All is dust! All is dust! 8th Ed. TSons tactics!

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**dominuschao**

To chime in on the termies.. I've been playing various factions and abusing the cacophony plas combo which is awesome. But if you have another form of anti tank/anti multi-wound units I think that scarabs are fine, maybe even preferable. The ability to fire at full effect with votlw outside of 12" can't be overstated especially against good screening opponents. Getting double tap with prescience and/or rerolls is very hard against good opponents where SOTs can be placed without regard to double tap range. Plus psych. And votlw is just so potent that infernos can threaten bigger targets well enough in conjunction with hfm. Very solid utility unit imo. I would recommend them even against slaaneshi terminators.

**lash92**

Niiru wrote:
So I'm considering adding a unit of terminators to my collection, the rest of my army currently being pretty heavily... heavy. (Lord Disco, Princes, Maulerfiend, Dreads).

The current choice is between -

'Purge' CSM Terminators, Bolters + Axes - 145pts
Standard setup, but with rerolls built in, so no need for a babysitter. Cheap and cheerful. (relatively speaking).

Scarab Occults, InfernoBolters + Powerswords - 189pts
Slower, more expensive, no rerolls so less accurate. But more AP on bolters, and better defence against weaker attacks. Also has a pocket sorcerer for smite or Glamour.

Honestly not too sure which way to go on it. Scarabs will be marginally more defensive (and if Glamour succeeds, decently more defensive), and their attacks will be more powerful (but less accurate). Also like 33% more expensive though.

Thought you guys might have some thoughts on the Scarabs that I might be missing

It seems like you need the Termis for chaff clearing?
I would suggest regular CSM Terminators with Mark of Slannesh. A big unit puts out 80 Bolter shots at 24" with VoTW wounding most screens on 2´s.

**Ideasweasel**

Greetings all

My first addition to my thousand sons army is complete Magnus in all his glory!

At the moment my plans are to to collect modes that I like the look of but if I wanted to somehow field him in a competitive game - can anyone suggest any current trends for how to do so?

**small_gods**

Ideasweasel wrote:
Greetings all

My first addition to my thousand sons army is complete Magnus in all his glory!

At the moment my plans are to to collect modes that I like the look of but if I wanted to somehow field him in a competitive game - can anyone suggest any current trends for how to do so?

Here are a few gems in the thousand sons codex in no particular order. But to be fair you can make most units work in T Sons codex. The only thing they lack is decent anti armour (beyond smite spam).

Tzaangors, 1 or 2 big blobs that you can deepstrike and give an instrument to to make it an 8" charge. Also can use in conjunction with dark matter crystal for great 1st turn screen clearing.

Ahriman, on a disc or on foot he has merits both ways. He is excellent for his points and a reliable source of psychic powers.

Winged daemon prince with talons, tough, good psychic abilities and a blender in close combat.

Scarab Occult Terminators, ine of my favourite units post bolter discipline. Drop in and hit anything with -2ap bolters at 24". I like a big blob of 10 so I can stack all the buffs in them. Clears screens and threatens up to t7 models with weight of fire. Also a good target for dark matter crystal.

Contemptor/Daredeos/leviathan dreadnoughts. Always good. Probably best to take them as scourged as they won't benifit from the t sons trait. But would still be fluffy as T Son allies. Lots of butcher cannons, soulburners and c beam also good.

**Ideasweasel**

Thankyou for the detailed response. Would a knight be a useful ally?

**slave.entity**

xeen wrote:

Also does anyone know if hellforged leviathan dread can have TS legion keyword?

Yes. You can stack Weaver of Fates and Glamour of Tzeentch on a leviathan.

**xeen**

slave.entity wrote:
xeen wrote:

Also does anyone know if hellforged leviathan dread can have TS legion keyword?

Yes. You can stack Weaver of Fates and Glamour of Tzeentch on a leviathan.

Yea. I just noticed that the Butcher Cannon Array got cut in half in the CA 2018. That makes one with two Butcher Cannon Array's less than 300 points. I am going to get one as I think it will draw fire away from my other units, and with 16 Butcher Cannon shots I think it can do some real damage. and Weaver and Glamour on it will make is really hard to take down.

**slave.entity**

I've been running a list based on that very idea for the past year or so.

Here's a shot of a game I played yesterday with the solo leviathan + Ahriman detachment. It works very well.

It's important to deploy the leviathan out of LOS on T1 to avoid getting alpha striked before your defense buffs are up. You can always use prescience/blasphemous machines to negate the hit penalty for moving and shooting.

Ahriman, TS DP, TS leviathan, and 30 cultists are my go-to fire support battalion whenever I play daemons.

**xeen**

That’s cool. Just bought my lev dread on eBay today. Can’t wait to try

**slave.entity**

What's the strongest way to run Magnus these days? I remember seeing a bash bros list that did well at LVO using Magnus, Mortarion, Kairos Fateweaver, a Lord of Change, and a bloodthirster.

Anyone have ideas or tips for making Magnus work?

**ArcaneHorror**

In building my TS army, I have a few more questions:

1. When it comes to Tzaangors, is it legal to have them armed with a blade and an autopistol? I often see the chainsword and autopistol combination referenced, but combining the blade and the pistol strikes me as having the best of both worlds.

2. Are Skyfires worth having in the army? Everywhere I go online, everyone talks about how great the divining spears are, but say little about the greatbows. I currently have the models to create three Enlightened and three Skyfires, but while I'm definitely putting the Enlightened in my TS army, should I bother with the Skyfires?

3. When it comes to arming my Rubrics, for my first unit so far, except for the one with the gatlin gun (and the sorcerer), I've given them all boltguns as that's what one of the staff at my local GW recommended. However, looking deeper, I see that the flamers aren't bad. I've got a second unit from the SC box, and I'm wondering now if I should keep going down the bolter path or sprinkle in some flamers as well. Also, for my sorcerer, I've given my first sorcerer the hand with the eye instead of the pistol, and was thinking of doing the same with the second, but I was wondering if that's the right thing to do.

4. For my army's DP's, should I use the TS version, the Chaos Daemon version (I'm going to be having a daemon battalion), or both?

**grouchoben**

Hi Arcane.

1. No, it's either/or. Go blades every time.
2. they're both good. You can actually have your birdies swappable: each load out has a separate pair of arms and chest-piece. Glue them together, but don't glue it to the rest of the model, instead blueback or magnetise. Now you can swap between either load out. Unlike tzaangors, both are great options to have. ... People like enlightened because they take warptime so well, giving you 2 turn-1charges (dark matter crystal on a tzaangor blob and warptime enlightened. They are quite scary when buffed.
3. I'd recommend getting 3x5 lots of rubric together at least with aspiring sorcerers and boltguns only. From there you can stick some reapers on there, and maybbeeee flamers. They don't really want to get stuck in like that though. You're welcome to give em a go, but they are a bit substandard. Good luck!

**Brian888**

I finally got a chance to look at the new Heretic Astartes codex, and it occurred to me that using a detachment to bring along a Dark Apostle or two might help with Magnus's round 1 survivability. The Benediction of Darkness prayer causes enemy shots on the target to be at -1 to hit (like Glamour), but the key is that it goes off at the beginning of the round, NOT at the beginning of your turn. So if you're playing T-Sons and you wind up going second, at least Magnus will have some initial protection against getting blown right off the board.

**Sterling191**

Prayers are <LEGION> keyworded. You cant target a Thousand Sons unit with it.

**Brian888**

Sterling191 wrote:
Prayers are <LEGION> keyworded. You cant target a Thousand Sons unit with it.

Huh. I thought that the limitation there was that the D-Guard and Sons couldn't add their LEGION keywords to stuff in the Heretic Astartes codex that wasn't already in their codexes. In other words, I thought that the D-Guard and Sons have the LEGION keyword, but can't apply it to anything in Heretic Astartes that they don't already have. So a Battle-Forged Sons detachment can't itself include a Dark Apostle because the DA can't be given the Sons LEGION keyword, but a DA from a separate detachment could use his prayers to buff a Sons model. Is that incorrect?

**taetrius67**

Dark apostle are only chaos Space marine unit they can't have thousand sons keyword and will never buff them.

**Kdash**

For those that are interested, i'm running my Thousand Sons again this weekend and again at the LGT in a couple of weeks time. I won't have time to adjust my list between events due to the LGT submission deadline being halfway through the event, but, i'm cautiously optimistic about doing ok overall.

List is -

Spoiler:

Worth noting that for the first event, you have to be 75% of a faction to be considered for the Best in Faction award, and, for ITC, this also doubles up nicely as a Tzeentch list, rather than running the standard Plaguebearers.

**Timmon**

Anybody else notice this, in TS FAQ Updated 27/09/2019

ERRATA
All Thousand Sons datasheets (excluding Chaos
Cultists and Tzaangor)
Add the following ability:
‘Hateful Assault: If this unit makes a charge move, is
charged or performs a Heroic Intervention, add 1 to the
Attacks characteristic of models in this unit until the
end of the turn.’

So, real TS units gets some additional close combat utility? Small boost for Scarabs especially, with their included power swords.

**Kdash**

Timmon wrote:
Anybody else notice this, in TS FAQ Updated 27/09/2019

ERRATA
All Thousand Sons datasheets (excluding Chaos
Cultists and Tzaangor)
Add the following ability:
‘Hateful Assault: If this unit makes a charge move, is
charged or performs a Heroic Intervention, add 1 to the
Attacks characteristic of models in this unit until the
end of the turn.’

So, real TS units gets some additional close combat utility? Small boost for Scarabs especially, with their included power swords.

It's been in play for a while now, as it was part of the mini set of Marine updates when Shock Assault was first added to the new Space Marine Codex.

While nice, it doesn't really provide the boost you'd hope and expect it to, i'm afraid.

**BoomWolf**

Yea, it helps a bit against xenos and such, but the divide between us and other marines just grew bigger as they make better use of that.

Not to mention codex marine doctrines that really puts us down.

**Brian888**

From a tactical perspective, what do you hope we'll get out of Psychic Awakening? I personally doubt we'll get any new units.

**BoomWolf**

Just hope they give us proper spells.
Our spells sucks, and these days even basic marines can out-magic us.

**MinMax**

Brian888 wrote:
Sterling191 wrote:
Prayers are <LEGION> keyworded. You cant target a Thousand Sons unit with it.

Huh. I thought that the limitation there was that the D-Guard and Sons couldn't add their LEGION keywords to stuff in the Heretic Astartes codex that wasn't already in their codexes. In other words, I thought that the D-Guard and Sons have the LEGION keyword, but can't apply it to anything in Heretic Astartes that they don't already have. So a Battle-Forged Sons detachment can't itself include a Dark Apostle because the DA can't be given the Sons LEGION keyword, but a DA from a separate detachment could use his prayers to buff a Sons model. Is that incorrect?

That is extremely incorrect. The Dark Apostle must be given a <LEGION> keyword, which cannot be DEATH GUARD or THOUSAND SONS. The buff(s) from the Dark Apostle will only affect models/units which match his <LEGION>. There is no method by which you can have a Dark Apostle provide any benefit to a Death Guard or Thousand Son model.

**Solosam47**

Hey, Im starting up a Tsons army and I got a few questions for you veteran tsons players if ya dont mind.

1: With all these psychic powers I was wondering can I cast the same power as long as it is from a different source? I know smite can be but its cost goes up for most armies but I was wondering about the rest, my local group isnt very psyker heavy so I havent been in the situation where it would arise much.

2: With enlightened is it better to go multiple squads of 3 or can I go 6 to a squad?

3: Are Vortex Beasts worth taking? And if so what sort of units should I roll him with? Im thinking Just one MVB and two either forgefiends or maulerfiends.

Thanks in advance

**tneva82**

For 1 if tsons don't have specific exception(pretty sure no) then max 1(success or fail) of each. If different source would allow orks would be da jumping lot more

**orkswubwub**

Solosam47 wrote:
Hey, Im starting up a Tsons army and I got a few questions for you veteran tsons players if ya dont mind.

1: With all these psychic powers I was wondering can I cast the same power as long as it is from a different source? I know smite can be but its cost goes up for most armies but I was wondering about the rest, my local group isnt very psyker heavy so I havent been in the situation where it would arise much.

2: With enlightened is it better to go multiple squads of 3 or can I go 6 to a squad?

3: Are Vortex Beasts worth taking? And if so what sort of units should I roll him with? Im thinking Just one MVB and two either forgefiends or maulerfiends.

Thanks in advance

1) Only one per turn period except for smite.
2 & 3) Neither of these are ideal units in a competitive setting currently (there was a time when running 50+ enlightened was a thing). Which is fine, just be prepared when bringing these if you play against TFG to be a little frustrated potentially.

2) For enlightened - in general for chaos bigger blobs of units works better b/c this allows usage of spells / strats to stack more (such as prescience etc.). So if you want to use them as a rush down / damage dealer, going big isn't wrong but the rest of your army should be in a situation where buff spells are good for multiple units (ideally) so they aren't wed to just one and you arne't bleeding poitns just to make enlightened 'work'. On the flip side, running these as minimum squads to sit on objectives and shore up a detachment is a completely different purpose and also has its merits. So either way is playable depending on your list and needs

**Solosam47**

Gotcha, thank you. I had a feeling you couldnt cast from multiple sources but began to question it for whatever reason. Shame neither the MVB or the Enlightened are competitive right now, I love the nature and models for both units. I am going to maybe add a min squad of enlightened and a MVB just to paint em up and see how it goes. Thanks for the tips and rule clarifications!

**BoomWolf**

Well, in my books playing the units you like is more important than what is the top tier competitively.

You won't win as often, but you'll have more fun.

A note about casting though, the rubrics and scarabs only cast a watered-down version of smite, who is mathematically BAD to cast (does more harm than good) if your smite target isn't high quality.
If it hits a chapter master, go ahead. if it hits a basic marine-better not.

**orkswubwub**

BoomWolf wrote:
Well, in my books playing the units you like is more important than what is the top tier competitively.

You won't win as often, but you'll have more fun.

A note about casting though, the rubrics and scarabs only cast a watered-down version of smite, who is mathematically BAD to cast (does more harm than good) if your smite target isn't high quality.
If it hits a chapter master, go ahead. if it hits a basic marine-better not.

To each their own but at the same time I'm not sure the purpose of asking for unit advice if you are going to play whatever you want anyway(?)

**BoomWolf**

Maybe there is a unit you like but don't know how to use well?