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Hi I dunno where else to ask this so i thought I'd start a thread asking how any of you fellow 1k sons build/play your armies, I find myself woefully lost as to how to play them and how to interpret their rather umm...lets say wonky and in some cases contradicting rules in the new wrath of magnus book.
I haven't played a ton with my Thousand Sons, but from my game and from seeing others, the army really focuses heavily on creating deathstars out of their forces. Pretty much, you want to have a lot of your army being in places where they're hard to reach/harm, while one or two other units receive a ton of psychic buffs to make them very different to stop.
Magnus really is a great tool for this, and he's very powerful in that context.
There are other ways to go about Wrath of Magnus, especially once you start bringing in Daemons, but that was my experience with playing with just Thousand Sons.
Galef wrote: If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
i've found the only way to run them with any success is with a maxed out War ccabal for that sweet, sweet rr1's. It only really works at 1850 and above, but it's pretty rediculous how resilient they can be when they get fortune-lite all the time.
Example build:
You've got 60 points to spend on niceties so you can basically have a set of missile on each of your Scarabs, upgrade your warlord to an ML3 Exalted [more for the extra wound than the combat stats] with a spell familiar or take an Aura of Dark Glory on each of your Sorcerors as the mood takes you. That last 60 points are all hard choices, but personally, I think that ML3 and a familiar are basically mandatory on everyone because you desperately need all the WC you can get and you never know who is going to roll nothing but trash and who is going to be your superstar.
As for how to play them, they're a massive pain to keep track of 10 psychers, who has what power, who has cast what already and which unit has which buff but if you can't do that, then Sons probably aren't the army for you. The sorcs do 90% of the heavy lifting and the rubricae are straight tax and are only relly useful in hiding out of LoS on an objective or as charge blockers or tarpits while the termies are a fairly solid brick wall that you can put between your casters and enemy bullets.
Generating powers is another one that can really set you up for a face roll or basically have the game decided against you before you've even deployed. What to roll on and when relies on army compositon (both yours and their), but the good old fallbacks of Bio for your beatstick, Sinistrum against the enemy deathstar, Heretek against enemy armour and telepathy for everyone else is usually pretty solid.
Personally, I've made up a bunch of tables that automatically simulate power generation following some simple if/then rules and I've found with my build, 1 bio, 1 telepathy followed by a mix of heretek/sinistrum depending on how heavy the armour : deathstar ratio is for my opponent with various lesser psychers filling gaps where required, though when your opponent throws you a cuveball, you need to respond by rolling the powers that are going to help you, not the generic stuff you typically rely on. Rolling Sanctic, even if only for the primaris, against certain armies can be a game changer, especially if you also nab death hex, -3 to your invulnerable save is no joke!
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
And most important of all, don't take Horrors or Magnus lest you be labeled a WAAC scrub.
Are you being sarcastic here? Because Magnus and Horrors/Daemons are the only way to make a game out of the Thousand Sons.
What else do they have? Over costed Scarab Occult Terminators and Rubric Marines, and besides that your options are units from the CSM codex which wasn't exactly OP when it was released four and a half years ago, before formations, Gargantuan Creatures and Super heavies existed.
Its only really WAAC if you take a Grimoire of True Names and perhaps Be'lakor to make him Invisible too. He is not that hard to kill for some armies.
Wrath of Magnus is more like Codex: Magnus than Codex: Thousand Sons.
EDIT: Also very bitter that to use Magnus we need two £40 books, one of which isn't even available anymore. Codex: CSM and Codex: Daemons, whilst the AoS Tzeentch got everything in one book for £15.
I had an army and I sold it because I wanted to play Thousand Sons as a legion not a rabble led by the Primarch every game.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/09 19:16:39
Not being sarcastic in the least. If you take Magnus and Horrors chances are you're playing Thousand Sons in name only and are really playing Daemons anyway. But you outline why you kind of need them... because the army isn't really viable without them.
But you can do alright in friendly games without Magnus and Horrors and Screamers etc.
Trying to take a Grand Coven below 2000pts for the reroll 1s is a lost cause. While the minimum points is 1850, that leaves no flexibility at all and no wargear.
But you can still bring a grand coven if you're shooting for just the reroll perils. A min war cabal with tzangor herd is pretty good at 1500pts and you still have enough points for a lot of options. Ahrimans Exiles formation also gives you a lot of power. It's a reasonably good friendly game type army. But unless you basically go Tzeentch Demons with it, it won't be competetive imo.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/09 19:46:52
Yoyoyo wrote: Magnus has won at least two RTTs and was in two lists in the LVO top 8.
The evidence seems to be against you!
I don't keep up with the tournament scene anymore. Out of curiosity though, were they both part of the Rehati formation with Magnus and 3 demon princes?
Nvs wrote: Not being sarcastic in the least. If you take Magnus and Horrors chances are you're playing Thousand Sons in name only and are really playing Daemons anyway. But you outline why you kind of need them... because the army isn't really viable without them.
But you can do alright in friendly games without Magnus and Horrors and Screamers etc.
Trying to take a Grand Coven below 2000pts for the reroll 1s is a lost cause. While the minimum points is 1850, that leaves no flexibility at all and no wargear.
But you can still bring a grand coven if you're shooting for just the reroll perils. A min war cabal with tzangor herd is pretty good at 1500pts and you still have enough points for a lot of options. Ahrimans Exiles formation also gives you a lot of power. It's a reasonably good friendly game type army. But unless you basically go Tzeentch Demons with it, it won't be competetive imo.
That's because, currently the GW hasn't really done TS justice like they did other legions. TS are no longer and army or sorcerers and Rubrics, it's a heavy sorcerer army.
It is and has been interesting to see the many points of view on Magnus and in particular summoning.
On summoning, when WoM dropped and we heard of the split rule a number of folks cried foul, broken and cheap.
Perhaps folks have good reason for this with bad experiences or maybe envisioning all the splitting horrors to ridiculous levels was too much and I can agree with all the bells and whistles added for maximum summoning a player should have good representation for his or her minis and not a bunch of empty bases as proxies.
Though it seems like 1k sons are meant to summon. Low model count, some limitations on flexibility supplemented well with demons not as a design flaw but because it's cool, works is feasible and a design intention.
Is it fluffy though? It seems so but I am not a big lore reader. However from what I read about the attack on Fenris sorcerors and brimstone horrors breached the Big Dog House by using lava currents from underneath, the sorcerers assuming some sort of fire elemental form.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/03/10 00:01:00
Nvs wrote:Trying to take a Grand Coven below 2000pts for the reroll 1s is a lost cause. While the minimum points is 1850, that leaves no flexibility at all and no wargear.
That's why you go full War Cabal, not the coven. Yes, there's very little flexibility in the build, but you've got enough flexibility in what powers you roll to make up for it the majority of the time. Don't get me wrong, moving to 2K from 1850, the very first thing I'd do would be to grab an Aux choice to make a Coven, but at 1850, there's just too many "mandatory" things like ML3 and familiars to include anything else for a coven.
Nvs wrote:
Yoyoyo wrote: Magnus has won at least two RTTs and was in two lists in the LVO top 8.
Not as a Thousand Sons army though, it's all daemons.
I don't keep up with the tournament scene anymore. Out of curiosity though, were they both part of the Rehati formation with Magnus and 3 demon princes?
No, different tournament, those 2 were both Thousand Sons tax CAD and Daemons, to the point where the lists were incredibly similar.
The issue is that Magnus work in a Daemons army, but doesn't work in the slightest in a Thousand Sons army, which kinda sucks, since ya, know, Primarch and all that.
Skerr wrote:It is and has been interesting to see the many points of view on Magnus and in particular summoning.
...
Though it seems like 1k sons are meant to summon. Low model count, some limitations on flexibility supplemented well with demons not as a design flaw but because it's cool, works is feasible and a design intention.
Is it fluffy though? It seems so but I am not a big lore reader. However from what I read about the attack on Fenris sorcerors and brimstone horrors breached the Big Dog House by using lava currents from underneath, the sorcerers assuming some sort of fire elemental form.
It's very fluffy for Sons to summon things, but the fact of the matter is, they're periling on any double and they've only got 2 wounds. That's not a good idea for the incredibly expensive lynchpin of your army, not to mention that if they really want chaff, they have the option of cultists/tzangors and summoning anything else is reliant on luck for whatever powers you roll.
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
Is it fluffy though? It seems so but I am not a big lore reader. However from what I read about the attack on Fenris sorcerors and brimstone horrors breached the Big Dog House by using lava currents from underneath, the sorcerers assuming some sort of fire elemental form.
Is it fluffy? Not really, yes Thousand Sons are a Sorcerer heavy army, but everything in their fluff they are always accompanied by dozens of Rubrics. Thousand Sons background would make it an infantry heavy, Rubric Havoc squads and all sorts of other options, light on vehicles and heavy on 'Robot' units. But GW has decided that rubrics are really only an afterthought if you have the points. Looking at the formations and rules they put out in Wrath of Magnus, it seems they really wanted an army that was almost nothing but Sorcerers.
Hmmm, we're other horrors involved in the attack on Fenris or Midgardia?
The Wrath of Magnus animated preview showed swarms of screamers flying around the planet of the sorcerers.
If it is not fluffy I think it is becoming that way.
I understand folks are disappointed in the Rubrics.
If I was an exalted sorcerer a retinue of golem like warrior body guards, a war heard, some sorcerer buddies and their bodyguards undressed my lead and summoning some fodder sounds right fine.
I do wish their was a more reliable way to summon screamers.
Skerr wrote: Hmmm, we're other horrors involved in the attack on Fenris or Midgardia?
The Wrath of Magnus animated preview showed swarms of screamers flying around the planet of the sorcerers.
If it is not fluffy I think it is becoming that way.
I understand folks are disappointed in the Rubrics.
If I was an exalted sorcerer a retinue of golem like warrior body guards, a war heard, some sorcerer buddies and their bodyguards undressed my lead and summoning some fodder sounds right fine.
I do wish their was a more reliable way to summon screamers.
I agree, I'd be summoning the crap out of daemons, but I'd also be giving my Rubrics some Lascannons and missile launchers.
Hi me again, my apologies for my ignorance here, I've played chaos space marines for a year now, focusing on 1k sons and trying to get them to work and what I notice is that, their not very good at what they are supposed to be good at. For a full squad of 10 rubrics you can equally run two squads of normal marines, AP3 is nice, but with cover being 4 up and invulns being rather everywhere on almost all units it somewhat, at least I feel negates ap3 almost entirely, not to mention those two squads with sheer number of shots alone can do more damage than a a single squad of 1k sons. Now please, I don't think Im some master tactician but it just feels like your paying far too much for a one trick pony gimic that can easily be negated/loop holed with cover and invulns being as numerous and generous as they are.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/20 06:45:12
They're not bad to play at all. I haven't played with Magnus but from what I've seen at tournaments, he is worth the points. Also, not taking him isn't that bad either. I've had some good luck so far with Ahriman and Exalted sorcerors on discs. If playing an opponent with some barrage, bury them in other units. If no barrage and some decent LoS terrain, they are great running solo.
Scarab terminators with an attached sorc ( with a grimoire) can be a nightmare as well. Infact, in the handful of games I've played with them so far, haven't lost a single scarab yet. By far, I am most impressed with this unit above all other new TS units that I've tried. I have used them with the Astrap Grimoire with good results. Deep Strike them if you have a bonus to reserve rolls somewhere in your list. Taking a land raider could be tough, considering the expense of everything else.
I have not bothered trying to max out the war cabal because the options are limited. Good results with taking the Heldrake as an auxiliary. Maulefiends can be added too but my experience is that they die before they can kill anything. But they are a good distraction. I haven't tried taking a predator but I imagine they can fit into a viable list.
The Tzangors...just can't pull the trigger on those guys. Even at around 6 points, that's too much to pay for fodder. As an alternative, I plan to ally Renegades for the mutant rabble (3 points a model) and for the cheap barrage units. For a couple hundred points of Renegades, you can make a low model count TS list feel much larger.
Malal42 wrote: Hi me again, my apologies for my ignorance here, I've played chaos space marines for a year now, focusing on 1k sons and trying to get them to work and what I notice is that, their not very good at what they are supposed to be good at. For a full squad of 10 rubrics you can equally run two squads of normal marines, AP3 is nice, but with cover being 4 up and invulns being rather everywhere on almost all units it somewhat, at least I feel negates ap3 almost entirely, not to mention those two squads with sheer number of shots alone can do more damage than a a single squad of 1k sons. Now please, I don't think Im some master tactician but it just feels like your paying far too much for a one trick pony gimic that can easily be negated/loop holed with cover and invulns being as numerous and generous as they are.
There's no ignorance there at all, they're bad at their job and too squishy for their points while you've nailed exactly why they're also insufficiently killy (though with T5 being the new measuring stick, str4 doesn't really cut the mustard these days either).
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
Honestly I used to be on the 1ksons bandwagon. I played a 3k game Saturday, fluffy narritive, but brought what I thought would still be a nasty list without Magnus. I was tabled turn 4 by Grey Knights and Blood Angels. Mind you my dice seemed to be crap that day, but the instant death shooty weapons were absolutely killing me. Hell I only managed to get one summon off, and my chariot died next turn with out killing a single thing.
I know what mistakes I made but I can not with certainty say it would have made much of a difference. Rubrics failed to "shred" jump infantry, Scarab termies failed to hold water against GK termies, and my LOC and Tzeentch DP pretty much whiffed at most things. If I had been playing my Death Guard I know I would have held him off a lot longer.
Bascially im sticking with Magnus and the 3 DP list with screamer star which has been doing very very well locally.
10k CSM
1.5k Thousand Sons
2k Death Guard
3k Tau
3k Daemons(Tzeentch and Nurgle)
Table wrote: The problem with the war cabal is that once a unit dies, the rr 1's go bye bye.
it sure doesn't.
Anywayz, about tsons. They're a heavy magic army. Means that you not only buff something with magic but also mainly rely on killing stuff with magic - which is the main weakness. Magic is versatile but than one could bring a formation of 13 ppm sisters of silence with a 30" odd anti-magic bauble for <300 pts and totally nullify your army making you rely explictly on bolters and power weapons. Or you could face something like a proper magic deathstar that would deny most of your mindbullets and just wreck you in mellee.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/22 05:19:43
Table wrote: The problem with the war cabal is that once a unit dies, the rr 1's go bye bye.
it sure doesn't.
Anywayz, about tsons. They're a heavy magic army. Means that you not only buff something with magic but also mainly rely on killing stuff with magic - which is the main weakness. Magic is versatile but than one could bring a formation of 13 ppm sisters of silence with a 30" odd anti-magic bauble for <300 pts and totally nullify your army making you rely explictly on bolters and power weapons. Or you could face something like a proper magic deathstar that would deny most of your mindbullets and just wreck you in mellee.
How do you figure? The rules are quite clear, sadly. Unless there was a FAQ i missed. If so, grats to the sons players, its a stupid rule.
Thats another thing I'm a bit confused about, So in the formations for 1ksons, it says anything that can take Mark of Tzeentch MUST take it, so that army thats supposed to be wildly knowledgeable about magic and it's inner workings is almost relying solely on a spell list that has half of it's spells being "meh", so if I wanna go all in on geomortis, by the rules Im literally not allowed too, Im not allowed to take the primaris of any spell list other than Tzeentch, and I cannot dump all my dice into Geomortis or any other spell tree, I 'am only allowed to for Tzeentch, I find that rather unfair because this whole armies reliance on spells is knee capped, at least I feel it is, by being FORCED to take either ALL tzzentch or one Tzeentch and two random spells of a different spell list which narrows your odds of getting that spell your aiming for/odds of getting a decent spell by a DRASTIC amount, unless they've change the rule where you no longer have to take one Tzeentch spell due to MoT? How is that supposed to work, how do you play that? The fact your already relying so heavily on a VERY random chart and now have to cut your odds of that chart down by a whole 3RD. Am I missing something here?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/23 05:40:49
Malal42 wrote: Thats another thing I'm a bit confused about, So in the formations for 1ksons, it says anything that can take Mark of Tzeentch MUST take it, so that army thats supposed to be wildly knowledgeable about magic and it's inner workings is almost relying solely on a spell list that has half of it's spells being "meh", so if I wanna go all in on geomortis, by the rules Im literally not allowed too, Im not allowed to take the primaris of any spell list other than Tzeentch, and I cannot dump all my dice into Geomortis or any other spell tree, I 'am only allowed to for Tzeentch, I find that rather unfair because this whole armies reliance on spells is knee capped, at least I feel it is, by being FORCED to take either ALL tzzentch or one Tzeentch and two random spells of a different spell list which narrows your odds of getting that spell your aiming for/odds of getting a decent spell by a DRASTIC amount, unless they've change the rule where you no longer have to take one Tzeentch spell due to MoT? How is that supposed to work, how do you play that? The fact your already relying so heavily on a VERY random chart and now have to cut your odds of that chart down by a whole 3RD. Am I missing something here?
You can take other primaris. You cannot however get mastery of the disp thus a free primaris. Its pretty straight forward but its the most common mistake I have seen made on these forums. And yes, you must take a spell from tz. So 50/50 on it sucking. And yes, 1k sons need buffs outside of magnus. It was a poorly written mini-dex.
Its not the getting a primaris being an issue, its cutting your spell list off by a third, Im paying for a level 3 psycher but only getting back a level 2 technically. and its good to hear someone actually take note of this mini codex not being as fantastic as everyone seems to be froathing by the mouth about, trying to insist to me that its one of the, if not THEE most over powered codex to date. I just feel so confused with this update, my rubrics are still WAY over expensive, costing more for a squad of ten than that of a squad of base termies, who also aren't fantastic due to them ONLY being able to fight vanilla marines who are not upgraded, it really just feels like this whole book was solely made to sell the new magnus model and push daemons of tzeentch in our faces while mumbling a quick word about the 1ksons.
Have you ever tried a TSons army BEFORE legions/Wrath of magnus? Despite all the faults we still have, it is printed gold by comparison to what was possible before lol.
Table wrote:The problem with the war cabal is that once a unit dies, the rr 1's go bye bye.
Table wrote:How do you figure? The rules are quite clear, sadly. Unless there was a FAQ i missed. If so, grats to the sons players, its a stupid rule.
Those bonii are given during list creation, they don't go away because you lose a unit, the same as you don't lose +1 BS to Eldar Aspect Host Units or lose your War Convocation Bonii when a unit of Rust Stalkers are destroyed.
Malal42 wrote:Its not the getting a primaris being an issue, its cutting your spell list off by a third, Im paying for a level 3 psycher but only getting back a level 2 technically. and its good to hear someone actually take note of this mini codex not being as fantastic as everyone seems to be froathing by the mouth about, trying to insist to me that its one of the, if not THEE most over powered codex to date. I just feel so confused with this update, my rubrics are still WAY over expensive, costing more for a squad of ten than that of a squad of base termies, who also aren't fantastic due to them ONLY being able to fight vanilla marines who are not upgraded, it really just feels like this whole book was solely made to sell the new magnus model and push daemons of tzeentch in our faces while mumbling a quick word about the 1ksons.
Yes, the Sons are pretty trash psychers (which needs to be fixed, fingers X'ed for 8th), but I'd love to know who is insisting that the Sons have an OP dex? Magnus and 3 princes has put in solid work in the tourney scene, but that's not really a sons army is it? As Roknar said, compared to playing (or, at least, trying to play) Sons before, this is such a huge improvement that it's not funny. That's not to say that they're good, far from it, but less bad is still less bad, so most of us don't argue too much and really, anytime that a new book doesn't actively make CSM worse is a joy.
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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