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Thousand Sons are amazing from their Space Marine killing power to their crazy defenses versus elite units to their fluff, but it can very frustrating to see them getting mowed down by bolter fire. Rhinos help solve this problem, but I'm looking for other ideas: CSM units and how to use them to draw fire. To start off:

Termicide: using terminators, mutilators, or obliterators to use that 2+ armor save and soak up some bullets. Deep strike in.
Land Raider: AV14 goodness. Use to move up ahriman and some havocs or some TSons. Watch the bullets plink off
Chaos Spawn: fast, CC lock option (not reccomended to tarpit b/c we want to draw fire from many squads)

the goal of any of these is that by the end of the game, all of them are dead. To be used very aggressively.

What do you think is the best CSM unit for soaking small arms fire and what is the best tactic to get it to draw small arms fire?

All is dust....and thanks

Id say the spawn were the best bet. Run them out ahead as the scary "distraction carnifex" whole the Sons follow behind to mow things down in a rhino

Honestly, the best use for Thousand Sons are pretty paperweights. They're overly expensive, have little combat potential, are stuck with crappy Tzeench powers. Doesn't matter if your Bolters are Ap3 or Ap1, most of the time a smart opponent will be getting his units cover saves, so they're much less effective than before.

You propose using a Land Raider filled with Ahriman and Havocs. Ahriman is too expensive, and why would you take Havocs and send them into close range in a transport?

Have a look at the Chaos Tactica in my sig, might help you make some better unit choices.

Havocs have good synergy with Ahriman because they can take 4 plasma guns and a combi plasma. Add this to Ahrimans triple witchfire smite, and you have many AP2 shots.

Perhaps things are not so black and white. Although they do have an uphill battle, TSons and other units in the CSM codex do have their place. You shouldn't be so absolutist about a unit. ie Take this dont take that
I proposed the land raider because:

1 rhinos get popped easily and TSons ahriman and plasma havocs all want to be in 12" range
2 ahrimans infiltrate uses two charges on him and a squad hes with. If you put them in a Land Raider, you can use those charges on thousand sons squads
3 Land raiders absorb a lot of small arms fire, something TSons cant do. It rounds out a TSon list, but is very expensive, which is a big problem in a TSon list, which is already expensive, hence the purpose behind this form. what can do this while staying cheap.

I will look at your chaos tactica. Thank you.

 changerofways wrote:
Add this to Ahrimans triple witchfire smite, and you have many AP2 shots.

Sorry to burst the bubble but I dont think Ahriman can cast triple smite. You cannot cast the same power twice in a turn. If you could it would be devastating and may be break certain areas of the game.

I like to run mine as a bodygaurd unit for a sorc in my daemons/CSM list, fnp from endurance can be a great buff against small arms and I use a screamerstar as a distracting unit. Daemons bring alot to the CSM table, pink horrors and heralds can take divination to twinlink or potentially make your Tsons ignore cover. Biomancy can also bring in enfeeble, making your str 4 shots count more! Plus a 3++ iron arm sorc can tank a decent amount of shots. I'd love to see some other opinions on Tsons in a list, even if they are just a fluffy unit.

I think he means smite as in the term, not the actual power Smite.

Ahriman with Havocs removes Terminators. If they are popular in your area, Ahriman is a good HQ if you want a shooty one.

Anyways- On topic: Remember this about Small Arms vs. Thousand Sons so let's focus on that.

We know they're weak against weapons that force them to make massed armor saves so clearly a CSM list has to have enough units *deployed* to cause target priority headaches for opponents wishing to engage Thousand Sons. Whether they are effective/worth a crap/points efficient is irrelevant.

Land Raiders are a good choice.. Taking one with Ahriman as your Warlord means that you're spending more points on units that can't infiltrate (unless you stuff some Terminators in that raider. Then they can infiltrate if it's Dedicated. 4x auto-infiltrating Terminators with Combi-Plasma in a Raider with Ahriman has a use. Whether it's good in all comers lists or not, doesn't matter. It provides protection for Thousand Sons by making the opponent shoot something else.. and boy do they have to shoot this unit..

Chaos Spawn. Chaos Spawn with MoN. This soaks fire like nothing else in the entire book. They need to watch out for Strength 10, but that's it.

With the Chaos Spawn, you can reverse our tactics here: Infiltrating some Thousand Sons units in Rhinos and letting the enemy take them out with anti-tank (and then subsequently anti-infantry) fire while ignoring your Spawn. Then you'll see the swathes of Spawn get into combat unscathed. Weee.

Run the Thousand Sons in the land raider instead. Sure its expensive, but a squad popping out, laying down ap3 rapidfire and a psychic attack, then charging in will kill just as much stuff as a tooled out combat squad charging out of that same land raider.

Yes. Yes x10.

Sorcerers with invisibility. Stick in rhino to get closer. Blow smoke/go flat out after casting. Enjoy your 2+ cover save. Rinse and repeat. Works great.

That works quite well.. It's been a few weeks since I've even rolled Invisibility. Darn!

 Brometheus wrote:
That works quite well.. It's been a few weeks since I've even rolled Invisibility. Darn!

Not sure if you can do that I'm afraid. If we're talking about Tsons in this case, you have to choose your powers from the Tzeench table if I remember correctly.

 Valkyrie wrote:

 Brometheus wrote:
That works quite well.. It's been a few weeks since I've even rolled Invisibility. Darn!

Not sure if you can do that I'm afraid. If we're talking about Tsons in this case, you have to choose your powers from the Tzeench table if I remember correctly.

Indeed, unfortunately the Aspiring Sorcerer can only take Tzeentch powers since you always need at least one that corresponds with your mark. I did not find the Tzeentch powers very interesting myself, though they can certainly have their uses. He would have been better with Divination IMO, would fit Tzeentch fluff as well.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:

 Brometheus wrote:
That works quite well.. It's been a few weeks since I've even rolled Invisibility. Darn!

Not sure if you can do that I'm afraid. If we're talking about Tsons in this case, you have to choose your powers from the Tzeench table if I remember correctly.

Indeed, unfortunately the Aspiring Sorcerer can only take Tzeentch powers since you always need at least one that corresponds with your mark. I did not find the Tzeentch powers very interesting myself, though they can certainly have their uses. He would have been better with Divination IMO, would fit Tzeentch fluff as well.

I believe the topic of conversation was the HQ choice, a chaos sorcerer, who can be mastery level 3, taking 2 powers in telepathy in addition to one of their chosen chaos god, not aspiring sorcerers

Well, he did say "If we are talking about Tsons in this case" which led me to the Aspiring Sorcerer.

But yes, Telepathy is very viable and strong. I remember tanking a big horde of various Ork units with only my Farseer (This was with my Eldar army) and a modest Guardian squad. Invisibility and dominate makes you hard to shift.

Go for it I say. Ahriman should aim more for witchfires than buffs/debuffs thanks to his staff.

Thouand sone is a favorite pet project for some of my recent opponents. I wrote up an article about them.

The Thousand Sons need distractions to keep people off them for sure and the list most definitely needs to be designed for enemy disruption and blocking off charges to succeed. Here's the article I wrote on it originally.
http://www.40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/02/40k-chaos-space-marines-cult-of-tzeentch.html

Thousand sons has gotten a lot of hate mail it seems.

Can the Thousand Sons melee, even without a weapon? For that matter, can any unit fight CCW without weapons? I wondered this when I saw units like Nurglings with BS and other discrepancies of the sort.

On that note, some thoughts about Thousand Sons since, yeah, very popular topic today.

They're good at MEq and anything less I feel like you're wasting points simply because they are Slow and Purposeful <-- No Overwatch.

To me, this is a glaring chink in the armor which immediately relegates them to (as others have said) distraction purposes or target priority headaches

The thing that kind of balances them out, and makes them a bit more reasonable (especially if you have to foot slog them) is their invuln save. That said, Termies of Tzeentch can do pretty much the same thing as Thousand Sons, and probably better.

How to keep them alive from crap like Cultists? You got me, man. That's a tough one considering how slow they are and virtually identical to all other CSM's. I wouldn't even bother with them unless I were going up against a Space Marine army. They seem to be the only ones that effectively make use of Thousand Sons fire, in terms of them taking damage at maximum efficiency. Shooting at low ap's is almost a waste and higher ap's definitely is, and if it's an HQ that can charge and eat your lunch in CC, then why bother?

<<; Noise Marines...

Give the enemy something else to shoot their small arms at, e.g. flamer cultists or spawn, allied daemons.

Rhinos work, but when the rhino gets shaken or stunned you miss out on effective shooting for a turn (hope the rhino gets wrecked or exploded first). Or if you are using Ahriman you can infiltrate/outflank them in the rhinos, disembark and fully unload before taking casualties.

Edit: Outflanking probably gives you a better chance at finding a juicy target without a cover save.

I would look long and hard at units that work better by having a MoT (thus an existing invuln save) and go their first. In Elites that is Terminators, in Fast attack that is Warp Talons and Oblits in Heavy. You can then have the Warp Talons and DSing Terminators disrupt your opponent's rear. I guess my list would look something like the following... Edit: Warp Talons came out to 190pts and I figured you would want more troops so I ditched them for two more troop selections.

Ahriman - 230pts

3x Terminators - 139pts
MoT, 2x combi-melta, CF, champ with Combi-melta

3x Terminators - 139pts
MoT, 2x combi-melta, CF, champ with Combi-melta

6x TSons- 218pts (with Ahriman)
Rhino, combi-melta, Force Axe

5x TSons - 200pts
Rhino, combi-melta, Force Axe, Melta bomb

5x TSons - 200pts
Rhino, combi-melta, Force Axe, Melta bomb

5x TSons - 200pts
Rhino, combi-melta, Force Axe, Melta bomb

5x TSons - 200pts
Rhino, combi-melta, Force Axe, Melta bomb

2x Oblits - 162pts
MoT, VotLW

2x Oblits - 162pts
MoT, VotLW

1850pts

The biggest thing is to give them as many threats as possible. In past experience, minimum squads don't work too well. The more bolter fire, the easier it is for them to take out.

My personal favorites are in the heavies section to attract attention. Mostly Forgefiends and Vindicator. Not only can they be a nuisance to take out, but they can cause a lot of damage.

TS work best against MEQ armies, and will have issues against horde armies and Terminator/tank heavy armies, so you have to work around that to the best of your ability.

Move your TS up as mobile fortress. Let every unit support each other and focus on one target at a time until it is rendered not a threat. If you use smaller squads, let it be standard CSM to hold objectives in the back. My favorite is a 5 man squad with a single plasma gun (105 pts including MoT and VotLW). Nothing else. The other option is a couple of squads of cultists. Squads of 20 or bigger.

Here is my list I am going to try out on Saturday, and see where it goes from there:

Daemon Prince: 275 MoT, Black Mace, Wings, Power Armor, Mutation

This will help me out against hordes, elite cc units (Terminators), and just a threat to take on other units.

Sorcerer: 110 MoT, Power Axe, Mutation, Sigil

He is here to move TS into the troops and accept challenges.

2x 9 TS: 257 ea: Power Axe, Mutation, Melta Bomb
2x 5 CSM: 105 ea: MoT Plasma Gun Vet

Meat and potatoes of the army. The TS squads will move up and take whatever objectives and handle threats. The CSM will move up behind the TS and take whatever pop shots that they have, and hold objectives.

2x Heldrake: 170 ea: Flamer

No explanation necessary.

2x Forgefiend: 200 ea: 2 Autocannons and Ectoplasma Cannon

Use these guys vs small tanks and start whittling down threats from a range.

1849pts

I will let you know how it went, and what I played against if interested.

TheRedWingArmada wrote:
Can the Thousand Sons melee, even without a weapon? F

..

the Main rule book explains to you that all models come with a close combat weapon.

 Jancoran wrote:

TheRedWingArmada wrote:
Can the Thousand Sons melee, even without a weapon? F

..

the Main rule book explains to you that all models come with a close combat weapon.

Yeah, every unit has at least 1 attack in CC, because you can beat guys down with rifle butts and pimp slaps.

 BlkTom wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

TheRedWingArmada wrote:
Can the Thousand Sons melee, even without a weapon? F

..

the Main rule book explains to you that all models come with a close combat weapon.

Yeah, every unit has at least 1 attack in CC, because you can beat guys down with rifle butts and pimp slaps.

Good to know. But then I guess it doesn't work the other way? Units with Ballistic Skills, but without Shooting Weapons don't get shooting attacks? I know that sounds like an obviously dumb question, but just for clarifications sake. lol

Simply put, if I don't have stats to put with a shooting attack, I'm obviously not going to be shooting then since I can't take off the gauntlets of my power armor and throw them at you at S4 AP-. XD

Lets stay on topic please.

And thank you everyone for your very helpful input. This has given me a lot of good ideas to think about.

TheRedWingArmada wrote:


Good to know. But then I guess it doesn't work the other way? Units with Ballistic Skills, but without Shooting Weapons don't get shooting attacks? I know that sounds like an obviously dumb question, but just for clarifications sake. lol

No. But some Grenades can be thrown 8" as a shooting attack. Pg 61 BRB