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Turns out of you choke yourself enough on mobility and model count you can actually fit a functioning Grand Coven featuring the favoured of Tzeentch bonus in a 2k list:

Core formation: War Coven

Sorc, ML3, MoT, Votlw, Spell familiar

Sorc, ML3, MoT, Votlw, Spell familiar
Sorc, ML3, MoT, Votlw
Sorc, ML3, MoT, Votlw

5 x Rubrics
5 x Rubrics
5 x Rubrics

5 x Scarab occult terminators, Helyfire launcher, soulflamer cannon
5 x Scarab occult terminators, Helyfire launcher, soulflamer cannon
5 x Scarab occult terminators, Helyfire launcher, soulflamer cannon

Auxiliary formation: Legion Armoury.

Auto/las predator

This is a 2k point list featuring... 34 models and a tank. Yup. Let's see what you get and what you don't.

Pros: The list has all the detachment bonuses, aka sorcerers can cast 1 more power and they may reroll peril rolls. Also, The list features a war coven, so any spell cast gives the unit reroll 1's on their to hit rolls. Also, despite having no demons, the list still generates 21 warp charges and it has plenty of sorcerers to put them in good use. Finally (and that's the debate point), the list has the favoured of tzeentch rule, so all models get to reroll rolls of 1's in all of their saves. This makes the scarab occult terminators practically immune to small to medium arms fire (2+ rerollable), and with a blessing cast, getting the best possible invul they can have, aka 3++ with rerollable 1's, which also makes them stupidly durable against ap2 weapons as well. Do not forget that these guys are fearless, so there is no way of getting rid of them unless you actually kill them, and that could prove very problematic even for armies with a high amount of shots. To put things into perspective, a competitive eldar list could shoot a scarab unit with 3 units of 5 bikes all armed with scatter lasers (aka 60 shots @ str 6) and still get to kill 0.89 scarab occults on average. That's first class durability for you and I can't see this list losing in a game of kill points. Finally, the list has a decent-ish point of mid-level dakka, with several cannons and missile shots to supplement the psychic phase that should be the main source of damage output.

Cons: Obviously, the list is ridiculously tiny. It features 15 rubrics, 15 termies and 4 sorcerers. That's it. So any kind of enemy that has target priority can have a field day. And the units of 5 rubrics ain't that great to begin with. Sure they can become a super sticky tarpit to contest an objective with, but that's about it more or less, unless their sorcerer rolls something ridiculous like a treason of tzeentch or a doombolt. Secondly, the list is VERY slow. Termies can deepstrike and that's a decent option given their ap3 dakka and optional psychic scream on demand, but other than that everything footslogs. In a game of objectives this list plays from a serious handicap. What's more, even though this list is very hard to kill, very durable tarpit-y and can easily tie big threats down without a problem, they also do a terrible job at killing other stuff once in hth themselves. You have plenty of force staves and that's about it. If you get in hth with a serious close combat enemy (or fast army) you are going to stay there for a loooong time, as your poor kopesh-looking power swords aren't going to get you far. (Damn I wish all of the scarabs' melee weapons were force). The biggest point though, is that while this list would be good against a meq list, it would have serious problems against AV, superheavies and swarm armies. Swarms would be less of a problem I reckon, because your sorcerers can roll on pyromancy at a whim's notice and have plenty of tools to deal with gribbles. Being able to roll on heretech gives them a 50% chance per roll to get a hull point stripping power, which can be used against AV but has short range and isn't always reliable. The real bottleneck is superheavies and GMC's though. Magnus may have access to two str D powers, but this list cannot do anything to them outside of perhaps treason of tzeentch and getting stupidly lucky with force staff attacks. And that's a problem that would be very apparent in high stakes tables.

So how do you see this list? Is the loss of model count and mobility worth the favoured of tzeentch rule to make scarabs nearly unkillable?

I think it would fun to play. The book is too new to say for sure, but I don't think Tsons are going to be a top tier army. That aside, play what you like and have fun with it. At least the army fits the theme. I really want to field Magnus. The Tsons will be like Harlies, few models and take finess to use. I think they will be fun and hey they are tons better than what they were. Was I hoping for a point break? Yeah but for some reason GW doesn't seem to think that CSM needs help. Getting free VOTLW is nice but regular marines get free chapter tactics for way less. Do they have a 4++ or 3++? No but dakka still kills this pretty easily and without access to FNP they will die in droves to lots of Dakka. So in the end, play what you like and have fun with it.

 Eiluj The Farseer wrote:
I think it would fun to play. The book is too new to say for sure, but I don't think Tsons are going to be a top tier army. That aside, play what you like and have fun with it. At least the army fits the theme. I really want to field Magnus. The Tsons will be like Harlies, few models and take finess to use. I think they will be fun and hey they are tons better than what they were. Was I hoping for a point break? Yeah but for some reason GW doesn't seem to think that CSM needs help. Getting free VOTLW is nice but regular marines get free chapter tactics for way less. Do they have a 4++ or 3++? No but dakka still kills this pretty easily and without access to FNP they will die in droves to lots of Dakka. So in the end, play what you like and have fun with it.

I would be ok with the points if Rubrics were actually useful. If they could have a role. But GW didn't seem to think so. It's like they added point costs for the good stuff (inferno bolts, mark, fearless, aura of dark majesty) but they forgot to subtract points for the stuff they don't have (slow and purposeful, no grenades, no pistols, bad unit upgrade options etc). This would still be ok if Rubrics could have 1 cannon per 5 models for example instead of 10. Then a unit of 10 in a rhino with two cannons would make so much sense to take (or keep an msu unit with a single cannon holding an objective). But nope, we can't have that. Also what really bothers me is the aspiring sorcerer. Sure he's a great champion, what with force weapon and his mastery level and he is appropriately costed, but the fact that he HAS to roll his one spell on the tzeentch discipline just kills the unit for me. There could be so many options if he could just take the normal disciplines. He could have psychic scream, ectomancy primaris, something. As it is, he gets to roll on a VERY bad table (they didn't even bother fixing the stupid Boon of Tzeentch) and the free primaris he gets from the chaos focus is sooooo weak. So sad for the rubrics, there was so much potential.