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A tricked-out Sorcerer casting on a 3+ can manifest WC2 on 3 dice, with a 93% success rate. If anyone within 18" has Siphon up, the net cost is 2 dice.

One-dicing WC1 is likewise reliable (89%), with a net cost of zero dice under Siphon.

I don't know if spamming the cheapest WC in the game is actually optimal. Especially with Siphon. To make an analogy : maybe we will get further if we have better mileage, rather than a larger gas tank.

Well, we have some good witchfires for sure.

Yoyoyo wrote:
A tricked-out Sorcerer casting on a 3+ can manifest WC2 on 3 dice, with a 93% success rate. If anyone within 18" has Siphon up, the net cost is 2 dice.

One-dicing WC1 is likewise reliable (89%), with a net cost of zero dice under Siphon.

I don't know if spamming the cheapest WC in the game is actually optimal. Especially with Siphon. To make an analogy : maybe we will get further if we have better mileage, rather than a larger gas tank.

We do have great mind bullets, and when we bring Magnus on the field we have access to all of them and a standard siphon to begin with. But I will agree about having better mileage rather than a gas tank. In my games so far, there are often turns where I end my psychic phase and I have 7-8 WC left and unused, mostly because Witchfires are out of range and I have already buffed everything in my side. I believe amassing 30+ warp charges may be too points and options constricting and maybe a nice ceiling would be the 17-20 WC range. This way we could save some points to invest in some anti AV or utility overall. I really love an Iron Warrior Cult of Destruction with obliterators + Astral grimoire from another sorcerer. You can play it as Thousand Sons and get better survivability, plus the blessing of tzeentch, but with Iron Warriors the Cult is unmarked and about 60 pts cheaper, plus they gain Tank hunter. We can play a naked warpsmith, 3+1+1 of oblits and join the warpsmith to the 3 man oblit unit. This way we get a unit that gets to double up on everything. Double movement due to grimoire, double shooting with every weapon available due to Cult, serious hth potential with 3 powerfists and a poweraxe in the unit, plus Tank Hunter for free. Also we get an extra 2 obliterators that can deep strike with multimeltas.

Has anyone played around with using brimstone horrors or heralds odd tzeentch as their battery? Two ml2 heralds and six brimstone units come in around 400 points, give ten warp charge, and give you some rolls on malefic or divination. It's not as durable as 44 pink horrors would be, but it's a lot less headache and gives better powers.

You'd also need to somehow get the models for them. Enjoy all those tens of Silver Tower boxes.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
1. How are TS lists criminally low on WC? We do have scarabs and sorc formations now you know. My lists never have less than 20 WC, even with zero demons inside.

2. Why are people so crazy about summoning? It is a very bad use of dice. Even with a spell familiar, you need 5+ dice to reliably create a unit that will give you back 5 dice over a course of a 6 turn game... so what's the deal anyways? Why not focus on mind bullets to begin with? Why is a summoning + 2 screams better than 5 screams?

Well TS is typically a low model count army and is relatively slow. In a mission where there are a lot of objectives you have to rely on incursion/summoning for units of screamers/daemonettes to hold or contest objs

 Lansirill wrote:
Has anyone played around with using brimstone horrors or heralds odd tzeentch as their battery? Two ml2 heralds and six brimstone units come in around 400 points, give ten warp charge, and give you some rolls on malefic or divination. It's not as durable as 44 pink horrors would be, but it's a lot less headache and gives better powers.

Α basic pandaemoniad nets at 381 pts, Lorestealer's host with 3x11 blue horrors and 3xML1 heralds anarchic. You get 12 WC, 37 bodies with a 4++ save. Bodies also break into new bodies upon dying. If you make them into your primary detachment, you also get a rerollable Tzeentch warpstorm table with some sick results and one of the best warlord trait tables ever printed (possibility to have your daemons on a 3++ save before any buffs at all).

topaxygouroun i wrote:1. How are TS lists criminally low on WC? We do have scarabs and sorc formations now you know. My lists never have less than 20 WC, even with zero demons inside.

2. Why are people so crazy about summoning? It is a very bad use of dice. Even with a spell familiar, you need 5+ dice to reliably create a unit that will give you back 5 dice over a course of a 6 turn game... so what's the deal anyways? Why not focus on mind bullets to begin with? Why is a summoning + 2 screams better than 5 screams?

Because the Sons rely on their psychic phase very heavily for almost all their answers to Anti tank, anti MC, anti hoarde and anti TEQ in addition to cover busting and to a lesser degree now we have the astral grimoure, movement speed. That's a lot of stuff and a limited amount of dice. In case you havene't noticed, Scarabs are still very expensive at 125 points per warp charge when the ideal for a WC generating model is ~50 points per charge if you're not just a WC battery like heralds or horrors. 20 dice for sons isn't really that much considering how often they would like to cast.

As for summoning, if you don't understand the advantages of creating units that fit specific battlefield needs on the fly for free, I'm not sure how we can help you. It's not about summoning horrors for WC, it's about summoning daemonettes to rend things to death, putting a Burning Chariot down for cover busting, plopping a bunch of bloodcrushers down where they can charge something important next turn or dropping a bunch of screamers down and then turbo boosting 24" to claim linebreaker or to slashing attack something like a culexus who you're struggle to hurt normally and puts a major crimp in your plans otherwise. Summoning is a fantastic toolbox, just like choosing what schools to roll on before the game but after seeing your opponents army.

Yoyoyo wrote:To make an analogy : maybe we will get further if we have better mileage, rather than a larger gas tank.

Ideally both, but yes, it's a good analogy. Unfortunately, our milage enhancers are quite costly (beyond spell familiars) while the increased tank size is relatively cheap.

topaxygouroun i wrote:We do have great mind bullets, and when we bring Magnus on the field we have access to all of them and a standard siphon to begin with. But I will agree about having better mileage rather than a gas tank. In my games so far, there are often turns where I end my psychic phase and I have 7-8 WC left and unused, mostly because Witchfires are out of range and I have already buffed everything in my side. I believe amassing 30+ warp charges may be too points and options constricting and maybe a nice ceiling would be the 17-20 WC range. This way we could save some points to invest in some anti AV or utility overall. I really love an Iron Warrior Cult of Destruction with obliterators + Astral grimoire from another sorcerer. You can play it as Thousand Sons and get better survivability, plus the blessing of tzeentch, but with Iron Warriors the Cult is unmarked and about 60 pts cheaper, plus they gain Tank hunter. We can play a naked warpsmith, 3+1+1 of oblits and join the warpsmith to the 3 man oblit unit. This way we get a unit that gets to double up on everything. Double movement due to grimoire, double shooting with every weapon available due to Cult, serious hth potential with 3 powerfists and a poweraxe in the unit, plus Tank Hunter for free. Also we get an extra 2 obliterators that can deep strike with multimeltas.

I don't know how you're ending phases with spare WC in a 17-20 range list. Even when I bring 20 dice, I never run out of dice before I run out of spells.

As for the Cult, while it's nice and it fills a need for anti tank (as well as a bit of CC punch), it's also expensive at 460 points for 5 oblits and the warpsmith and many of us can't find that many points while maintaining an effective Sons portion of our lists. May I ask what the normal range of points you play at? I'm coming from a base of playing 1500-1850 and in those ranges, the Sons are at quite the disadvantage.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Lansirill wrote:
Has anyone played around with using brimstone horrors or heralds odd tzeentch as their battery? Two ml2 heralds and six brimstone units come in around 400 points, give ten warp charge, and give you some rolls on malefic or divination. It's not as durable as 44 pink horrors would be, but it's a lot less headache and gives better powers.

Α basic pandaemoniad nets at 381 pts, Lorestealer's host with 3x11 blue horrors and 3xML1 heralds anarchic. You get 12 WC, 37 bodies with a 4++ save. Bodies also break into new bodies upon dying. If you make them into your primary detachment, you also get a rerollable Tzeentch warpstorm table with some sick results and one of the best warlord trait tables ever printed (possibility to have your daemons on a 3++ save before any buffs at all).

I think the Lorestealer's Host is going to be the bread 'N butter detachment for just about any TS detachment.

I wonder if this list would be effective:

There's 22+D6 Warpcharges in this list.

The TS Grand Coven allows psykers to cast additional powers... so, Maggie potentially is casting 6x per turn.

The Astral Sorc and Seer Sorc hangs with the Scarab to be a general nuisance.

Kinda fluffy...

Also, would it be better for Lorestealer Host to be primary detachment to use the new TzWarpStorm? Or allow the TS detachment be primary and make Maggie the WL (for his 12" dangerous terrain bubble trait)??

To present some dissenting opinion:

- Blue Horrors are S2/T2 models that lack shooting, lack Obsec and that will get run over by any other troop in the game.
- Brimstone Horrors are S1, even with bonus attacks their damage output is close to inconsequential. What cute lil' guys though!
- Nothing shoots, everything is hopeless in CC, everything except Paradox is terribly inefficient with WC.

Anyway. To demonstrate :

70pts of CAD Tzaangors charge 70pts of 4++ Blue Horrors.
- 30(2/3)(2/3)(1/2) = 6.7W (Horrors Removed = 7)
- 14(1/2)(1/6)(5/6) = 0.97W (Tzaangors Removed = 1)
- Daemonic Instability at -6 (Horrors removed = 6 average)
- Split creates 13x Brimstone Horrors.

13x Brimstones charge the remaining 9 Tzaangors. Combat continues.
- 40(1/2)(1/6)(5/6) = 2.78W (Tzaangors Removed = 3)
- 18(2/3)(5/6)(1/2) = 5W (Removed = 1x Blue Horror, 4x Brimstone bases with 2W each)
- Daemonic Instability at -6 (Brimstone bases removed = 3 average)
- Split creates 1x Brimstone Horror.

End of Turn. Tzaangors remaining = 6. Brimstone bases remaining = 7.

As for the Heralds -- 160pts for Paradox + 6 WC is good. Alternatively, I could get a WB Sorcerer with ML3/Tome/Familiar for 135pts, that manifests summoning at 96% on 5 dice, can fish for four powers on the Malefic table, and then spend the remaining 25pts on a ML elsewhere.

I think we could get more synergy from different units. Lorestealer is a great WC battery for Magnus, but it may not pull its weight in some other respects. Just a little bit of Obsec would go a long way.

Blue Horrors should be run in a CAD, unless you're trying some funky shenanigans involving using them to man Plasma Obliterators or something funky like that. The bonuses to the Lorestealer are fairly inconsequential in that regard. Being T2 matters relatively little when most enemy firepower is about optimizing S5 or Grav or other such shots. Plus you get your invulnerables, split, rerolls to invuls.

And if they assault you? It's a 55-point unit you can space out as expendable chaff.

Seriously. For the cost of 4 units of Rubric Marines, you're looking at a Herald, 4 units of 11 Blue Horrors, and 3 Heralds Anarchic. 15 WC vs 4, and a Primaris that's actually decent. Or you always have the option to skip the CAD altogether and run the Heralds on Discs as troubleshooters/poor Chaos analogues to Landspeeders.

So I got my first game in against GSC. Now, neither of us were min maxxing / optimized lists, nor are we phenomenal players. He wanted to learn his rules better, and I wanted to give Magnus a spin. So we just put models on the table and tried to kill each other.

He had the first curse formation (20 genestealers with a Patriarch), a cult ambush formation I think, and then some sentinels and acolytes in a chimera.

I had Magnus, 2 5 man squads of Rubrics, 1 10 man squad of Rubrics, and 5 Scarab Occult Terminators with 1 soulreaper cannon. Aspiring sorcerers had force axes and 2 had melta bombs.

1500 points each. Like I said, nowhere near tuned, just wanted to get them on the table. He also allowed me to run some of the special rules from whatever formation gives a bonus to invuln saves. I don't have the book yet.

My thoughts so far:

Rubrics are surprisingly sturdy. I would concentrate them though to maximize the effectiveness of the AP 3 bolters to wipe out whatever you are shooting at each turn. Playing GSC I knew he would be infiltrating right to me, so I bunched up, and was only outnumbered 5 to 4 first turn. Double tapping bolters into min squads of metamorphs or acolytes made short work of them.

Scarab Occult Terminators. Not quite amazing. They took out maybe 10 genestealers in 2 turns shooting, then I assaulted the patriarch and his unit to tarpit them. This was probably a mistake as they don't have the number and quality of attacks to deal with GS effectively in my opinion. I used Magnus to finish off the unit and Patriarch. I think the SOC would be most effective being a bully unit on the flanks. 1 wound, 2 attacks, S&P really hurt them. Getting Endurance on them would be amazing.

Magnus, the boss hog. I probably played him horribly. I need to get a comprehensive list of his powers. Like I said, I don't have the book. I used a website for the new Lore of TZ powers. I think Siphon Magic is a trap. WC 1 is so easy to deny, and throwing 3 dice on it, harnessing on a 2+... you're just going to come out even with 3 dice siphoned. I'm sure I could maximize my dice and powers cast, but it just didn't seem worth it.
Magnus did seem to do fairly well blasting out 2-3 witchfires. 1 doombolt wrecked a sentinel, and then the TZ blast power from the CSM book did a number on some Genestealers. I would probably just use him like this, flying around, hitting vulnerable backfield units. I doubt he'll ever really make his points back. I dropped him down into CC to deal with the GS Patriarch, and he was quite underwhelming. I'm sure he'll wreck face against a unit of fire warriors, but against any unit suited to CC, he'll be lack luster. The staff's special rules with creating a new Spawn came into effect 1 time.....

Overall, I think we're a very elite army to play. I need to get the book and really tackle what powers are available to us, and then the best way to start squeezing in support powers via Biomancy or Diviniation.

You're going to need more WC in your army to run Magnus effectively. Siphon can work, but not in the way you used it. And Scarab Terminators are not Slow and Purposeful. At least according to their datasheet, intentional or otherwise.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Being T2 matters relatively little

Well... there's Bolters, Lasguns, Autopistols, Flamers, Frag Grenades, HoW, and CC attacks, to name just a few. The latter is the most important, as Daemonic Instability sidesteps their Invul saves.

Horrors are perfect for being a backfield objective-sitter who contributes Warp Charge, but on offense they can't dislodge 50pts of IG infantry. That's limited. It's also a very expensive job to give to Rubrics or Scarabs. Look at Flickering Fire against IG in cover. Say you spend 6 dice, 2 on each squad of Horrors, and manifest 2 times, failing 1. Average of 2D6 is 7. 14x shots at BS3, resulting in 7 hits, 6 wounds, depending on cover saves you'd probably kill 2-4 Guardsmen. A 5pt Flamer would do more damage, haha. Though we didn't include Warpflame and Soulblaze.

Without considering those special rules -- the Blue Horrors generated no dice, killed 10-20pts of models, and cost 175pts of your list. Sneaking on the extra WC for 5pts is cool, but Brimstone Horrors cost about same, give you more maneuver units on the board, supply the same WC, and supply a greater # of Wounds. Maybe I'm missing something amazing about Split. Otherwise I don't get it.

has anyone tried using rubric marines as wraithguard in a serp? 5man with flamers rhino.

you would almost be able to afford 2 for every 1 wraith unit and yes it has less utility since no D flamer but it can still clear troops/hordes and they have invulns etc

You can't even overwatch unlike scythe-guards. Also, you can do nothing vs vehicles and more or less tough stuff. D-guards are used cause they DELETE whatever non-invisible you point them at.
If you want to clear troops, just go for spells or a heldrake. Cheaper, tougher, more reliable damage, won't give your opponent fnp. Not on board turn 1 though.

 koooaei wrote:
You can't even overwatch unlike scythe-guards. Also, you can do nothing vs vehicles and more or less tough stuff. D-guards are used cause they DELETE whatever non-invisible you point them at.
If you want to clear troops, just go for spells or a heldrake. Cheaper, tougher, more reliable damage, won't give your opponent fnp. Not on board turn 1 though.

i guess 1k sons have trouble with armor so it would be more of the same huh. I'm trying too hard to like the rubric marines a bit. I'm bias

 Drasius wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:1. How are TS lists criminally low on WC? We do have scarabs and sorc formations now you know. My lists never have less than 20 WC, even with zero demons inside.

2. Why are people so crazy about summoning? It is a very bad use of dice. Even with a spell familiar, you need 5+ dice to reliably create a unit that will give you back 5 dice over a course of a 6 turn game... so what's the deal anyways? Why not focus on mind bullets to begin with? Why is a summoning + 2 screams better than 5 screams?

Because the Sons rely on their psychic phase very heavily for almost all their answers to Anti tank, anti MC, anti hoarde and anti TEQ in addition to cover busting and to a lesser degree now we have the astral grimoure, movement speed. That's a lot of stuff and a limited amount of dice. In case you havene't noticed, Scarabs are still very expensive at 125 points per warp charge when the ideal for a WC generating model is ~50 points per charge if you're not just a WC battery like heralds or horrors. 20 dice for sons isn't really that much considering how often they would like to cast.

As for summoning, if you don't understand the advantages of creating units that fit specific battlefield needs on the fly for free, I'm not sure how we can help you. It's not about summoning horrors for WC, it's about summoning daemonettes to rend things to death, putting a Burning Chariot down for cover busting, plopping a bunch of bloodcrushers down where they can charge something important next turn or dropping a bunch of screamers down and then turbo boosting 24" to claim linebreaker or to slashing attack something like a culexus who you're struggle to hurt normally and puts a major crimp in your plans otherwise. Summoning is a fantastic toolbox, just like choosing what schools to roll on before the game but after seeing your opponents army.

Yoyoyo wrote:To make an analogy : maybe we will get further if we have better mileage, rather than a larger gas tank.

Ideally both, but yes, it's a good analogy. Unfortunately, our milage enhancers are quite costly (beyond spell familiars) while the increased tank size is relatively cheap.

topaxygouroun i wrote:We do have great mind bullets, and when we bring Magnus on the field we have access to all of them and a standard siphon to begin with. But I will agree about having better mileage rather than a gas tank. In my games so far, there are often turns where I end my psychic phase and I have 7-8 WC left and unused, mostly because Witchfires are out of range and I have already buffed everything in my side. I believe amassing 30+ warp charges may be too points and options constricting and maybe a nice ceiling would be the 17-20 WC range. This way we could save some points to invest in some anti AV or utility overall. I really love an Iron Warrior Cult of Destruction with obliterators + Astral grimoire from another sorcerer. You can play it as Thousand Sons and get better survivability, plus the blessing of tzeentch, but with Iron Warriors the Cult is unmarked and about 60 pts cheaper, plus they gain Tank hunter. We can play a naked warpsmith, 3+1+1 of oblits and join the warpsmith to the 3 man oblit unit. This way we get a unit that gets to double up on everything. Double movement due to grimoire, double shooting with every weapon available due to Cult, serious hth potential with 3 powerfists and a poweraxe in the unit, plus Tank Hunter for free. Also we get an extra 2 obliterators that can deep strike with multimeltas.

I don't know how you're ending phases with spare WC in a 17-20 range list. Even when I bring 20 dice, I never run out of dice before I run out of spells.

As for the Cult, while it's nice and it fills a need for anti tank (as well as a bit of CC punch), it's also expensive at 460 points for 5 oblits and the warpsmith and many of us can't find that many points while maintaining an effective Sons portion of our lists. May I ask what the normal range of points you play at? I'm coming from a base of playing 1500-1850 and in those ranges, the Sons are at quite the disadvantage.

I play 1850-2400 games so it's kind of easier for me. Also, I do actually run out of dice in 17-20 WC lists, but usually whatever I need get done is done at that point. I usually have dice left on 30ish WC lists, that's why I propose that cutting some fat off might be better. (Yes, this means I played games with 30+ WC lists). Maybe with Magnus you are starved for any amount of WC but I have not played with the boss yet.

Now we do rely on our psychic for most things, but thankfully we have ways to make the most out of it. Spell familiars and any formation that casts on a 3+ lets us 1-dice spam most of our WC1 spells. We don't even need the expensive ones like Rehatti or Exiles, we can have 4x ML3 Athenean Cult Sorcerers with spell fams for 560 pts, get 12 dice out of it, split them into 4 units and have 4 psychic screams cast on a 3+ rerollable. That's crazy efficiency and deadly power at the same time.

Scarabs are indeed expensive, but they are not just a WC battery. We have pandaemoniad for that. Scarabs are a solid unit normally. They are slightly less survivable than hammernators, slightly less punchy than normal terminators and slightly more shooty than most other terminator options. I believe they are a surplus units in all but one of our lists. Then comes the maxed War Cabal. Until you field a maxed war cabal on the table you can't understand what true resilience means. Scarab Occults in a maxed War Cabal are simply immune to 70-80% of the game. Scatterbikes? Sure whatever. Tau missile fire? Bring it on. And when you get to cast a blessing, they easily become the toughest.unit.in.the.game.period. I actually tested this against an optimized Ad-mech list filled with ap2 and ap1 shooting. In a Maxed War Cabal scarabs are not just a unit any more. They overperform in every level, especially in higher point games where you can have their weapon upgrades as well.

Still not convinced about summoning. Getting 10 daemonettes out by wasting 5-7 dice to do what? It's T3 5++ wounds that cannot charge the same turn, they are just begging to give up a kill point and/or a first blood. And it's not like you are going to choke your opponent in models. In daemon lists, you can have your 80+ models normally so any summoning hurts because it adds more bodies with the same defensive profile. But when you have your 30 model Thousand Son list, adding 10 daemonettes means little-to-nothing. Especially when the rest of the lsit has a different profile so the enemy can now split their fire more efficiently. I can see the point of summoning a burning chariot, I have two of them and I will be bringing them along when I play Magnus, but that's mostly because I can fly with Magnus and then bring the chariot down in a critical area. I don't see how backfield blue horrors summoning a burning chariot would help.

I will later add some battle reports. For now here are some insight I learned by playing different units.

1. Blue horrors / pandaemoniad. They are still very weak to shooting, 4++ or not. I even had my warlord trait giving them a 3++ and they were still dying. By letting simple bolters wound you on a 2+, you have to save so many wounds that even a 3++ is not enough. Where they shine though is tarpitting. HtH never has the same amount of attacks as shooting does. In my game, I used the grimoire on them and then charged a big SM HtH unit (2 characters plus some sort of command squad with couple of fists). My blues had 3++, which weathered most of the storm, and the summoned brimstones also charged in and also enjoyed a 3++ save. That unit never bothered me again for the rest of the game. I initially placed the blue horrors way in the back and the thousand sons in front. I can see now that it is meant to be the other way.

2. We have to be VERY careful when rolling for spells. Some disciplines, regardless if they are good or not, are a no-go for most of our lists. Divination might be great, and prescience is (usually) a great spell, but we lack units like grav devastators so there is little point in rolling for it. In a War Cabal, an occular guidance is almsot as good. Telepathy does have invisibility and scream, but all the other spells are VERY weak in our list. So having 2-3 rolls for the hope of invis and getting 3 screams otherwise is nice, but maybe 8+ rolls on invis is wasted potential. On the other hand, Tzeentch has 4 spells to deal with 2+ armor, with 3 of them being actually useful (doombolt, baleful devolution and treason) and one being situational (breath of chaos). Spell Siphon is also a great spell and that makes 5/6 rolls actually useful, so Tzeentch is a great discipline to roll on, which is surprising to me because initially I thought it was going to be crappy. In War Cabal lists, Occular guidance goes great with Warpshock (ectomancy primaris), so maybe a couple of rolls on ectomancy can make up for the lackluster shooting phase we have. In fact I believe that Warpshock is the best WC1 dakka power along with psy scream. Scream has a higher damage potential and is sick against MC's, Warpshock is much more consistent against blobs and infantry. Biomancy and Sinistrum can be good in deathstar and Seer's bane/ disc of tzeentch lists, not so much after that. Overall, what I say is that our power selection should be based on both our opponent's and our list.

3. We also need to be very careful with our movement phase, we need to keep track of the powers each sorcerer knows and move them accordingly to get in range of our targets. (How much better would it be if the Grand Coven bonus gave us +6" range on our powers instead of casting an extra one).

4. I know I said this before, but a maxed war cabal is a stupidly durable list. Really really annoying for the opponent. And no, grav is not "the bane of this list". A full relentless grav devastator unit can come out of the drop pod, shoot at a blessed scarab unit with all it's devastator doctrines activated and it will still only kill 4 of the terminators in the unit. The sorc will survive and that's all I need. On my turn I'm going to Treason your gravs at least once , quite possibly more times, I'm going to kill the rest of your list and then I will proceed to kill your devastators as well.

5. Melta Bombs on everything is one of the wisest upgrades in our armies. My maxed war cabal has msu rubric units in rhinos with melta bombs and 2 warp flamers. Yes I know it is an expensive and bad unit, but it is my tax to get immortal terminators and with this setup my tax units become little jacks of all trades being able to move fast (flat-out 18"), split into 2 units for objectives, deal with blobs with their flamers and also go for suicidal charges on imperial Knights with actually decent chances to tarpit and/or kill it eventually.

topaxygouroun i wrote:


I play 1850-2400 games so it's kind of easier for me. Also, I do actually run out of dice in 17-20 WC lists, but usually whatever I need get done is done at that point. I usually have dice left on 30ish WC lists, that's why I propose that cutting some fat off might be better. (Yes, this means I played games with 30+ WC lists). Maybe with Magnus you are starved for any amount of WC but I have not played with the boss yet.

Now we do rely on our psychic for most things, but thankfully we have ways to make the most out of it. Spell familiars and any formation that casts on a 3+ lets us 1-dice spam most of our WC1 spells. We don't even need the expensive ones like Rehatti or Exiles, we can have 4x ML3 Athenean Cult Sorcerers with spell fams for 560 pts, get 12 dice out of it, split them into 4 units and have 4 psychic screams cast on a 3+ rerollable. That's crazy efficiency and deadly power at the same time.

Scarabs are indeed expensive, but they are not just a WC battery. We have pandaemoniad for that. Scarabs are a solid unit normally. They are slightly less survivable than hammernators, slightly less punchy than normal terminators and slightly more shooty than most other terminator options. I believe they are a surplus units in all but one of our lists. Then comes the maxed War Cabal. Until you field a maxed war cabal on the table you can't understand what true resilience means. Scarab Occults in a maxed War Cabal are simply immune to 70-80% of the game. Scatterbikes? Sure whatever. Tau missile fire? Bring it on. And when you get to cast a blessing, they easily become the toughest.unit.in.the.game.period. I actually tested this against an optimized Ad-mech list filled with ap2 and ap1 shooting. In a Maxed War Cabal scarabs are not just a unit any more. They overperform in every level, especially in higher point games where you can have their weapon upgrades as well.

Still not convinced about summoning. Getting 10 daemonettes out by wasting 5-7 dice to do what? It's T3 5++ wounds that cannot charge the same turn, they are just begging to give up a kill point and/or a first blood. And it's not like you are going to choke your opponent in models. In daemon lists, you can have your 80+ models normally so any summoning hurts because it adds more bodies with the same defensive profile. But when you have your 30 model Thousand Son list, adding 10 daemonettes means little-to-nothing. Especially when the rest of the lsit has a different profile so the enemy can now split their fire more efficiently. I can see the point of summoning a burning chariot, I have two of them and I will be bringing them along when I play Magnus, but that's mostly because I can fly with Magnus and then bring the chariot down in a critical area. I don't see how backfield blue horrors summoning a burning chariot would help.

I will later add some battle reports. For now here are some insight I learned by playing different units.

1. Blue horrors / pandaemoniad. They are still very weak to shooting, 4++ or not. I even had my warlord trait giving them a 3++ and they were still dying. By letting simple bolters wound you on a 2+, you have to save so many wounds that even a 3++ is not enough. Where they shine though is tarpitting. HtH never has the same amount of attacks as shooting does. In my game, I used the grimoire on them and then charged a big SM HtH unit (2 characters plus some sort of command squad with couple of fists). My blues had 3++, which weathered most of the storm, and the summoned brimstones also charged in and also enjoyed a 3++ save. That unit never bothered me again for the rest of the game. I initially placed the blue horrors way in the back and the thousand sons in front. I can see now that it is meant to be the other way.

2. We have to be VERY careful when rolling for spells. Some disciplines, regardless if they are good or not, are a no-go for most of our lists. Divination might be great, and prescience is (usually) a great spell, but we lack units like grav devastators so there is little point in rolling for it. In a War Cabal, an occular guidance is almsot as good. Telepathy does have invisibility and scream, but all the other spells are VERY weak in our list. So having 2-3 rolls for the hope of invis and getting 3 screams otherwise is nice, but maybe 8+ rolls on invis is wasted potential. On the other hand, Tzeentch has 4 spells to deal with 2+ armor, with 3 of them being actually useful (doombolt, baleful devolution and treason) and one being situational (breath of chaos). Spell Siphon is also a great spell and that makes 5/6 rolls actually useful, so Tzeentch is a great discipline to roll on, which is surprising to me because initially I thought it was going to be crappy. In War Cabal lists, Occular guidance goes great with Warpshock (ectomancy primaris), so maybe a couple of rolls on ectomancy can make up for the lackluster shooting phase we have. In fact I believe that Warpshock is the best WC1 dakka power along with psy scream. Scream has a higher damage potential and is sick against MC's, Warpshock is much more consistent against blobs and infantry. Biomancy and Sinistrum can be good in deathstar and Seer's bane/ disc of tzeentch lists, not so much after that. Overall, what I say is that our power selection should be based on both our opponent's and our list.

3. We also need to be very careful with our movement phase, we need to keep track of the powers each sorcerer knows and move them accordingly to get in range of our targets. (How much better would it be if the Grand Coven bonus gave us +6" range on our powers instead of casting an extra one).

4. I know I said this before, but a maxed war cabal is a stupidly durable list. Really really annoying for the opponent. And no, grav is not "the bane of this list". A full relentless grav devastator unit can come out of the drop pod, shoot at a blessed scarab unit with all it's devastator doctrines activated and it will still only kill 4 of the terminators in the unit. The sorc will survive and that's all I need. On my turn I'm going to Treason your gravs at least once , quite possibly more times, I'm going to kill the rest of your list and then I will proceed to kill your devastators as well.

5. Melta Bombs on everything is one of the wisest upgrades in our armies. My maxed war cabal has msu rubric units in rhinos with melta bombs and 2 warp flamers. Yes I know it is an expensive and bad unit, but it is my tax to get immortal terminators and with this setup my tax units become little jacks of all trades being able to move fast (flat-out 18"), split into 2 units for objectives, deal with blobs with their flamers and also go for suicidal charges on imperial Knights with actually decent chances to tarpit and/or kill it eventually.

What do you recommend running for the HQ (including optimal psyker powers)?

EDIT - Also, what formation is the "Athenean Cult"? I can't seem to find its rules.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
I play 1850-2400 games so it's kind of easier for me. Also, I do actually run out of dice in 17-20 WC lists, but usually whatever I need get done is done at that point. I usually have dice left on 30ish WC lists, that's why I propose that cutting some fat off might be better. (Yes, this means I played games with 30+ WC lists). Maybe with Magnus you are starved for any amount of WC but I have not played with the boss yet.

Now we do rely on our psychic for most things, but thankfully we have ways to make the most out of it. Spell familiars and any formation that casts on a 3+ lets us 1-dice spam most of our WC1 spells. We don't even need the expensive ones like Rehatti or Exiles, we can have 4x ML3 Athenean Cult Sorcerers with spell fams for 560 pts, get 12 dice out of it, split them into 4 units and have 4 psychic screams cast on a 3+ rerollable. That's crazy efficiency and deadly power at the same time.

Scarabs are indeed expensive, but they are not just a WC battery. We have pandaemoniad for that. Scarabs are a solid unit normally. They are slightly less survivable than hammernators, slightly less punchy than normal terminators and slightly more shooty than most other terminator options. I believe they are a surplus units in all but one of our lists. Then comes the maxed War Cabal. Until you field a maxed war cabal on the table you can't understand what true resilience means. Scarab Occults in a maxed War Cabal are simply immune to 70-80% of the game. Scatterbikes? Sure whatever. Tau missile fire? Bring it on. And when you get to cast a blessing, they easily become the toughest.unit.in.the.game.period. I actually tested this against an optimized Ad-mech list filled with ap2 and ap1 shooting. In a Maxed War Cabal scarabs are not just a unit any more. They overperform in every level, especially in higher point games where you can have their weapon upgrades as well.

Still not convinced about summoning. Getting 10 daemonettes out by wasting 5-7 dice to do what? It's T3 5++ wounds that cannot charge the same turn, they are just begging to give up a kill point and/or a first blood. And it's not like you are going to choke your opponent in models. In daemon lists, you can have your 80+ models normally so any summoning hurts because it adds more bodies with the same defensive profile. But when you have your 30 model Thousand Son list, adding 10 daemonettes means little-to-nothing. Especially when the rest of the lsit has a different profile so the enemy can now split their fire more efficiently. I can see the point of summoning a burning chariot, I have two of them and I will be bringing them along when I play Magnus, but that's mostly because I can fly with Magnus and then bring the chariot down in a critical area. I don't see how backfield blue horrors summoning a burning chariot would help.

I will later add some battle reports. For now here are some insight I learned by playing different units.

1. Blue horrors / pandaemoniad. They are still very weak to shooting, 4++ or not. I even had my warlord trait giving them a 3++ and they were still dying. By letting simple bolters wound you on a 2+, you have to save so many wounds that even a 3++ is not enough. Where they shine though is tarpitting. HtH never has the same amount of attacks as shooting does. In my game, I used the grimoire on them and then charged a big SM HtH unit (2 characters plus some sort of command squad with couple of fists). My blues had 3++, which weathered most of the storm, and the summoned brimstones also charged in and also enjoyed a 3++ save. That unit never bothered me again for the rest of the game. I initially placed the blue horrors way in the back and the thousand sons in front. I can see now that it is meant to be the other way.

2. We have to be VERY careful when rolling for spells. Some disciplines, regardless if they are good or not, are a no-go for most of our lists. Divination might be great, and prescience is (usually) a great spell, but we lack units like grav devastators so there is little point in rolling for it. In a War Cabal, an occular guidance is almsot as good. Telepathy does have invisibility and scream, but all the other spells are VERY weak in our list. So having 2-3 rolls for the hope of invis and getting 3 screams otherwise is nice, but maybe 8+ rolls on invis is wasted potential. On the other hand, Tzeentch has 4 spells to deal with 2+ armor, with 3 of them being actually useful (doombolt, baleful devolution and treason) and one being situational (breath of chaos). Spell Siphon is also a great spell and that makes 5/6 rolls actually useful, so Tzeentch is a great discipline to roll on, which is surprising to me because initially I thought it was going to be crappy. In War Cabal lists, Occular guidance goes great with Warpshock (ectomancy primaris), so maybe a couple of rolls on ectomancy can make up for the lackluster shooting phase we have. In fact I believe that Warpshock is the best WC1 dakka power along with psy scream. Scream has a higher damage potential and is sick against MC's, Warpshock is much more consistent against blobs and infantry. Biomancy and Sinistrum can be good in deathstar and Seer's bane/ disc of tzeentch lists, not so much after that. Overall, what I say is that our power selection should be based on both our opponent's and our list.

3. We also need to be very careful with our movement phase, we need to keep track of the powers each sorcerer knows and move them accordingly to get in range of our targets. (How much better would it be if the Grand Coven bonus gave us +6" range on our powers instead of casting an extra one).

4. I know I said this before, but a maxed war cabal is a stupidly durable list. Really really annoying for the opponent. And no, grav is not "the bane of this list". A full relentless grav devastator unit can come out of the drop pod, shoot at a blessed scarab unit with all it's devastator doctrines activated and it will still only kill 4 of the terminators in the unit. The sorc will survive and that's all I need. On my turn I'm going to Treason your gravs at least once , quite possibly more times, I'm going to kill the rest of your list and then I will proceed to kill your devastators as well.

5. Melta Bombs on everything is one of the wisest upgrades in our armies. My maxed war cabal has msu rubric units in rhinos with melta bombs and 2 warp flamers. Yes I know it is an expensive and bad unit, but it is my tax to get immortal terminators and with this setup my tax units become little jacks of all trades being able to move fast (flat-out 18"), split into 2 units for objectives, deal with blobs with their flamers and also go for suicidal charges on imperial Knights with actually decent chances to tarpit and/or kill it eventually.

I can't comment on the reliabililty of the Sons above 1850, but if you're playing at 2k or above, there's a lot more wiggle room in the lists for adding luxuries once the cabal has been filled out. The issue I have with the War Coven is that I really can't find room for 560 points, nor the need for 4 more psychers. If it had've been 2 or 3, I could probably squeeze them in, but 4 is just too many on top of the 2-4 from the war cabal, especially when a group of Heralds Anarchic is such a great battery for so few points when you're already short on WC.

The problem I have with the scarabs is that they aren't a battery, they aren't anywhere near as punchy as loyalist termies and their shooting ability is mediocre at best, all for a significant points premium. 40 points for a 2+/4++ with 1 wound just doesn't cut it IMHO, just look at loyalist termies who're cheaper and come with power fists. True, a blessed squad might survive a round of grav fire if there's no doctrines involved, but drop pods come down turn 1 and if they go first, even without a doctrine, they'll pop a unit of scarabs and there's not really anything you can do about it other than hiding them in a corner where their poor mobility will effectively put them out of the game or stick them in reserves and try to DS them where they're at the whims of the reserve rolls and scatter dice. Again, don't get me wrong, in a maxed cabal they're basically invulnerable to non-ap2 fire. I'm currently waiting on 2 more units of SOT's to turn up and once they're built, that'll be a full cabal for me. There's still the matter of the 450 point rubricae tax and that they're all but useless against 2+ armour or T5+ which is in every melee unit in spades, so they're easily tarpitted.

As for summoning, if you're not convinced, you're not convinced, but many people find it to be a fantastic toolbox that can solve many problems.

I'm still not convinced by Tzeentch being worthwhile to roll anything more than the absolute minimum required amount on. You're already making 10 rolls for a full cabal, you should be able to utilise that for whatever you need because in my experience, doombolt is not really that great against vehicles, being a single powerfist hit, often on front armour. You're glancing preds/hammerheads/ironclads etc on a 5+ which is never going to be a replacement or even much of an augmentation to your anti tank firepower. Devolution can be good against MC's, but again, you're getting 3.5 shots, still rolling to hit, half wound, then any cover or invulnerable they have. With a BS4 rr1's model against a T6 MC with a 5+ cover or invulnerable, that's less than 1 wound on average (0.907). Better than doombolt, but not by much and it's WC2. The only saving grace is 6's to wound are instant death, the spawn being relatively inconsequential compared to having popped something important. You're not wrong that picking disciplines is important though, especially at lower points where the lack of anti tank means 2 sorcs are pretty much devoted to Heretek, leaving very little room for many rolls for invis. I think that having the Scarab sarges rolling telepathy is probably the best outcome, with them either lucking into invis or taking shriek, leaving the rest of your sorcs free to go after other things to plug your shortcomings.

Movement is probably one of the easier ones to take care of, especially now with the grimoure, but the fact that rubricae and scarabs both want to be midfield, also allowing pretty much all of your non-nova powers be in range, is one of the few synergies that we have.

I think Rubrics are in a much better place than they were but are still obviously pretty trashy. The Tzeentch discipline only has two truly useless powers for them and with Blessing of Tzeentch they can now always fall back on Force just to get a unit-wide 3+ invulnerable save.

I'm mixed on Scarab Occult, they shoot better than average Terminators but that's not saying much. In combat they aren't *terrible* like some people suggest, they will still bowl over MEQ and worse equivalents with little difficulty, the problem is that outside of the Sorcerer's psychic powers they have zero AP2 capabilities which is not great for a unit that is so expensive, and they are decent but overall lacking when it comes to anti-tank. Still, if you account for what a normal Sorcerer equipped like an Occult Sorcerer costs, the Terminators themselves are fairly priced in the minimum unit size - they work out to be around 31-32 points each if I'm not mistaken which is pretty good seeing as Tzeentch Terminators gain access to different Power Weapons but are more expensive per model (accounting for the basic 5 man unit discount the Scarabs get) and lack Inferno Bolts. If adding additional members to the unit was that cheap, I think they'd be rated higher by most. The key thing here though is that unlike the Aspiring Sorcerer, the Occult Sorcerer has access to all the same disciplines a normal Sorcerer does - though he trades Sanctic for Divination - meaning he can easily roll on Heretek/Telepathy to give the unit ranged AP2 or anti-vehicle attacks.

Ahriman is hit and miss. No Spell Familiar means that taking one of the formations to give him 3+ to cast on his chosen discipline is key which is good as he's part of some very strong formations. He has a very useful Warlord Trait for Thousand Sons and the optional Disk improves him a lot as he won't fear random Power Fists any more and can move about, sling numerous deadly Witchfires then Turbo Boost and hide out of sight. He's also incredibly expensive and has decent but hardly special combat capabilities, basically he's only really worth it if you want his Warlord Trait and the ability to throw out three Doombolts/Psychic Shrieks/Haywire powers a turn. Overall I think he's a really good Warlord for a Thousand Sons army but not so great as just another character.

Magnus is awesome, hands down. With Force activated he reliably kills Wraithknights in combat before they strike, his Destroyer Beam alone is terrifying on a flying monstrous creature - not to mention Doombolt and the other Destroyer shot he gets - and he's super difficult to kill. You have to build your list around him and make sure to keep him away from viable threats - don't risk failing a grounding test near an Imperial Knight or getting alpha-struck before he can take off by teleporting/'Drop Podding grav. I've seen people keep him in Reserves which is a risky proposition on its own given that a model that expensive being off the table for one to three turns is going to be super painful, but it's well worth it if it means you'll be keeping him alive.

I think super competitive Thousand Sons will ditch the unique units, take the bare minimum to support Magnus and spend all their points elsewhere; basically, screw the fluff. For people that actually care about that stuff but still wanna win games, Magnus is still a priority but using Tzeentch Daemons to supplement a core of Rubricae/Scarab Occult/Sorcerers/etc is ideal, Thousand Sons have good formations filled with mediocre to bad units, you can actually sorta make their units work if you play your cards right and get decent psychic power rolls. Psychic spam is the way to go with this army for sure, but the question becomes how do you maximise your psychic phase...you need at least 20 warp charges for 1000-1500 point army lists I think, you probably want at least some Daemons for that. Spell Familiars are mandatory for whoever can use them. Do you then use the Grand Coven/formations to emphasise quality over quantity and make your psykers better individually or just grab as many warp charges as possible? I'm leaning towards the former personally but am interested to see what others think.

Honestly those mandatory Tzeentch rolls aren't nearly as much of a tax as they used to be. Aspiring Sorcerers now have a good chance to get a useful power and thus not be entirely useless in a game, rather than just praying for Doombolt specifically.

On that note, I have a question regarding Ahriman's Warlord Trait in light of the recent FAQ...
If I roll a 1 on the D3, I can't Infiltrate both an Exalted Sorcerer and a Rubric Marine unit together can I? I have to also give the Infiltrate to Independent Characters right? Just double checking.

See, it's that alone that makes me view 1k Sons themselves as such a tragic release. When the best way to run Magnus is to not bother with his actual Legion, something has gone wrong. Heck, for the same points cost as buying Mark of Tzeentch for 50 Cultists or equivalent (or 38 and 2 HQs), you can get a full VSG. If you keep Magnus flanking stuff and acting like a crazy rook, darting to and from ongoing reserve after casting stuff, you really don't *need* Blessing of Tzeentch to make the most of him. Just bring Typhus and some Zombies and call it a day, adding support elements as you will. With the ability to summon Burning Chariots, you also arguably don't need Heldrakes either.

Here is my problem with the maxed out War Cabal:


It tends to run at least 1850 to 2000 points without even adding a lot of upgrades. At that point level my opponents, who tend to run Tau, or Knights, or Admech bring ALOT of firepower.

Knowing that they only need to destroy a single unit to remove my 'reroll saves of one' rule, they essentially will focus their entire army on a single unit of Rubric Marines. They are tough, but not that tough.

Once the reroll bonus is gone, the cabal is considerably easier to defeat.

I have actually had better luck running the Sekhmet Conclaclave and going for Warp Fate ( which I always manage to get, since I roll on sinistrum until I get it thrice.) As a result, I also tend to get death hex and other useful stuff into the bargain. After I get what I want from Sinistrum, I move on to Biomancy. As you might have guessed, I take a lot of sorcerers and dont bother allying in daemons.

 Chaos Legionnaire wrote:

Knowing that they only need to destroy a single unit to remove my 'reroll saves of one' rule, they essentially will focus their entire army on a single unit of Rubric Marines. They are tough, but not that tough.

Once the reroll bonus is gone, the cabal is considerably easier to defeat.

The re-roll doesn't go when a unit is destroyed, you get it for the whole game after buying the maximum number of units.

@Topaxy: Looking forward to your battle reports.

@Brian888: It's the War Coven cults, that cast on a 3+.

Pavoni - Biomancy
Corvidae - Divination
Pyrae - Pyromancy
Raptora - Telekinesis
Athanaeans - Telepathy

I’m toying around with which is better, the Exalted Sorcerer or the Sorcerer?

I was curious on the difference in survivability between a Sorcerer on a disc vs an Exalted Sorcerer on a disc. I guess that I am placing a lot of value on this due to the low model count of this army. If you recall, Sorcerers can take a Sigil of Corruption which is 4++ while an Exalted Sorcerer is given the Aura of Dark Glory at 5++. Add in the MoT and Sorcerers go to 3++ and Exalted Sorcerer’s 4++, respectively. Assuming each can cast a blessing and get it off, their invulnerable saves go to 2++ for the Sorcerer and 3++ for the Exalted Sorcerer. Assuming each is on a disc they would both be T5. Sorcerer has 2 wounds while the Exalted Sorcerer has 3. So if I wanted to run each solo on a disc, which one has more survivability and by how much?



Vs bolters (or equivalent) at BS 4

Sorceror-

58 bolter shots X .66 = 38.28 hits X .33 = 12.6324 wounds X .16 = 2.02 unsaved wounds

Exalted Sorcerer -

42 bolters shots X .66 = 27.72 hits X .33 =9.1476 wounds X .33 = 3.01 unsaved wounds



Vs Plasma Gun (or Str 7 equivalent) at BS4

Sorcerer-

23 plasma shots X .66 =15.18 hits X .83 = 12.5994 wounds X .16 = 2.01 unsaved wounds

Exalted Sorcerer -

17 plasma shots X .66 = 11.22 hits X .83 =9.3126 wounds X .33 = 3.07 unsaved wounds


Vs Str 10 (Instant Death) at BS4

Sorcerer-

12 Str 10 shots X .66 =7.92 hits X .83 = 6.5736 wounds X .16 = 1.05 unsaved wounds

Exalted Sorcerer -

6 Str 10 shots X .66 = 3.96 hits X .83 =3.2868 wounds X .33 = 1.08 unsaved wounds



As you can see, the additional wound on the Exalted Sorcerer doesn’t make up for the loss of being able to take the Sigil of Corruption. In fact, it’s not even close and that’s kind of a big deal.



The real Pros for the Exalted Sorcerer over the Sorcerer:

- Better Initiative and WS for CC

- Can cast one time las cannon shot (with blast and lance)

- Can take Divination



The real Cons for the Exalted Sorcerer over the Sorcerer:

- No choice in force weapons, staff only.

- Dies much more easily than the Sorcerer due to no Sigil of Corruption option

- Base cost is 40-60 points more than a Sorcerer similarly upgraded to ML2 and Aura of Dark Glory

You've missed something in your comparison there: mark of Tzeentch cannot be used to increase your invul behond a 3++, so both of them will have the same invul and the exalted sorceror is more survivable due to 3 wounds.

With regards to sorceror vs exalted I would go with Exalted sorcerors for carrying relics, especially the cc relics, and have regular sorcerors fill up any other slots.

but wouldn't the blessing take it to 2++ and not the mark?

It is directly under the entry for the Mark of Tzeentch on pg30 of the CSM codex:
"Models with the Mark of Tzeentch have +1 to their invulnerable save (to a maximum of 3+)."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The mark is still used to bring it over 3++ so it is capped. This is discussed, at length, in other threads. I wouldn't want to start that discussion again.

@mrhappyface: The trouble is, the rule states that you only get the bonus as long as you have the max number of units. It doesn't say that you get the bonus for beginning with the max number of units. ( I wish it did.)
For this reason, literally no one in my gaming circle interprets the rule any other way, including Thousand Sons players.
Now if GW were to FAQ it ( dare to dream) and it turned out the way you said, is that would make me very happy indeed.
For what it's worth, I believe that your interpretation was the desired intent, just not worded so well.

You will find that the consensu is that you can't get to a 2++ while using the MoT, so your analysis is flawed.

Edit: Beaten like a red headed, red skinned, one eyed, arrogant stepchild - That'll learn me to open a bunch of tabs and take forever to reply to some of them.