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now with the new PA rubrics got nice improvements, not sure if a mono Ts can be good but for casual play in my opinion can be good and fun to play.

I have to take a different stance on our PA. While it could have been better we got a good amount of really solid things. Sadly alot of it are from two or three cults but it has really changed how I play and my lists. I feel my army of pure 1ksons got a pretty big power boost from PA. From DSing My leviathan to Risen Rubrica my army has gotten a TON more options. The extra power per turn per cultist sorc is almost worth the price of admission in and of it self (my lists tend to be smite heavy). But I have been having good fun dropping a 20 strong squad of rubrics on a juicy target and being really tough to remove.

Also, I am not a tournament player but for casual games I am very happy.

Table wrote:
The extra power per turn per cultist sorc

what do you mean by that? Each psykers knows the cult spell in addition to their regular spells but they dont get to cast an extra spell. and only smite is castable more than once anyway.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Table wrote:
The extra power per turn per cultist sorc

what do you mean by that? Each psykers knows the cult spell in addition to their regular spells but they dont get to cast an extra spell. and only smite is castable more than once anyway.

Yes, Mistyped. Since I play smite heavy armies having the extra powers to cast instead of smite is always welcome. Ive always been critical of the 1ksons spell access as I feel fully half of our spells are not worth casting. Giving us three powers (or more) that are absolute beasts is quite nice. I normally try to replace my mini smites with actual spells as mini smites kinda suck in contrast to even the worst powers. Up until now our aspirings are limited to change. Now they get as many options as detachments you have in your army.

Now, what I hate about PA is how alot of the cult powers only work on that specific cult. It was to restrictive and wouldnt break the army to remove that rule. But this is talked about alot so I dont feel the need to compound on this.

So I don't know if anyone other TS players noticed this but the new Look out Sir rules makes characters need to be within 3" to get protection, which is perfect for our splash damage spells. I was actually moving away from Magic to Duplicity, but I think I am going to move back in 9th. Although it hurts that if you want to use more than one cult you need to spend CP on another detachment, but then again, I think we are gaining CP now without having to worry about double battalion, or filling out with Cultists.

The Faction Focus on the Thousand Sons dropped today. One big stumbling block that people are picking up on is that including Magnus in the army via a Supreme Command detachment nets you CP, but it also means that he has to be your Warlord. This automatically locks the army out of a lot of PA options, since Magnus can't be assigned a Cult.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/01/faction-focus-thousand-sons/?fbclid=IwAR3GHTJFgAusWeJCto6DCRmXFQurcrp05DDV4lzri_uaIZhz4uCkY23yNKM

I’m a bit disappointed in the psychic secondaries if I’m honest. There are only 3, 1 of which we can’t even complete as it requires your army having 0 psykers. The other 2 require Psyker Characters and if they perform the action then they can’t cast any other powers.

One of them can be completed within 3 turns (if you don’t get denied), but, 3 turns of having a character cast no powers is painful. Best option would be a standard Sorcerer or a Shaman (likely a Shaman due to the new detachment setup), but that leaves you spending 90+ points (as we don’t know the new cost).

I really don’t rate our ability to consistently score highly on mission secondaries.

We can spend all casts on smites.

Unless that's changed, we're top meat material bois.

Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.

Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.

Kdash wrote:
Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.

Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.

Unless the all smite rule gets changed, it won;t matter, we will be tabling armies left and right. Don't think people realize what 4x Gaze of Magnus can do when you can begin him in reserves.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
Yeh, smite spam is potentially going to become even more of a thing, but I feel like we are going to struggle in regards to staying power and secondary scoring.

Right now, I feel like our best chances (pure TS anyway), is going to be taking Raise the Banners, Psychic Ritual and Whilst We Stand, We Fight and then castle up on 3 objectives and hope we are durable enough.

Unless the all smite rule gets changed, it won;t matter, we will be tabling armies left and right. Don't think people realize what 4x Gaze of Magnus can do when you can begin him in reserves.

The problem with that plan is screens and not having first turn.

First off, if you don’t take Magnus as your WL (due to wanting Cult relics and WL traits), then this is going to start off by costing you 6CP. 3CP for the detachment and then another 3 to put a power lvl 21 unit into reserve.
You then need to add on the CP costs of things like additional relics, additional WL trait and key stratagems, by which point you’ll be out of CP – even if you keep 4CP back to cast an extra power with Magnus each turn, you’re only giving yourself 2CP to play with for the whole game.

Magnus is probably going to be between 475 and 500 points after the new edition hike. If you don’t get the first turn you run the very real risk of losing 1/3rd of your on table points, maybe even more in certain matchups, before you can even retaliate. Chances are, before you even get to bring Magnus onto the table you’re going to be pretty low on units. If you start Magnus on the table, he might survive, but that isn’t a guarantee.

If you do get 1st turn and start him on the table, then he will absolutely do an insane amount of damage, but, against an opponent that knows 4D6 smites (maybe 5 or 6D6 if you’re lucky) is coming their way, they are going to stay back and hard screen until he is removed.

It opens up options, but it’ll be a massive risk to take against lists that will likely be setup to be MSU spam or have large amounts of anti-tank to deal with vehicle spam.

I hope tzaangors will get Astartes Chainswords. The ones on the conversion sprues look cool, but are strictly worse than just taking the fantasy swords out of the box.

Kdash wrote:
Magnus is probably going to be between 475 and 500 points after the new edition hike.

He got a 20 point increase. Which compared to other armies is not bad.

Psychic focus is not (currently) a rule any more.

Unless they put it in some sort of matched play rulebook, Thousand Sons become the worst army in the game.

with the points change and the new smite rules it is more like the best army in the game by now

 kodos wrote:
with the points change and the new smite rules it is more like the best army in the game by now

Psychic focus is gone*. Sons pay smite tax like everyone else now. You got maybe 4 smites tops and then you're done. And what exactly is left for us to deal with armored targets?

Yeah, I thought so too.



* Unless it comes in the matched play rules.

I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Psychic focus is gone*. Sons pay smite tax like everyone else now. You got maybe 4 smites tops and then you're done. And what exactly is left for us to deal with armored targets?.

so 1 psyker is casting smite 4 times, which leaves the rest of the army doing nothing?

reserve rules changed and flanking is a thing, I did not made a list yet but just a brief overview (as day1 BRB FAQ is a thing, as are errors with the leaks) but we got the units we can work with

Let's not discuss the absence of Psychic focus because there's no way that they won't carry it over one way or another into the new matched play rules.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.

If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.

And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.

If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.

And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.

Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.

All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.

As in the Daemonforge strat to re-roll hits and wounds? I feel like it's somewhat wasted, especially if you're going to be baby sititng them with a character.

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.

If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.

And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.

Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.

All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.

They're flamer weapons so they probably won't get blast.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Spoiler:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:
I agree, without Psychic Focus it is going to be really interesting, though i'd argue this hurts GK more than it does us.

In a way, this might also open up some other options, though i need to work out much things have changed because of the new points.

Cheap prophecy exalted sorcerer with brazier babysitting couple of las preds maybe? Gives out rr 1's aura, casts a couple of buffs, gives brazier rerolls. Could be a thing I guess, especially with contemptors biting the dust.

Contemptors are still available in the FW points section. They are now a base 105 points.
One idea i am playing with is 2 of them with dual claws and 2 Soulburners. 195 points each, but, would provide an interesting threat on a smaller board.

If you gonna go soulburners, take the Decepticons Decimators. Their soulburners are the 2d3 version and you can pop 2 of them, plus they are faster and can get the daemonic engine strat.

And I read that contemptors became a lot more expensive, with butcher cannons going to 35 pts each.

Yeh the Butcher Cannon now seems to be 35 a pop.
The Decimators are still interesting, and I own 2 badly painted ones, but, at 210 points for each one I’m not sure. I feel like I’d rather take the extra 2 wounds, melee power and hitting on 2’s, rather than the extra 2d3 shots per model with 1’s doing MWs to me.

All Soulburners are dX weapons, so I feel like they will get the Blast treatment. If they do, then I think melee power is somewhat required on the smaller tables.
However, who knows what rules will change when we finally get to see the new FW books.

They're flamer weapons so they probably won't get blast.

They do not "auto hit" though, so they're likely separate to other flamer weapons.

For anyone interested, I did an analysis on my YouTube channel yesterday on how to play Chaos in 9th Edition based on all the new points changes and FAQs:

Soooooo...

Icon of Flame, worth it now?

No LoS needed on top of 5 points being the floor for points cost. Means it's easy to make its points back.

Anyone have any experience fielding a single Noctolith Crown with their Thousand Sons?

It's not clear to me how Guided by the Whispers is supposed to work with the new errata. Does it just basically give your Warlord an additional 6 inches of movement in the psychic phase (unless they're under another rule that prevents them from Overwatching)? That seems...really good.

Brian888 wrote:
It's not clear to me how Guided by the Whispers is supposed to work with the new errata. Does it just basically give your Warlord an additional 6 inches of movement in the psychic phase (unless they're under another rule that prevents them from Overwatching)? That seems...really good.

No the original rule triggers when doing Overwatch. The FAQ allows the HQ to still move even if it has no gun. So you pay 1 CP to "Overwatch" and then get to move. If they block the ability to Overwatch then you can't use it.