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So I'm going to preface this list with the fact that I consider myself to be a competitive player. This list is not exactly optimal but fun to me because its challenging to play non-optimal lists. But in the realm of a mono-tzeench thousand sons list I think it stands tall against most other lists of it's nature. I just wanted to get thoughts and suggestions on the list.

Thousand Sons 1850

Thousand Sons HQ:
Ahriman – 230 pts

Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeench, wings, power armor, mastery level 3, black mace, spell familiar – 355 pts

Thousand Sons Troops:
Thousand sons x 11 – 288 pts
Thousand Sons x 12 – 311 pts

Chaos Cultists x 10 – 50 pts
Chaos Cultists x 10 – 50 pts

Thousand Sons Heavy Support:
Obliterators x 3 w/ mark of tzeench, veterans of the long war – 243 pts
Obliterators x 2 w/ mark of tzeench – 152 pts

Forgefiend w/ hates auto-cannons – 175 pts

Total Points: 1849

First off I like Ahriman as an HQ for Thousand sons. The fact he gives you the static warlord trait of master of deceit is fantastic in my eyes and is worth the higher point cost than a regular tzeench sorcerer + upgrades, this list is tooled around infiltrating. How I play the list is I start off rolling on biomancy for all spells with my daemon prince and Ahriman. I know this may seem like a shock to most, but i'd rather have endurance, enfeeble, and iron arm than any amount of witch fire powers for ahriman and the prince. Second step depending if you get first or not you set your troops up and infiltrate the two bricks of sons + Ahriman within 24 inches of the enemy lines. ( you can obviously deploy more aggressively towards 18 inch if you know you are going first) Going first or second you then cast any spells such as endurance on your bricks and if you get really lucky both ahriman and the prince will get endurance, 3+/4++ with FnP is Durable to say the least, and you'd be surprised at how well everything survives with endurance. And if possible having ahriman enfeeble any unit he can see that he wants to shoot, making your hellfire rounds wound easier is always amazing. Then you get into a position with your sons so that you have decent LoS to the enemy troop carriers/ troops but also making it hard for your opponent to get a decent charge off with his troops IE about 16-20 inches away, unless you are feeling lucky then id move the full 6" to try and double tap as many guys as possible. You also then fly the prince up to be able to intercept anything that may be trying to get into combat with your sons. Make sure to move him within 2" if any sorcerers are lucky enough to receive boon of mutation as you will be booning the prince as many times possible come next turn. Then you move your cultists into cover and towards objectives and then move oblits and forgfiend into a decent position to dew LoS to your enemies threats. Start off the shooting phase by shooting all your heavy weapons prioritizing the main threats but also making sure transports die so that your sons have something to shoot at. I love this list because there are so many threats your opponent has to deal with. A) you have 23 thousand sons + ahriman knocking at your doorstep hopefully at least with one set of endurance for a 3+/4++ FnP troop. B) oblits in the back field for your opponents heavy arms fire. C) The Forgfiend or D) the flying daemon prince thats coming to intercept anything that comes close to the thousand sons. I really recommend trying out this list its loads of fun, and for being not optimal it actually holds its own in most games. Please give me your thoughts, thank you for your time.

I'd like to play against this list, it seems cool. The only problem would be if you only rolled a 1 for your infiltrators, would you then just infiltrate the one unit or forget it altogether?

Thousdand Sons player here.

I'd be tempted to:

1) Either Drop the Prince for a Heldrake or two.
or
2) Play the book out of the Black Legion suppliment, take Last Memory on the Prince, and pony up for Veterans on the oblits.

I've always been a sad panda when my Oblits fall.

I've taken Ahriman with a unit of Mutilators a few times for funzies, I wouldn't consider it competetive, but if you get 2 (or 1, depending on how your local group plays it), infiltrating that group up is pretty darned cool.

Last Memory Prince is ~350pts as well, and is a savage beat machine, even without the black mace (he actually can't take it in the Black Legion book).

Outflanking Thousand Sons is pretty fun as well.

I've ponied up for the Icon a few times, really only need to kill one model for it to pay for itself, and it looks cool.

---

I also roll on Biomancy (most of the time) on Ahriman. If I don't see a lot of S8+ on the other side of the board, I'm often tempted to roll on Telepathy, if he lucks out and gets both Hallucination and Invisibility, he can cast both.

I forgot to mention this is a hell drake free zone, I'm trying to keep it fun to play as well as fun to play against. And hell drakes are just too automatic with what they do, and tend to frustrate a lot of players. As far as the last memory goes, I'm not sure I'm on board with it over the back mace, I could really only see myself using that a couple turns and my mace is far more "precious" to me than an extra witch fire spell, the banner seems like a good idea though, I just have absolutely no idea how id fit it in at the moment as my list is exactly 1850 with no room to spare. Although I probably will change my unit of 3 oblits to have VotLW instead of having auto guns on the cultists. Thank you for your input. As to if i'd just infiltrate one unit, yes I would, assuming I had at least one endurance. That makes the decision easy on who to cast it on as well as making your opponent choose which threat he wants to try to kill, thus potentially alleviating some of the fire power away from your prince/obliterators/forgefiend

Love it not sure about the cultists . I think there must be a better use of 100. Points. Also try and fit in a drake the fear factor for camping back field objective holders is worth it alone.

you really need to put your TSons in rhinos, they help them get into rapid fire range when they infiltrate, and give them something to work with if they dont, rather than just footslogging them across 48" or whatever of open ground.
you only need 1 10 man squad of cultists for backfield objectives.
Ahriman should only be rolling for a bunch of biomancy blessings if his escort unit is likely to die and he is to be left alone. If you judge that to be the case, then go for it, he can do very well with those.
You're going to find the Daemon Prince being a point sink if you're going up against an army with S10 weapons, because hes going to get instant killed. Armies with lots of small arms fire will also make him into mince meat.

Heres my current list, take from it what you will

2000 pts Thousand Sons

Ahriman (Warlord)
9 Thousand Sons- Rhino (ahriman goes here)
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino, melta bombs
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino, melta bombs
Helbrute- twin-linked lascannon, missile launcher
Heldrake- Baleflamer
Heldrake- Baleflamer
Vindicator- daemonic possesion
Vindicator- daemonic possesion
Vindicator- daemonic possesion

Heres Bromethues's current list. He's a thousand sons authority here, and if he posts here I'd take what he says very seriously. His list is certainly better than mine but I just have to have helbrutes and vindies in my list. Anyway:

2000 pts Thousand Sons

Ahriman (Warlord)
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
10 Thousand Sons- Rhino
5 Spawn- MoN
5 Havocs-4 plasma guns, rhino w/ combi-melta (ahriman goes here)
Heldrake- Baleflamer
Heldrake- Baleflamer
Herald of Tzeentch- disc, grimoire, exalted reward, ML 3
10 pink horrors
9 screamers (herald goes here)

Good to see another TSons player join DakkaDakka! Welcome

Guy's, he mentioned it's a heldrake free zone.

I second metal boxes for the 1ksons. Against small arms in the open,they are just regular marines. Guardsmen, orks, eldar and plenty of other armies already have bolters ignore their armor, and don't puch power armor. They will sit in cover and shoot you down. Rhinos give you mobility and protection until you get the chance to jump out and rain dakka.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
I second metal boxes for the 1ksons. Against small arms in the open,they are just regular marines. Guardsmen, orks, eldar and plenty of other armies already have bolters ignore their armor, and don't puch power armor. They will sit in cover and shoot you down. Rhinos give you mobility and protection until you get the chance to jump out and rain dakka.

Same here. I created a Tzeentch list for a buddy of mine in a team game that worked pretty well, and it had two squads of 1000 Sons in Rhinos (but no Ahriman due to points limitations). He got the Sons into rapid fire range by turn two, and our opponent's dark reapers were helpless to stop it (and they died to said rapid fire). People tend to underestimate how effective AP3 truly is on rapid fire weapons.

Here is some food for thought and why I'm not wanting to run rhinos. A) both thousand squads will be infiltrating assuming I roll a 3+ for my random d3 infiltrating units. You can infiltrate 18" away if there are enemies within LoS. Either way you have rhinos or infiltrating you will be in double tap range turn 2 and will allow my daemon prince to fly up and be able to charge whatever oncoming threats your opponent sends at your sons. As far as rhinos I think they are great for some lists to protect the boys, but not if I plan on infiltrating and shooting first turn. That is my delivery system. B) I don't have 70 points to spare. C) If either my prince or ahriman or both get endurance they become incredibly durable, so I invite most opponents to shoot at them. And on a side note I think a second 10 man of cultists is nessecary, they can hold the back objectives or they can run across the board and try to grab others, because in this list the enemy won't be shooting the cultists they have too many other things to worry about especially since I'm playing so aggressive with my sons. And why does every chaos suggest a hell drake as the first thing I need to improve the list? They have developed into a crutch. This list is for fun, and when you start adding hell drakes into the mix or multiple drakes your opponent tends to have a lot less fun and thats not the aim of this list.

Thousanth Son wrote:
Here is some food for thought and why I'm not wanting to run rhinos. A) both thousand squads will be infiltrating assuming I roll a 3+ for my random d3 infiltrating units. You can infiltrate 18" away if there are enemies within LoS. Either way you have rhinos or infiltrating you will be in double tap range turn 2 and will allow my daemon prince to fly up and be able to charge whatever oncoming threats your opponent sends at your sons. As far as rhinos I think they are great for some lists to protect the boys, but not if I plan on infiltrating and shooting first turn. That is my delivery system. B) I don't have 70 points to spare. C) If either my prince or ahriman or both get endurance they become incredibly durable, so I invite most opponents to shoot at them. And on a side note I think a second 10 man of cultists is nessecary, they can hold the back objectives or they can run across the board and try to grab others, because in this list the enemy won't be shooting the cultists they have too many other things to worry about especially since I'm playing so aggressive with my sons. And why does every chaos suggest a hell drake as the first thing I need to improve the list? They have developed into a crutch. This list is for fun, and when you start adding hell drakes into the mix or multiple drakes your opponent tends to have a lot less fun and thats not the aim of this list.

Relax, only one person suggested a heldrake and that was before you announced you are in a heldrake free zone. I think you're overreacting a bit.

On the note of rhinos, you take them even when infiltrating to block line of sight. TSons are great against a squad of marines, but if you put them up against two squads of marines, then you start to have problems. The rhino keeps small arms fire off of them for a turn or two if you're lucky. If you don't have the points for them though, then I suppose you don't have the points for them.

If you want something to soak small arms fire, I think a mini screamer star or chaos spawn would do that better than ahriman/your DP, but i'd lean towards the spawn because they are cheaper and not so cheesy, and I'm seeing that you live in an anti-cheese area.

Probably an overreaction and I'm sorry for that, but every list you suggested me to see had two hell drakes a piece. And I understand your argument vs small arms fire, but you just have to infiltrate correctly whether it be behind blocking LoS cover or out of the range of your opponents small arms fire (assuming you don't have turn one)

Thousanth Son wrote:
Probably an overreaction and I'm sorry for that, but every list you suggested me to see had two hell drakes a piece. And I understand your argument vs small arms fire, but you just have to infiltrate correctly whether it be behind blocking LoS cover or out of the range of your opponents small arms fire (assuming you don't have turn one)

Just a thought but if you do use rhinos you would have to cut three 1000 sons (to get them to fit). That should free up the points for the rhinos.

Thousanth Son wrote:

A) both thousand squads will be infiltrating assuming I roll a 3+ for my random d3 infiltrating units. You can infiltrate 18" away if there are enemies within LoS. Either way you have rhinos or infiltrating you will be in double tap range turn 2 and will allow my daemon prince to fly up and be able to charge whatever oncoming threats your opponent sends at your sons. As far as rhinos I think they are great for some lists to protect the boys, but not if I plan on infiltrating and shooting first turn. That is my delivery system. B) I don't have 70 points to spare.

Yes, you can infiltrate close, but say you go second or your opponent steals. Your opponent can move away, leaving your sons in single tap range. If you expose them to single shot, then they can be shot back and even with endurance 1k sons can be killed by enough dakka. Turn 2, yes, you could be in double tap range but the rhino provides an extra 6" free movement, increasing your chances. You can still disembark 1st turn after you infiltrate, then use your rhino as a moving screen. Shoot with the sons, then flat out 6" to create a barrier, repeat. Rhinos can also be used to tank shock if needed. You don't have to start your sons in the rhinos if you don't need them. Leave the rhinos in the backfield and hide the cultists behind them, infiltrate 1k sons on foot. Your cultists are now shielded and have a free transport they can use to get to objectives.

You also do have the points for them, if you wanted to use them. Since the max transport capacity is 10, you would have to drop 3 1ksons(4 if you want Ahriman riding inside) and that gives just enough points for 2 rhinos.

This 1850pt list has not disappointed me:

Ahriman (Warlord)
9 Tsons- Rhino
9 Tsons- Rhino
9 Tsons
5 Spawn- MoN
5 Havocs- Plasma Gun x4, Rhino
Herald- Disc, Level 3, Exalted
11 Horrors
9 Screamers

If you have any questions, just ask. I enjoy playing lists without my Drakes lately.

I'm under the impression that using Thousand Sons as your primary Troops works best when you have fast high-threat units that start on the board to make your enemy have a hard time choosing targets. Drakes might be awesome, but they don't start on the board. This list has medium damage-output, a good amount of scoring units (including FA and HS for Scouring and Big Guns Never Tire).

The beauty of Infiltrate/Outflank with this list via Master of Deception is that you have durable units starting on the board if you end up having to Outflank 3 units. Those durable units could survive long enough for the Outflankers to arrive. If you Infiltrate 3 units and your opponent steals, laugh at him when he peppers your Tsons and ignores those spawn and screamers.