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Made in us
Pulsating Possessed Chaos Marine




So, during a long bout of the flu and recovery I have taken the time to read and re-read Wrath of Magnus : The Rules. At first glance everything seemed great. Re-rolling saves of one. Buffed Invuln saves, re-rolling Perils. But then it slowly sunk in, and I am not sure why it took subsequent reads for this to happen. The Thousand Sons Grand Coven is simply unplayable. EDIT : I see the irony of me complaining when I asked others not to. So snip snip.

Now that I have gotten the bile out I turn my attention to what can be done by a thousand sons player to field a fluff list , semi comp fluff list and a competitive list. To start I think you can still field a fluffy list with 1ksons and not be tabled by turn 2. But you are going to have to go CaD to do it. Even on its own outside of a grand coven, things like the War Cabal and the Sekmet formation are just bad choices. Now there are various ways one can go about making a fluff list, and that is going to be a personal affair. I myself think that adding daemons to a 1kson list is well within fluff as they have many times shown their reliance on summoning to fill the gaps of their Rubrics and Scarab Terminators. Some will view a fluff list as pure 1ksons with no daemon splashing. And That is fully in their right and can also be done, but you have to accept the weakness of doing such a thing and relegate yourself to being at a gigantic disadvantage when playing.

So what I aim to do with this thread, and hope to get input from veteran sons generals is where we can go from here on the three levels of list building. I have yet to sit down to fashion any actual lists but will be doing so tomorrow and onwards. Go ahead and list your observations and list ideas (not full lists, thats for a different forum) on what can be done with what we have. I would ask that people refrain from doom mongering as we mostly know well enough we got stuck with a stinker mini-dex and look to what we can salvage from that mess.

My first observation is that the special rule "favored of Tz" is such a kick in the groin. It would have been a meaty rule to help out overpriced units. I have been looking for a way to replicate this but can only come up with adding a sorc to the unit who is fortunate enough to have the sinistrum power of warp fate. But I dont think that can be scored on any regularity and when you do roll it you are better served sticking it into a death star. Does anyone else have any ideas?

Another weakeness of the legion I would like to talk about is our low model count. I do not think that rubrics and scarab terms are good enough to use as a full elite army such as Death Watch lists. So we are going to need cheap bodies to tarpit and hold objectives. We seem to have three choices that can fit any list from fluff to comp. I am not sold on Tzaangors. They cost to much for what they are but concede they can serve in a fluff list. Our second option are cultists but that as far as I know the 1ksons do not have any cults to draw upon. The third and obviously competitive option is Pink Horrors. And how to use the horrors is a question in and off itself. Using ITC rules as a guideline for a comp list we have a few options. We can make our primary detach Daemons giving access to CaD horrors as troops. This also unlocks the RNG of demons which is what it is. Another choice is to take two allied detachments and run two big squads. Or you can go with one allied detachment and use summoning on a herald to gain more. Im not sure which I will go with.

So, to wrap this up, this thread is for all things 1ksons and tips to using them. Of course we should leave the gloom and doom for the other posts that have already well covered that aspect of the release. The question is simple. What can we do with what we have.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/01/01 04:00:39


 
   
Made in au
Ancient Chaos Terminator





'Straya... Mate.

The way I see it is: Take Magnus
With him, they are a very viable option. Without him, they can only be lackluster for the reasons you stated above. Unless I have missed something.

 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





College Park, MD

I'm trying to work out the best way to take Magnus while keeping bookkeeping minimal (so pink horrors are right out, and I balk at blue horrors.)

 
   
Made in au
Unrelenting Rubric Terminator of Tzeentch





A full war cabal at 1850 can be done and not only be fluffy but also stand a pretty good chance of winning. Not a grand coven, no Aux choice, just a maxed out cabal.

What I would consider the minimum core

Spoiler:

Thousand Sons War Cabal
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar

1760


It's certainly not overly imaginative, but there's not much getting around it if you really want the maxed out cabal since there's literally no choice but to take those exact units. Where to go from there? Well, I'd be looking at AoDG or terminator armour, though an exalted for extra W and/or a disc for the warlord for T5 is also good. There's not many points left, but it can work.

Default order of operations for power generation would be roughly:
- Roll Scarabs on tele to get invis, if no, then shriek
- Roll Warlord on Tele to get invis if Scarabs didn't, if they did or he rolls invis on first try, switch to bio
- Roll Sorcs #2 & #3 on Heretek looking for Flayer & Curse
- Roll Sorc #4 on Tele if you still haven't rolled invis, Heretek if insufficient flayer/curse or your choice of bio/sinistrum/geo for specific things like endurance/enfeeble/death hex/earthly anethema etc

though obviously there's a large amount of wiggle room depending on what your opponent is bringing or what you you do with those last 90 points.

Beyond that, I really think that, at 1850, you can't really have Magnus and the Sons in the same list, they're both just too expensive. I see Magnus more at home in a daemons list than a sons list. When you can power Magnus with the 20 odd warp charge he wants, then he can be worth his points. I think one of the best examples of this type of list was done by astro_nomicon over in the army lists section which is am shamelessly stealing and modifying slightly:

Spoiler:

Daemon CAD

330 - LoC: Impossible robe, ML3, 2x Greater, Lesser
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
75 - 3x Screamers
75 - 3x Screamers

CSM CAD
100 - Sorceror: MoT, ML2
60 - Cultists: MoT
60 - Cultists: MoT
650 - Magnus

Heralds Anarchic

145 - Tzerald: ML3, Disc, Paradox
45 - Tzerald
45 - Tzerald
45 - Tzerald

1850

I'd make the LoC my warlord and shoot for the +1 unlulnerable to all Daemons of Tz within 9", but any of them are great except #6. Magnus also benefits from cursed earth nicely while the paradox herald can easily summon on 5 dice with good mobility and possibly also bring CE to allow Magnus to summon flaming chariots with no scatter too.


Another aside to Magnus and Daemons is that while many will be tempted to Magnus and Fateweaver in the same list, that's almost 1000 points in 2 models that aren't going to want to land and as such, can't score. Fateweaver and Magnus are both warp charge hogs and have a terrible points cost to WC generated ratio, but Magnus casts on 2's so Fateweaver should really be sitting this one out IMHO.

As to daemons providing the bulk of our troops, I think that's about as good as it's going to get and I should this this would be very fluffy. While the Sons do foster cults (Ex. the prelude to the battle of the fang), I don't feel that you get anywhere near as much milage out of 2x 10 cultists as you do from 2x 11 horrors, but you're going to need the cultists anyway if you want to bring Magnus without a formation or wasting points on Tzaangors or rubricae. If you wanted to have a bit of punch with daemon filler, I suspect that a min Sekmet with the remaining points going towards a daemon CAD with a ML3 paradox foot herald and 2x 11 blue horrors with remaining points either on bulking out the daemons, farming more warp charge through the Heralds Anarchic or giving the Scarabs some ranged punch though you've also got the option of replacing the daemons CAD with a Tzaangor warherd that can supply bodies, but again, I really don't think that you're getting much out of 30 Tzaangors that the same points in pink or blue horrors would give you, you just absolutely need that warp charge and having easy access to paradox feels like one of the easiest ways to shore up our lack of numbers on the cheap.

Example list:
Spoiler:

Sekmet Conclave
650 - Magnus
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators

Daemon CAD
120 - Tz Herald, ML3, Paradox
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors

Heralds Anarchic
45 - Tz Herald
45 - Tz Herald
45 - Tz Herald

1775


As for Lansirill, the easiest (and cheapest) way to take Magnus with minimal book-keeping is an ML1 sorc, 2x10 cultists and Magnus. Pay an extra 35 points and put MoT on everything if you Magnus to have the belssing of Tz bonus. That's still an expensive detatchment, clocking in at 810 minimum (845 for the Thousand Sons version), but then, the majority of the is Magnus. Leaves you with 1000 points, close as makes no difference, to build the rest of your list with. You should be warned however that if you don't want book-keeping, such a psycher heavy army as Thousand Sons or Tz daemons really isn't for you.

Beyond that, I really don't think much has changed for us. Exalted sorcs are nice if expensive, Ahriman getting a disc has solved many of his issues though, so if you were taking him before, find an extra 30 points, T5 and jetbike movement are a bit of a no brainer for him. For those who want to retain their ObSec, there's not much else, since Tzaangors and Cultists aren't durable enough to really make much use of ObSec and the Rubricae are still pretty bad, though if you were using 10 in a rhino before, at least you've got a weapon worth firing out the top hatch now.

My previous lists have changed from being Sons with a splash of daemons to a Full Cabal and I don't see me going back any time soon, though dabbling with the new Heralds Anarchic formation might be nice. At the end of the day, the temptation is always there to squeeze yet another unit out of the Sons side for more, better things on the daemons side until you're not really playing a Sons list at all, but it depends on what you wanted in the first place as to if this is a sad thing or not.

Something that has been brought up many times is that Sons and IW should make for a good team up. This intruiges me as they are my 2 CSM armies, so further thoughs on this would be welcomed. The main thing I'm trying to figure out is if it's more of a Ahriman's Exiles/War Coven mixed in with an IW Grand Company or if it's a IW CAD or a Cult mixed in with a Sons CAD/War Cabal/Sekmet Conclave? I love the idea, but can't quite figure out a list that I'm happy with.

 Peregrine wrote:
What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
 
   
Made in us
Pulsating Possessed Chaos Marine




 Lansirill wrote:
I'm trying to work out the best way to take Magnus while keeping bookkeeping minimal (so pink horrors are right out, and I balk at blue horrors.)


I am not sure you can run Magnus ( at his full potential ) without Pink Horrors. He has the ability to cast 5 powers a turn or 6 if taken in a grand coven but how are you going to generate warp dice is the question. There are several ways to do this and Syphon will help if it does not get denied (which most players will try to do) but you need a game plan outside of Syphon. Now, one of the good things about the Scarab Occult Terminators is they come with two warp charges while rubrics come with one. You can take several small 5 man rubric groups for charges but I feel its better on almost all levels to just take a scarab unit. You can also use the warpdice generated by taking other psykers but that leaves those psykers with no fuel. I would say the best bet is to throw in a allied formation of Heralds Anarchic and a CaD of allied Horrors (one group can muck up book keeping to badly) and a unit of screamers to stick the heralds in. The Heralds Anarchic is probably the best warp charge battery in the game while remaining semi useful in their own right. For those whom do not have Wrath of Magnus, the Herald Anarchic formation gives you the choice to run 3-9 Heralds of Tz and the formation bonus gives each herald an extra warp charge.

Another reason to run the Heralds Anarchic is that you can put a tome on one of them to give Magnus a possible +2 to invuln (with risks) . But you tend to want to have Fateweaver with the tome to not get jacked by it and that may not be possible points wise. A better option would be to take one or more of the heralds and put them on discs and follow magnus with a cursed earth active to get his invuln down to 2++ re-rollable 1's

One further method of running Magnus would be a Sekhmet formation and that would give Magnus a 8 toughness but would destroy his mobility and locks to many points into scarabs. You have to figure into your plans that Syphon is going to get denied. This leaves you with a need for a WC battery. That is how I see things anyhow.
   
Made in us
Pulsating Possessed Chaos Marine




 Drasius wrote:
A full war cabal at 1850 can be done and not only be fluffy but also stand a pretty good chance of winning. Not a grand coven, no Aux choice, just a maxed out cabal.

What I would consider the minimum core

Spoiler:

Thousand Sons War Cabal
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
150 - 5x Thousand Sons
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorceror, MoT, ML3, Familiar

1760


It's certainly not overly imaginative, but there's not much getting around it if you really want the maxed out cabal since there's literally no choice but to take those exact units. Where to go from there? Well, I'd be looking at AoDG or terminator armour, though an exalted for extra W and/or a disc for the warlord for T5 is also good. There's not many points left, but it can work.

Default order of operations for power generation would be roughly:
- Roll Scarabs on tele to get invis, if no, then shriek
- Roll Warlord on Tele to get invis if Scarabs didn't, if they did or he rolls invis on first try, switch to bio
- Roll Sorcs #2 & #3 on Heretek looking for Flayer & Curse
- Roll Sorc #4 on Tele if you still haven't rolled invis, Heretek if insufficient flayer/curse or your choice of bio/sinistrum/geo for specific things like endurance/enfeeble/death hex/earthly anethema etc

though obviously there's a large amount of wiggle room depending on what your opponent is bringing or what you you do with those last 90 points.

Beyond that, I really think that, at 1850, you can't really have Magnus and the Sons in the same list, they're both just too expensive. I see Magnus more at home in a daemons list than a sons list. When you can power Magnus with the 20 odd warp charge he wants, then he can be worth his points. I think one of the best examples of this type of list was done by astro_nomicon over in the army lists section which is am shamelessly stealing and modifying slightly:

Spoiler:

Daemon CAD

330 - LoC: Impossible robe, ML3, 2x Greater, Lesser
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
75 - 3x Screamers
75 - 3x Screamers

CSM CAD
100 - Sorceror: MoT, ML2
60 - Cultists: MoT
60 - Cultists: MoT
650 - Magnus

Heralds Anarchic

145 - Tzerald: ML3, Disc, Paradox
45 - Tzerald
45 - Tzerald
45 - Tzerald

1850

I'd make the LoC my warlord and shoot for the +1 unlulnerable to all Daemons of Tz within 9", but any of them are great except #6. Magnus also benefits from cursed earth nicely while the paradox herald can easily summon on 5 dice with good mobility and possibly also bring CE to allow Magnus to summon flaming chariots with no scatter too.


Another aside to Magnus and Daemons is that while many will be tempted to Magnus and Fateweaver in the same list, that's almost 1000 points in 2 models that aren't going to want to land and as such, can't score. Fateweaver and Magnus are both warp charge hogs and have a terrible points cost to WC generated ratio, but Magnus casts on 2's so Fateweaver should really be sitting this one out IMHO.

As to daemons providing the bulk of our troops, I think that's about as good as it's going to get and I should this this would be very fluffy. While the Sons do foster cults (Ex. the prelude to the battle of the fang), I don't feel that you get anywhere near as much milage out of 2x 10 cultists as you do from 2x 11 horrors, but you're going to need the cultists anyway if you want to bring Magnus without a formation or wasting points on Tzaangors or rubricae. If you wanted to have a bit of punch with daemon filler, I suspect that a min Sekmet with the remaining points going towards a daemon CAD with a ML3 paradox foot herald and 2x 11 blue horrors with remaining points either on bulking out the daemons, farming more warp charge through the Heralds Anarchic or giving the Scarabs some ranged punch though you've also got the option of replacing the daemons CAD with a Tzaangor warherd that can supply bodies, but again, I really don't think that you're getting much out of 30 Tzaangors that the same points in pink or blue horrors would give you, you just absolutely need that warp charge and having easy access to paradox feels like one of the easiest ways to shore up our lack of numbers on the cheap.

Example list:
Spoiler:

Sekmet Conclave
650 - Magnus
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators
250 - 5x Scarab Occult Terminators

Daemon CAD
120 - Tz Herald, ML3, Paradox
55 - 11x Blue Horrors
55 - 11x Blue Horrors

Heralds Anarchic
45 - Tz Herald
45 - Tz Herald
45 - Tz Herald

1775


As for Lansirill, the easiest (and cheapest) way to take Magnus with minimal book-keeping is an ML1 sorc, 2x10 cultists and Magnus. Pay an extra 35 points and put MoT on everything if you Magnus to have the belssing of Tz bonus. That's still an expensive detatchment, clocking in at 810 minimum (845 for the Thousand Sons version), but then, the majority of the is Magnus. Leaves you with 1000 points, close as makes no difference, to build the rest of your list with. You should be warned however that if you don't want book-keeping, such a psycher heavy army as Thousand Sons or Tz daemons really isn't for you.

Beyond that, I really don't think much has changed for us. Exalted sorcs are nice if expensive, Ahriman getting a disc has solved many of his issues though, so if you were taking him before, find an extra 30 points, T5 and jetbike movement are a bit of a no brainer for him. For those who want to retain their ObSec, there's not much else, since Tzaangors and Cultists aren't durable enough to really make much use of ObSec and the Rubricae are still pretty bad, though if you were using 10 in a rhino before, at least you've got a weapon worth firing out the top hatch now.

My previous lists have changed from being Sons with a splash of daemons to a Full Cabal and I don't see me going back any time soon, though dabbling with the new Heralds Anarchic formation might be nice. At the end of the day, the temptation is always there to squeeze yet another unit out of the Sons side for more, better things on the daemons side until you're not really playing a Sons list at all, but it depends on what you wanted in the first place as to if this is a sad thing or not.

Something that has been brought up many times is that Sons and IW should make for a good team up. This intruiges me as they are my 2 CSM armies, so further thoughs on this would be welcomed. The main thing I'm trying to figure out is if it's more of a Ahriman's Exiles/War Coven mixed in with an IW Grand Company or if it's a IW CAD or a Cult mixed in with a Sons CAD/War Cabal/Sekmet Conclave? I love the idea, but can't quite figure out a list that I'm happy with.


Great read and its nice to see some other players coming to the same conclusions as I have. I do however have to break pack with you on the Sekhmet formation. I feel you are locking in to many points into scarabs which lack ap2 melee that normal Terminators get. Not that Scarabs are a horrible unit, its just I would be hard pressed to take any more than two units of them. I am going to try to build a War Cabal as you have stated but im worried about it not having enough casting power, Well see.
   
Made in au
Unrelenting Rubric Terminator of Tzeentch





Table wrote:
Great read and its nice to see some other players coming to the same conclusions as I have. I do however have to break pack with you on the Sekhmet formation. I feel you are locking in to many points into scarabs which lack ap2 melee that normal Terminators get. Not that Scarabs are a horrible unit, its just I would be hard pressed to take any more than two units of them. I am going to try to build a War Cabal as you have stated but im worried about it not having enough casting power, Well see.


Yeah, the requirement of 3 units of Scarabs really does the Sekmet no favours, but if you want Magnus outside a CAD, it's about the only way to do it since the only other way is a crap version of the war cabal or 1400 points into 4 models in the Rehati.At least in the Sekmet Magnus can be T8 every other turn.

As for fearing lacking casting power, I was discussing this on another forum, so I'll basically just grab what I posted over there and put it here:

Casting Probabilities
Spoiler:


Using the chart above, I set myself a goal of achieveing at least a 75% chance of success with each spell cast (since that's about the limit of what I consider reliable enough without wasting warp charge), so for each HQ sorceror, that meant casting with 1/3/5 dice for WC 1/2/3 spells. For the lesser sorcerors, the Scarab Sarges and Aspiring Sorcs, they would use 2/4/7 dice for WC 1/2/3 spells. The list (based on the basic War Cabal core I posted above) has 21 + d6 dice.

To see if I could reliably get the spells I wanted/needed over the course of a 5 game tournament, I wrote a couple of little simulations for randomly generating spells according to a few basic principles;
- Scarabs roll for invis, then roll bio if one gets it.
- Warlord (A HQ Sorceror) rolls for Invis if the scarabs didn't get it, if they did or he snags it on the first roll, he rolls bio
- The next 2 sorcerors roll Heretek, looking for Flayerstorm or Scrapcode Curse.
- The last sorc rolls for invis if the Scarabs or warlord didn't roll it, then rolls Sinistrum looking for Death Hex. I should have also put in a line about rolling on Heretek if I didn't have enough flayer/curse chances, but it rarely came up so I didn't worry about it too much.

From here I went through and mentally assigned thhe previously described numbers of dice to the powers I wanted, starting with important things in green and working down to things I'd like in light green, then to nice to have's for anything else. Note that anything in yellow was traded for the primaris.

5 game Tournament Spells Generated #1
Spoiler:


5 game Tournament Spells Generated #2
Spoiler:


5 game Tournament Spells Generated #3
Spoiler:


I think I should be able to cast everything I feel I need before I run out of dice, but I would never have spare dice left due to the variety of nice to have's such as the various primaris' as well as the selection of better Tzeentch spells like doombolt, devolution and treason and I think that's about as good a compromise as I think you can get. It's not much, but it's a better chance to see how things pan out one game after another as objectively as possible instead of only remembering the games when you got all the powers you needed and everything went perfectly or the ones where you got nothing good on anyone and you couldn't cast anything and 2 of your sorcs rolled a 1 for perils and then failed their Ld10 checks and got sucked into the warp. Still just a simulation however, and it's going by very basic rules that don't take the enemy army into account at all, so real results will vary, but it's as close as I can get to playing that many games in a row with such a new list. In general, these simulations have matched with what I've seen this list be capable of so far, but the amount of real games with this list are too small to really be assured of it's consistancy in real life yet.

 Peregrine wrote:
What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
 
   
 
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