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Hey guys. So I'm starting a Thousand Sons list. I'm building the army purely based on the way they look / color scheme and the fluff. But with that said I am using it in a beer and pretzel league so I don't want to get tabled every game .

Here is my Current main force that I want to field
28 1k Sons
1 Forge world Hellbrute with Lascannon and Powerfiest (sweet deal on ebay, thanks lokithemagnificent)

I need advice on an HQ and filling out the rest of the army. Roughly 1850
I played Eldar so I like Ahriman (lv 4 like Eldrad) but i have heard mixed results.

What should I add that is theme appropriate? I'm trying to stick to the Fluff and only buy what I absolutely need.
I have on hand
40 Pink Horrors
40 Cultists
35 Khorne Berserkers
40 Chaos Space Marines
Rhino
2 Hell brutes
2 Daemon Princes

Well you could do 2 sorc's or run ahriman i tried them out and they were lack luster. mainly because i thought slow and purposful made you treat all moving as moving through difficult terrain. Not being able to overwatch can suck esp when your firing like 18 ap3 bolter shots. Im sure Heldrakes are always good to take i personally havent used them but i just picked up two because well i aint gonna lie there down right dirty. Id maybe add termis with mot and cultists for cheap capturing units and use your thousands as your main fighting force. Maybe even a Daemon prince would be fun flying around casting spells and such. Thats about all i can help you with, Helbrutes are okay but i dont really take elites because they cant be scoring personally there aint much competing in the elites section in the chaos dex cept for maybe termis but im not a fan of them.

Hi. I've used Ahriman for almost ten years, so of course I'm going to recommend him. A word of caution- if you use a level-3 Sorcerer instead of Ahriman to save points, you might actually end up wasting points by rolling 2-3 Witchfire Powers, which you could only use one of. That's why I suggest Ahriman so much instead of a basic Sorcerer- There's tons of Witchfire powers in the disciplines Chaos has access to, and he can use three at once.

I use two Heldrakes and the only thing that stops me from taking a third is that if I did that, I couldn't have my Plasma Gun-toting Havocs.

Helbrutes are awful. The FW Thousand Sons dread looks great, but you might be disappointed because it doesn't offer anything for a Thousand Sons army besides giving First Blood to your opponent. There are too many Sternguard out there.. Better off using these points for Drakes or Daemon Prince upgrades.

How about a list consisting of:

*Ahriman
*10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
*10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
*9 Thousand Sons- Rhino (Ahriman deployed here)
*Heldrake
*Heldrake
*As many Heralds of Tzeentch as you can take as Demon Allies
*18 Horrors of Tzeentch
*18 Horrors of Tzeentch

You'd need more Rhinos if you want to run 2-3 squads of Tsons.

Cultists are... Fluffy, and have a purpose by being cheap and expendable Troops.. but you need every point you can spare for Rubric Marines. It's important that if you take Tsons at all, you need to take as many as possible (according to Troops needed at various points levels) in order to take advantage of the Master of Rubricae rule, or changing Tsons from Elites to Troops, in other words.

I would probably just take a Daemon Prince with Wings alongside Ahriman, to help with Anti-tank issues and take fire from your Horrors/Tsons. For the most part, you can ignore vehicles such as predators with Lascannons and the odd Land Speeder running around with multimeltas..

Brometheus should I get the new FineCast Ahriman or ebay the old Pewter. I just don't want to be repairing it every time I play it. I run Elder so I'm usually repairing at least 2 -5 models after transporting them because the Fincast models have broken.

The Finecast can be already bent when you get it, and can bend over time (Horns/Staff). I recommend the pewter Ahriman. I wanted the Finecast one because I did a pose conversion.

A nice 'ardcoat over the model will take care of most chipping (and some breaking in the case of Finecast) regardless of which type you get- Just be sure to let it dry before you put it in foam or you will have a mess.

If you have a itty-bitty drill bit you can pin the metal ahriman's pieces with paperclips. Works perfect and is more durable than Finecast. Yes, you can even pin the staff hand to the wrist and it is quite steady afterwards.

Brometheus tends to give good feedback/comments in terms of TS armies so run with what he says and see what works or doesn't work. Obviously, TS are not the "best" by any stretch of the imagination but they have super cool fluff and look cool.

As far as I go, having a lot of games with Thousand Sons under my belt with the new codex/addition, I definitely recommend at least 1 Helldrake, prob 2 would be better.

Seriously, usually it's the Helldrake that kills stuff in my games while my Thousand Sons hope they don't die too horribly. They add sooo much to your army so try playing a few games with them then a few games without (proxying with friends if needed) and you will see pretty fast their utility.

I also tend to like to put my Sons in Land Raiders. Sure they are expensive and perhaps not the best but they protect the Sons for a while not to mention provide some solid AT. Also, with the current Meta, Land Raiders are becoming more of a better deal. It is also fun to take a unit of Terminators with a dedicated Land Raider and infiltrate them thanks to Ahriman =D.

Anyway, my typical army includes 1-2 Lvl3 Sorcerers and I shoot for Invisibility or Hallucination. 2 Helldrakes, some obliterators, usually 2 units of Tsons in 2 Land Raiders, a unit of terminators, Herald of Tzeench, unit of Horrors and Screamers.

If taking Ahriman, you can prob skimp out on the Land Raiders for the Tsons and take one for the Terminators and infiltrate a bunch of stuff. Either way, I think the key to winning with TSons is having enough stuff out there to take the heat off of them long enough for them to do some damage and claim or deny an objective.

 mortetvie wrote:
I think the key to winning with TSons is having enough stuff out there to take the heat off of them long enough for them to do some damage and claim or deny an objective.

This snippet is a verrrrry valuable piece of information.

Take your khorne beserkers, and paint them blue and gold because they have bunny ears just like tson.

Thanks everyone for your input. So for my 1750pt game Friday against Dark Elder this is what I'm thinking:
HQ + (455pts)

* Ahriman (230pts)
(Aura of dark glory, Champion of Chaos, Fearless, Independent Character, Mark of Tzeentch, Master of Sorcery, Psyker (Mastery Level 4), Veterans of the Long War, Warlord Traits: Master of Deception)

* Daemon Prince (225pts) (Or Maybe a Land Raider)
(Daemon, Fearless, Veterans of the Long War)
Power Armour (20pts), The Black Mace (45pts), Tzeentch (15pts)

+ Troops + (911pts)

* Thousand Sons (Troops) (323pts)
(Fearless, Mark of Tzeentch, Slow and Purposeful, Veterans of the Long War)
Aspiring Sorcerer (58pts), 10x Thousand Son (230pts)
* Chaos Rhino (35pts)
(Repair)
Combi-bolter, Searchlight, Smoke launchers

* Thousand Sons (Troops) (265pts)
(Fearless, Mark of Tzeentch, Slow and Purposeful, Veterans of the Long War)
Aspiring Sorcerer (58pts), 9x Thousand Son (207pts)

* Thousand Sons (Troops) (323pts)
(Fearless, Mark of Tzeentch, Slow and Purposeful, Veterans of the Long War)
Aspiring Sorcerer (58pts), 10x Thousand Son (230pts)
* Chaos Rhino (35pts)
(Repair)
Combi-bolter, Searchlight, Smoke launchers

+ Fast Attack + (170pts)

* Heldrake (170pts)
(Daemon, Daemonforge, It Will Not Die, Meteroric Descent)
Baleflamer

Codex: Chaos Daemons 2013 (Allied Detachment) Selections:

+ HQ + (45pts)

* Daemonic Heralds (45pts)
* Herald of Tzeentch (45pts)
(Change Discipline, Daemonic Instability, Deep Strike, Independent Character)
Psyker Level 1
* Daemon of Tzeentch
(Hatred (Daemon of Nurgle), Re-roll all Saving throws results of 1, Tzeentch Psyker Powers)
Daemon (5+ Invulnerable Save, Fear)

+ Troops + (180pts)

* Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (90pts)
(Blue Horrors, Brotherhood of Sorcerers, Change Discipline, Daemonic Instability, Deep Strike, Magic Made Manifest)
10x Pink Horrors (90pts)
* Daemon of Tzeentch
(Hatred (Daemon of Nurgle), Re-roll all Saving throws results of 1, Tzeentch Psyker Powers)
Daemon (5+ Invulnerable Save, Fear)

* Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (90pts)
(Blue Horrors, Brotherhood of Sorcerers, Change Discipline, Daemonic Instability, Deep Strike, Magic Made Manifest)
10x Pink Horrors (90pts)
* Daemon of Tzeentch
(Hatred (Daemon of Nurgle), Re-roll all Saving throws results of 1, Tzeentch Psyker Powers)
Daemon (5+ Invulnerable Save, Fear)


53 models in total.

Is that a unit of 10 models footslogging and two units of 11 with Rhinos?

That Prince needs Wings or he's better off just being a Land Raider for the unit on foot.

Dropping the 2 Tsons you'd need to make them fit in Rhinos should give you some points to make that Herald Level 3

If taking demon allies, I recommend taking some Screamers as they make a good unit to get linebreaker, a good place to stick your Herald and a good unit to take out some vehicles via combo-charge or what have you.

Also, you can drop a unit of Horrors and just take a greater gift for a portalglyph and hopefully make more Horrors that way.

Demon Prince really does need Wings. Keep in mind that FMC can't start the game flying so if going second, putting him in reserve might be prudent (unless you have good LOS blocking terrain).

How do you guys feel about the viability of thousand sons on a skyshield landing pad? Being on the pad confers a 4++ and with the mark of Tzeentch you're getting a 3++ across the board. Load it up with some thousand sons and some obliterators in more of a midfield position and suddenly you've got a huge rock to base your army around.

Iyandenseer- 3++ for Thousand Sons in cover is great, but take a good Rapid Fire from a Drop Podding Tactical Squad or something and you're looking at 4-5 dead Thousand Sons from Ap5 weapons. Not much of a benefit because good players will pepper you with small arms.

That Skyshield is more Thousand Sons bodies on the field.

Obliterators with MoTz and the Skyshield is the way to go, if at all

Thanks for catching the 10 man. Still getting used to the army. I forget about the aspiring Sorcerer. I'm going to tweak it a bit more


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I I'm dropping the allies.
I'm adding wings on the dp. I Also added 2 obliteraters and a Hellbrute with twin linked lascannons. I've got a Hellbrute that I really like to set on the board, I know most say they are point less but I like the model.

Yeah... I have 2 FW thousand son dreads that never see play because they are so bad :(. Every time I take them I wish I hadn't.

Here's to the next CSM?

Thanks for catching the 10 man. Still getting used to the army. I forget about the aspiring Sorcerer. I'm going to tweak it a bit more