forward and begun to fire at other more important targets on your own turn rather than being relegated to aim at the whittled down foe).

Icon of Flame would be great for free. However, it is another target that can easily be sniped out and isn't useful against hordes nor marines. Marines get their 3+ save as per usual whilst hordy units laugh at their loss.

I won't say they are absolutely worthless. You can bring a small squad of them for the fluff and fun, not to mention forcing marines behind cover and to move carefully, but their effectiveness is extremely limited, to become a troop requires a sub par hq be brought along, and are extremely expensive for units that die to las fire as easily as the next guy and even without that (4+ 5+ cover saves) will even mitigate much of this advantage.

Not giving in to Hyperbole is always a good start.

First, consider the context. These units on their own will beat you to a pulp if you come in the open and hopefully no one disputes THAT (and obviously TEQ excluded, though they still fail saves and even 18 Bolter shots will result in a dead terminator ). So like a good hunter, you need to flush the enemy out. How? By employing two things that don't ALLOW the enemy to cling to cover any more safely. Enter the Heldrakes. Did you see the list? I posted the link not so far above.

Obliterators, Rhinos and Heldrakes run the interference necessary to stop the enemy from getting to the Tzeentch soldiers. Getting around such large bases is no mean feat.

What makes such soldiers work, as in all cases pretty much, is the supporting cast. So if you are going to talk about Thousand Sons in the global sense (which we are doing, I think) then you must concede that the enemy would be foolish to let the Heldrakes bake them relentlessly in the name of foiling the Soldiers from baking them relentlessly. What are they accomplishing? Their own assured destruction is about it. They either get OUT there or they hope like hell that they dont run out of bullet throwers first. And what stops the Tzeentch soldiers from holding back for one round just to steal bullets from the enemy while they wait for the Heldrakes to arrive? If the Triple LasPredator does its work in the first couple rounds and kills the Aegis gun, they're good to go.

No list is unbeatable. But with a solid plan, there's zero reason why Thousand Sons can't compete. More importantly, they ARE competing as the original poster has said he's having good success. Perhaps we should be asking the poster HOW it HAS been done instead of trying to convince each other that it CAN'T be done.

If the 36 Inferno Bolts are at equal points of CSM troops, roughly 25 survive. And if those 25 (including two champions) are BP/CCW marines, which if they're blobbed up like that they're likely to be, those 25 will kill about 3 Thousand Sons with shooting and then charge (let's assume a multicharge) to kill roughly another 4 without fear of overwatch. Not including whatever the Aspiring Champions are armed with. The Rubrics kill roughly 1 CSM, and then it's up to the Champions and Sorcerers to finish the job. One Sorcerer and one Champion will get locked in a Challenge, and without any upgrades at all the Champion has a 25% chance to kill the Sorcerer before he swings with his Axe. Both the Sorcerers, with axes, kill roughly a marine a piece. So it looks like a draw, with a slight edge to the CSMs. But the Thousand Sons are fewer in number, and have fewer attacks on top of that, so bar getting lucky they aren't going to be the ones walking out at the end.

So even after a fearsome volley, the 19 Thousand Sons (including two Sorcerers, as that's the only arrangement that will get 36 bolts) lose half their number to the charging hordes. They are then stuck in a losing protracted combat, as they have half the number of attacks of their foes but are no more survivable and fewer in number.

Let's face it. People don't charge things unless they think they're going to win, which usually means dedicated assault troops. Thousand Sons aren't going to stand up to that, even if they do get to fire a volley first. Especially when they can't overwatch. The fact that they can't sweep is almost never going to come up, because they aren't going to be winning combats unless they started them. And if they did start them, then not being able to sweep isn't a benefit, it's strictly a detriment.

Im lost. How are the hordes moving past the obvious other threats in the way? magic?

I get that a hordey unit might need to have volume of fire from a bunch of units, not just one. But if you just blockNBake... Whats the big deal? They'll never reach you.

Anyways I get that IF something ACTUALLY gets there and ACTUALLy is that large at that time.. sure. And kudos for getting them there too. Im not dealing in issues that are rare. Every dog has its day and even the worst player wins now and again. But if you're blocking, and you should be (the OP says he uses a Daemon prince and some stuff to do this) then its viable and scary. Only takes one round of lucky shooting to convince you and they will have several chances if they block.

 Jancoran wrote:
Im lost. How are the hordes moving past the obvious other threats in the way? magic?

I get that a hordey unit might need to have volume of fire from a bunch of units, not just one. But if you just blockNBake... Whats the big deal? They'll never reach you.

Anyways I get that IF something ACTUALLY gets there and ACTUALLy is that large at that time.. sure. And kudos for getting them there too. Im not dealing in issues that are rare. Every dog has its day and even the worst player wins now and again. But if you're blocking, and you should be (the OP says he uses a Daemon prince and some stuff to do this) then its viable and scary. Only takes one round of lucky shooting to convince you and they will have several chances if they block.

The same applies to the Thousand Sons. How are they getting into a position to do damage with their 12" optimum range without getting shot to death by the horde? Not to mention that there's not really that much left of the Thousand Sons army, as those 2 units to make up the 19 Sons are in excess of 500 points.

This is the problem people are pointing out. Thousand Sons are expensive, yet they die like regular marines. They are highly effective against 3+ saves in the open, but are completely negated by a 35 point rhino or by simply taking twice as many marines. They can survive dedicated anti-armour fire well, but get destroyed by weight of fire. Anyone who can handle fighting a horde army can handle fighting Thousand Sons without breaking a sweat. And hordes themselves aren't going to care, because the Thousand Sons don't have the weight of fire to make a difference.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just did some math on Soul Blaze for fun. Against MEQ, the expected number of dead MEQ if you apply it in the first turn and don't reapply it should it wear off (over a 7 turn game) is 0.3307291667 while the expected number of dead MEQ should you reapply it every turn as needed is 1.1666666667.

So 15 points to kill on average a single marine over the course of a 7 turn game. Assuming you can reapply it every turn, which is admittedly not as difficult for Thousand Sons as it would be for other units. I can think of things with significantly better returns on investment for 15 points though.

The conversation has moved on since my last post, but the reason I put them in ruins (high up in ruins, especially is to keep them out of assault range for that little bit longer, so they get that extra turn of shooting in.

It's situational, I admit, but ho hard is it to get a high ruin in the back of your deployment zone these days?

Ultimately, the most important reason to take them (and I do admit that, while I love them, they are over-specialised and over-priced for what they do) is that they are very fluffy for Tzeentch themed lists.

My Tzeentch themed lists does pretty well at tournaments by the way, despite the handicap of having so many over-priced units in the list. That being said, I never win a game by anything approaching a wide margin (but I never get tabled either) so despite winning more games than I lose, I rarely place particularly well. But then I don't go to tournaments to win, I go for a fun day out.

So the question you should be asking is "Why so 1k sons suck?" The answer to the question is "Today's Meta".

1k sons do have a number of strong advantages.
* Fearless
* SnP
* VotLW
* 5+ deny due to the psyker
* Force weapon on their champion.
* AP3 gun.

1k Sons actually fare well when they are facing lots of MEQ bodies loaded up on melta. The melta weapons are less effective given the 4++ of the 1k sons, and the AP3 guns on the 1k sons are useful for killing MEQ.

However, the meta is exactly the opposite. The majority of armies are xenos, so the AP3 is wasted, and anti-infantry firepower is common so the 1k sons are forced to use their 3+ vs many shots instead of the 4++ vs few shots. At 23 points a model, they just don't have enough boots on the ground to survive.

The other problem is that you don't really need all those great options your paying for. 1k sons suffer from the same problem as deathwing. They are stuck buying options that they won't always need, therefore come across as being overcosted.

The end result is that the 1k sons just can't compete in competitive play today.

Marines aren't taken competitively in 6th. Your local RTTs may still have a fair few marine players, that does not make them the standard of what you will see. Heldrakes and Marker'd Riptides have put an end to massed marines. It just doesnt work.

In 6th you are likely to see cheap infantry taken in large numbers with either MC, high AV vehicle or Flyer support. For the cost of 1k Sons, I don't think they are efficient enough vs. the aforementioned unit types. If you need AP3, take Drakes. They are by far the most efficient source of it. If you have 2-3 Drakes you are unlikely to need any extra dedicated anti-MEQ. I'd rather fill in the weaknesses by bringing units that are good at taking down high AV, Flyers, MCs and Hordes.

As others have said: it isn't wise to invest large amounts of points in a unit that only has a 3+ save. It is very easy for armies like Tau, Eldar, Necrons and Guard to force an overwhelming amount of armor saves. Terminators, Thousand Sons, Purifiers, etc, all fail for the same reason.. Too many points for a model with one wound.

Well I'll tell you what you should do: not argue with success. If someone is Winning...actually winning...with them, then I say pay attention. I watch my opponents undrestimate and THEORIZE all the way to the losers circle, again and again, personally. And I am constantly amused by their afterblubber. "Well if this and if that". If nothing. The scoreboard never lies. If someone is beating you and doing it consistently, LEARN. If someone gets on a forum and something is working, PAY ATTENTION. Even teachers learn.

So I am inclined to hear what people say when they are having success because it's one less thing to be caught flat footed against.

That's just wisdom right there.

 Jancoran wrote:
Well I'll tell you what you should do: not argue with success. If someone is Winning...actually winning...with them, then I say pay attention. I watch my opponents undrestimate and THEORIZE all the way to the losers circle, again and again, personally. And I am constantly amused by their afterblubber. "Well if this and if that". If nothing. The scoreboard never lies. If someone is beating you and doing it consistently, LEARN. If someone gets on a forum and something is working, PAY ATTENTION. Even teachers learn.

So I am inclined to hear what people say when they are having success because it's one less thing to be caught flat footed against.

That's just wisdom right there.

Statshammer does not tell you what will happen, but what is a safe bet and what isn't.

As I'm not a gambling man I prefer to stack the odds in my favor and drink my opponent's sweet, sweet tears.

You'll go thirsty a lot if you underestimate the wrong people. Just saying. Respect success. it's not accidental in this game.

 Jancoran wrote:
You'll go thirsty a lot if you underestimate the wrong people. Just saying. Respect success. it's not accidental in this game.

Strategy always factors into my understanding of how to better alter the odds to favor me. After playing someone a few times to get used to their playstyle I like to start altering my playstyle and list to start changing the flow of our games until a soft-counter for his or her list and strategy is fully formed.

Someone brings horde? Well allied Colossus guns, heldrakes, dakkapreds, flamercide termis, and plasma/flamer spam plague marines sure do love punching holes in horde lists. As does using the predator tanks to tank shock them into nice bunched up groups to be roasted in one go via heldrake.

At no point do I see 1k sons being viable replacements for my plague marines when Colossus guns and Heldrakes slaughter marines and other infantry in or out of cover.

setual wrote:
Everywhere on the internet people hate on the Thousand Sons, but I've been running them in 1500 point games and they have consistently been the MVPs. AP 3 and effective 30 inch range means a unit of ten takes 9 shots (sorcerer generally casts or pistol out of range), hits with six and wounds with three (agains MEQ), meaning even with a cover save most units are losing two men per shooting phase. This sounds underwhelming, but two turns of shooting basically eliminates the threat of a heavy weapons team or can force a panic check against the unit manning the ADL so my Heldrakes are unthreatened. Also, if your enemy decides to focus fire on them your fast CC units are free to charge head first at the enemy. Additionally, 4++ means staying in cover is irrelevant; I've often marched them right down the center line and hoped the enemy focuses on them. So why does everyone advise against them? Is there a meta I haven't encountered yet? Or are people just put off by how expensive they are?

I've been looking at this possibility and I've even thought about ahriman to give them the infiltrate. If you have some oblits bikes and heldrakes coming in your opponent is going to have a lot to worry about. If they're shooting at your 1k sons they're GOING to kill something and they're going to eat shots. I dunno I love the idea I just can't make myself do it yet. =/

 Kain wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
I love them as well. I take the basic 5 man squad in my Tzeentch list and stick them in ruins next to the objective. Most of the time, they get completely ignored (too many other threats on the table) and when they aren't ignored, they can weather a surprising amount of fire. Especially in the late game, which is usually when they start to attract attention from my opponents (who are usually tied up trying to deal with the deep-strikers, bikers and DP's rampaging around in their deployment zone until that point.

150 points for a reasonably tough unit that reliably holds an objective is good enough for me. Especially against MEQ armies, who don't want to get too close because many players greatly overestimate what the unit can actually achieve in the shooting phase.

Why would you stick them in ruins when they already have a 4++ invulnerable save?

so they strike first when charged by silly assault units that dont have grenades

 Jancoran wrote:
You'll go thirsty a lot if you underestimate the wrong people. Just saying. Respect success. it's not accidental in this game.

Fine then. I've steamrolled three Thousand Sons lists in tournaments with my Black Templars. They didn't do much damage and got cut down in melee because they couldn't handle volume of attacks.

What do people like to take instead of Thousand Sons then? Plague Marines? Berserkers?

For me, the main problem with a CSM is trying to make stuff Troops. Sorcerers are good to have, imo, and since the only thing you can make Troops with them is Thousand Sons, I thought it'd be worth it.

 The Shadow wrote:
What do people like to take instead of Thousand Sons then? Plague Marines? Berserkers?

For me, the main problem with a CSM is trying to make stuff Troops. Sorcerers are good to have, imo, and since the only thing you can make Troops with them is Thousand Sons, I thought it'd be worth it.

I just use Typhus and a Juggerlord primarily and go with Plague Zombies and Plague Marines.

If I for some reason am lacking in MEQ killing power between my colossi and heldrakes, I just give the plague marines plasma and/or meltaguns.

 The Shadow wrote:
What do people like to take instead of Thousand Sons then? Plague Marines? Berserkers?

For me, the main problem with a CSM is trying to make stuff Troops. Sorcerers are good to have, imo, and since the only thing you can make Troops with them is Thousand Sons, I thought it'd be worth it.

sorcerers are good, but paying 15 points to have 1 less useful power isnt a good trade. So unless you are taking Ahriman tsons arent going to be troops

 Jancoran wrote:
Well I'll tell you what you should do: not argue with success. If someone is Winning...actually winning...with them, then I say pay attention. I watch my opponents undrestimate and THEORIZE all the way to the losers circle, again and again, personally. And I am constantly amused by their afterblubber. "Well if this and if that". If nothing. The scoreboard never lies. If someone is beating you and doing it consistently, LEARN. If someone gets on a forum and something is working, PAY ATTENTION. Even teachers learn.

So I am inclined to hear what people say when they are having success because it's one less thing to be caught flat footed against.

That's just wisdom right there.

But this only makes sense if we have some information about who these wins are against. Terrible lists can beat other terrible lists played by terrible players. People here aren't being beaten by Thousand Sons. What we have is someone claiming to do well with Thousand Sons against unspecified opponents. Since Thousand Sons look pretty bad on paper, and many other people have some experience of them and don't find them to be that good, surely the reasonable thing here is to tentatively conclude that either the OP's success is exaggerated or he's just not playing against very tough opponents.

It's trivially easy to go find someone on the internet claiming that they crush everyone with [pick a terrible unit]. You've obviously got to have some way of determining which units are actually good.

pantsonhead wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Well I'll tell you what you should do: not argue with success. If someone is Winning...actually winning...with them, then I say pay attention. I watch my opponents undrestimate and THEORIZE all the way to the losers circle, again and again, personally. And I am constantly amused by their afterblubber. "Well if this and if that". If nothing. The scoreboard never lies. If someone is beating you and doing it consistently, LEARN. If someone gets on a forum and something is working, PAY ATTENTION. Even teachers learn.

So I am inclined to hear what people say when they are having success because it's one less thing to be caught flat footed against.

That's just wisdom right there.

But this only makes sense if we have some information about who these wins are against. Terrible lists can beat other terrible lists played by terrible players. People here aren't being beaten by Thousand Sons. What we have is someone claiming to do well with Thousand Sons against unspecified opponents. Since Thousand Sons look pretty bad on paper, and many other people have some experience of them and don't find them to be that good, surely the reasonable thing here is to tentatively conclude that either the OP's success is exaggerated or he's just not playing against very tough opponents.

It's trivially easy to go find someone on the internet claiming that they crush everyone with [pick a terrible unit]. You've obviously got to have some way of determining which units are actually good.

terrible lists can beat uber "optimized" competitive lists. Good dice and a bunch of units that just happen to counter a specific competitive list can take a terrible list to a crushing victory easily

This thread makes my head hurt. Nice to see in my time away from Dakka that the levels of fanboyism haven't dropped a bit.

I should make a shirt that says "Thousand Sons: Love the fluff, hate the rules!"

Exergy wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
What do people like to take instead of Thousand Sons then? Plague Marines? Berserkers?

For me, the main problem with a CSM is trying to make stuff Troops. Sorcerers are good to have, imo, and since the only thing you can make Troops with them is Thousand Sons, I thought it'd be worth it.

That's a very good point. What do most people use on their Sorcerers anyway? I was thinking on using Biomancy for my Sorcerer in my CSM army that I may or may not actually start.

sorcerers are good, but paying 15 points to have 1 less useful power isnt a good trade. So unless you are taking Ahriman tsons arent going to be troops

mortetvie wrote:I should make a shirt that says "Thousand Sons: Love the fluff, hate the rules!"

Change it to "1k Sons". As soon as you put a "k" in something it becomes cool. 2k13 and all that.

 mortetvie wrote:
I should make a shirt that says "Thousand Sons: Love the fluff, hate the rules!"

That would suit me perfectly.

pantsonhead wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Well I'll tell you what you should do: not argue with success. If someone is Winning...actually winning...with them, then I say pay attention. I watch my opponents undrestimate and THEORIZE all the way to the losers circle, again and again, personally. And I am constantly amused by their afterblubber. "Well if this and if that". If nothing. The scoreboard never lies. If someone is beating you and doing it consistently, LEARN. If someone gets on a forum and something is working, PAY ATTENTION. Even teachers learn.

So I am inclined to hear what people say when they are having success because it's one less thing to be caught flat footed against.

That's just wisdom right there.

But this only makes sense if we have some information about who these wins are against. Terrible lists can beat other terrible lists played by terrible players. People here aren't being beaten by Thousand Sons. What we have is someone claiming to do well with Thousand Sons against unspecified opponents. Since Thousand Sons look pretty bad on paper, and many other people have some experience of them and don't find them to be that good, surely the reasonable thing here is to tentatively conclude that either the OP's success is exaggerated or he's just not playing against very tough opponents.

It's trivially easy to go find someone on the internet claiming that they crush everyone with [pick a terrible unit]. You've obviously got to have some way of determining which units are actually good.

I will preface by saying this: attacking opponent quality on the internet is a weak play. Let's not go there. Terrible lists? some may have been and some may not have been but sweeping away actual wins by claiming this MIGHT be the case isn't really fair minded either.

Here are the facts we know when we assume he's not a big fat lier (which is an even MORE unfair and unconscionable thing to assume): He's winning. He has also said that he uses big boys as blockers. He's said a few other things too.

Maybe we should have him summarize the strtategy here that he's using, summarize the lists (no we dont need the entire run down for Gawds saker) he found most daunting and then look at that objectively on its own and say "Okay what part of that strategy would i struggle with".

For example,. my Eldar Air Force is unbeaten. 9-0. It's a LOT of fun. Couple close games, mostly blowouts. I was told "Thats crazy, theyre aV10" and "thats crazy, 495 points for a Seer Council?".

They dont say any of those things any more. But they did. People look stupid in retrospect only when they totally ignore the GOOD parts about what people are saying. EVEN if you could not see yourself using the list, you might want to consider how such a list WOULD be a threat to you. Attack it from THAT angle, the angle of good faith and its a dialog.

I for one HAVE monkey stomped Thousand Sons lists, especially a Dual Lash list at a GT a few years ago. But that does not speak to the ABILITY the list had to hurt me. The results were good, but not because it COULDNT win. So the question is, if that guy knew ME as well as he does now, would he have played the same? Nope. And our next game would be closer Ill wager.

So as fun as it is to so "No because of colossus", I'd chal;lenge you to tell me what Thousand Sons player doesn't KNOW about them and Prioritizes THEM? Its not as if every "counter" is going to be alicve to do its job when the time comes. hell I could go "No because {fill in the blank}" on ANY UNIT , PERIOD. Thats not an argument.

So maybe if he would kind fo summarize all this stuff for us and tell us about the opponents and so on, in one post maybe, we could attack it from there.

You know, we seem to be talking a lot about Plague Marines being better than TS for killing marines, but aren't we overlooking the awesome marine-killing, cover-ignoring, fel-no-pain nastiness that is a tooled up Noise Marine squad?

I suppose that is due to the fact that 1k sons and PM perform similar roles, whereas NM perform an entirely different one.

I do not understand why there is a discussion here. I play Thousand Sons and they are not a good choice. I love the guys fluff and look but they are just not worth their points. There is always a better option to take over the 1ksons no matter the situation. Name any situation and I can give you a better option from the codex in price and performance. Or if not me I am sure some one else here can as well.

The thing is, I'd really love to use the 1k sons, and one time I decided to do so, regardless of all the hate. (I still use my Defiler Boomba, he's a lucky charm). A unit of 10 with AS and a Sorcerer attachment, so a good few hundred points.

They spent the entire game getting eaten by a unit of scarabs, they just couldn't do the damage output required to beat them.

I only won that game because my Daemon Price destroyed the entire Necron army on his own and they phased out. (This was 5th Ed, I've never used them since.)

welshhoppo wrote:
I suppose that is due to the fact that 1k sons and PM perform similar roles, whereas NM perform an entirely different one.

I disagree. The OP was talking about TS in their role as Marine Killers and Objective Holders. Noise Marines with sonic weapons and the Icon of Excess perform both roles equally well, even if that's not their primary task. The NM are a far more versatile choice than either Plague Marines or Thousand Sons.

As an aside, here's a video bat-rep involving my Tzeentchian list in my very first outing with them. I'm not sure it's entirely relevant to the argument for two reasons. Firstly because I lost (after which I had a six game winning streak ended by a draw without changeing what looks like a very weak list on paper) and secondly because, as I've mentioned before, I only take a five strong unit of TS for holding objectives in my back field and deterring MEQ's from approaching or enchroaching within their effective range (which for such a small unit I would consider to be 12" rather than 24".

Where it IS useful is as an example of how small TS units are often overlooked until late in the game. My opponent also talks in the summary about how the TS Sorcerer alone was sufficient deterant to keep one of this Terminator Squads hugging cover on that flank for the whole game.

I apologise for babbling like an idiot in this video by the way. I'm articulate enough when we're recording for the pod-cast, but point a camera at me and I turn into a bumbling buffoon.