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 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I was incredibly disappointed by the Sons. I was playing a VERY casual Blood Angels army against a Sons player who had:

-Magnus
-Ahriman
-2x Daemon Princes

-2x big blobs of Goats
-1x 5 man Rubric squad
-1x 5 man Scarab squad

-2x Helbrute
-1x Maulerfiend
.

I mean, I get that you took casual lists, but yikes. A 5 man rubric squad with no transport? Might as well not even be there. A single maulerfiend? A mostly melee horde oriented thousand sons list against blood angels and the result was not in his favor? I can't say im shocked.

Magnus lost a reroll of 1's on his invuln, I wouldn't say that's a 'lot of durability'. He can still cast a spell on himself (really easy since he's magnus) and get a 3+ invuln permanently. Keep him at max range of guns, screen him from deepstrikers (cultists/tzangors?), and have MULTIPLE THREATS so killing magnus isn't an auto-lose (you have las-preds and mutaliths, magnus shouldn't be the only threat). I'm not trying to be snarky or anything I'm just a little shocked that people say Magnus dies easily when they warptime him up the board by himself and he gets shot to pieces turn 1.

Overall I think the codex is great. Its literally nothing but buffs all around, extra spells, strategems, models, etc. Its literally never been played in tournaments before, so I don't think people can already deduce that its trash tier just by some math-hammering. 40k players are prone to hyperbole and victim complexes. Just look at Sisters players. And Grey Knight players. And Dark Eldar players. I think you'd need a lot of games with tons of different list variations before you can say anything is 'garbage'.

 Don Savik wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I was incredibly disappointed by the Sons. I was playing a VERY casual Blood Angels army against a Sons player who had:

-Magnus
-Ahriman
-2x Daemon Princes

-2x big blobs of Goats
-1x 5 man Rubric squad
-1x 5 man Scarab squad

-2x Helbrute
-1x Maulerfiend
.

I mean, I get that you took casual lists, but yikes. A 5 man rubric squad with no transport? Might as well not even be there. A single maulerfiend? A mostly melee horde oriented thousand sons list against blood angels and the result was not in his favor? I can't say im shocked.

Magnus lost a reroll of 1's on his invuln, I wouldn't say that's a 'lot of durability'. He can still cast a spell on himself (really easy since he's magnus) and get a 3+ invuln permanently. Keep him at max range of guns, screen him from deepstrikers (cultists/tzangors?), and have MULTIPLE THREATS so killing magnus isn't an auto-lose (you have las-preds and mutaliths, magnus shouldn't be the only threat). I'm not trying to be snarky or anything I'm just a little shocked that people say Magnus dies easily when they warptime him up the board by himself and he gets shot to pieces turn 1.

Overall I think the codex is great. Its literally nothing but buffs all around, extra spells, strategems, models, etc. Its literally never been played in tournaments before, so I don't think people can already deduce that its trash tier just by some math-hammering. 40k players are prone to hyperbole and victim complexes. Just look at Sisters players. And Grey Knight players. And Dark Eldar players. I think you'd need a lot of games with tons of different list variations before you can say anything is 'garbage'.

What metric are you using to judge the codex?

Magnus still dies horribly if he doesn't go first against any reasonably shooty army because you cant hide him and can't mitigate any incoming damage with anything other than taking a changeling. And even than, equal points of plasmaspam comsquads will murder him 8 times out of ten on their own.

so I finally had a chance to read through the entire codex there are things not in the Codex that should be.

The first there's no kind of unique casting mechanic. Above everything else there should have been some sort of unique casting mechanic to set apart the casting of Thousand Sons casting.

Spells...why do we not have a full lore to ourselves? At least one full lore to ourselveves. Prior to this codex we had access to 13 of our 18 "New" spells. We should have gotten access to Dark Herticus and gotten 2 new lores. Not partial access to 1 lore via 1 HQ unit, and another lore which has so many high charge spells that using.

Familiars for every HQ. They have the models for it. They have 1 HQ with it. There is no reason Exalted Sorcerers at the very least should not have access to familiars.

On the bright side Chaos Daemons got one hell of a supplement.

Who could have thought you'd come to that conclusion.

You're confusing the word "should" with another "aren't". There are things in the codex that aren't in the codex. Yes, you can view our Terminator Sorceror getting a spell familiar as "why didn't everyone get a spell familiar?" You can also view aspiring sorcerors getting plasma pistols as "why didn't everyone get a plasma pistol" and our daemon princes having 4++ and an extra power as "why didn't everyone get 4++ and an extra power?"

Yeah, there's no unique casting mechanics in here. Except for the relic. And the casting aura on Magnus. And the spell familiar. And the +6" range that is our army trait. And the sorcerous elixir reroll. And the +1 to cast boon. and Cabalistic Focus. That's not even counting the regular casting bonuses we get that other armies can also get access to, like +1s and +2s. But no, we don't have the blue scribes - unless you're counting them as part of our army because you said that we "already had" access to the daemon discipline before this somehow.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

Magnus looks like he lost a lot of his durability, and our Sons player is probably going to shelve them for now since he doesn't want to buy 60 more Tzaangors.

Or he should, I dunno, field an actual army in his next game and not spend over half of his points on 4 model's?
Just a thought.

Gonna say, fielding 4 knights is a pretty legit army as well.

I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

Bloodletters? Do the same thing, but with better AP, better odds to get into combat, and their buff character can actually deep strike in with them to give them that good hit roll?

the_scotsman wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

Bloodletters? Do the same thing, but with better AP, better odds to get into combat, and their buff character can actually deep strike in with them to give them that good hit roll?

I think it's more or tzaangors damage potential is far garter, by making a vortex beast you can make them do stupid stuff, and ontop of that you can make them -1 to hit

 MinscS2 wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

Magnus looks like he lost a lot of his durability, and our Sons player is probably going to shelve them for now since he doesn't want to buy 60 more Tzaangors.

Or he should, I dunno, field an actual army in his next game and not spend over half of his points on 4 model's?
Just a thought.

Or he should not target a friggin' razorback when he's in base with Mephiston.

It also smells like bs. Mephiston did 12 wounds. He has 4 D3 attacks...so he hit, wounded, got past invuln, and roll 3 damage for all of his attacks?

Even if it's true it is so unlikely to not even be a proper judge of Magnus.

 techsoldaten wrote:

We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

Magnus has been fired from all my lists because he's not durable enough to really survive anymore. You can't really keep him out of melee and really expect him to be worth the points, to get the most out of him he has to be working in multiple phases, which he just really can't do anymore.

Someone earlier had a great point about Scarabs, they should have gotten the bodyguard ability like the DG special terminator squad, that would at least give you something. I mean I wouldn't be thrilled about using a 250+ point squad to screen Magnus, but it would be something.

Anyhow, it's the Ahriman, Daemon Prince, Tzaangor codex, if that works for your plans, rock on. The rest of it is a copy-paste repackaging and marketing exercise.

 Backspacehacker wrote:


I think it's more or tzaangors damage potential is far garter, by making a vortex beast you can make them do stupid stuff, and ontop of that you can make them -1 to hit

210 + 150 + 90 + 121

To make this magical unit you have spent over 570 points at a minimum. IF you can get them there with all the support in place and IF you can succeed on the spells and IF the mutalith succeeds and IF you get first turn.

For that I could bring 3 LRBT with PGC and BRRRRRT them off the table. Heck i'd only need two of them to get the rest on morale.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

They are a bomb, just like many other codexes have, no better, no worse really. Well maybe a little worse since it has to melee to actually work, as opposed to several other bombs where weathering Overwatch is an optional bonus opportunity for damage.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

Bloodletters? Do the same thing, but with better AP, better odds to get into combat, and their buff character can actually deep strike in with them to give them that good hit roll?

I think it's more or tzaangors damage potential is far garter, by making a vortex beast you can make them do stupid stuff, and ontop of that you can make them -1 to hit

-1 to hit potential, I'll definitely give you. But lets actually look at this:

-the combo we're talking about here is deep striking 1 unit of Tzaangors, using the one-use Warptime power on them, and then using their 2CP attack again stratagem. We're comparing it to deep striking the bloodletter bomb for 2cp, using the 1cp banner, and then using their 3CP attack again power. 3CP more expensive, definitely a big factor. But bloodletters buff THEMSELVES vs Tzaangors requiring powers or auras be cast on themselves.

Bloodletters in a unit of 30 are, by themselves, WS2+, A2, S5, AP-3, and deal 2 damage on a wound roll of 6. If you do give them that buff character (the very same Daemon Prince you're factoring in to give the Tzaangors 2+ rerollable to hit) they ALSO get the locus of wrath, making that 71% chance charge they make on 3D6 re-rollable, giving them a 91.8% chance of making it into combat.

Even if you give the Tzaangors an 85 point shaman for 2+ to hit, a 180 point daemon prince for rerolling 1s, three 150 point mutaliths for +1S and +2AP, they're STILL not dealing as much damage because they dont deal 2 damage on a 6 to wound. And here's the thing: Bloodletters are hardly dominating tournaments as far as we know.

Their defenses and relative CP-cheapness are really their only advantage here. That to me says I'd rather use Bloodletters as a killing bomb (where I'm loading them up with buffs and committing to them) and Tzaangors as a distraction/tie-up unit. In which case, I'm not buffing them beyond the one character I need to send in to warptime them, probably a terminator sorc, because his Warptime is 12% more reliable with the +1 to cast, and he deep strikes natively and also casts the -1 to hit spell I want to give them as well wheras the shaman would only give me warptime and would force me to give up attacks by daisy-chaining my tzaangors back to him.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I read through the Codex with a friend last night. Echoing some comments from before.

Tzaangors are OP. Up to a 30 man unit that can hit on 2s, reroll 1s and wound anything on a 5+. We were trying to think of anything else this powerful in the game and couldn't.

"Tzaangors are OP, they do crazy stuff when you invest a lot of points in several other model's in order to buff them!"
So basically you're saying that 220 pts of Tzaangors hit pretty hard when buffed by a 90 pts Shaman, and 180 pts Daemon Prince (or 140 pts Exalted Sorcerer) and a 150 pts Mutalith.
I fail to see the sensation here, you're essentially spending over 400 points on buffing a unit. The sensation would be if this 400 point investment did nothing...

Hypebole of the day...
The comparison with Bloodletters is pretty good. Bloodletters barely need any support in order to "function". Tzaangors need twice their own cost...

Tzaangors of both flavors are shaping up to be serious Bullgryns when it comes to the internet. They have near infinite buffed potential but unbuffed they're average.

Unless you can 100% control a circumstance you have to consider what happens when you don't have it.

Tzaangors and a Termie sorc deep strike in, cast a highly reliable warptime and get an unfailable charge with the Stratagems - you'll usually do with your 100something WS3+ AP-1 S4 attacks what the letters do with their 50something WS2+ S5 AP-3 with bonus damage attacks.

Then, the tzaangors are harder to kill. Yay! But they can't attack again, and the letters can if it's worth the 3cp. Booo.

Tzaangors bomb is a defensive letter bomb. But it costs about 110 points more (Termie sorc) and comes in a more flexible detachment (daemons or khorne daemons). And it's just one element of a good list. Tzaangors spam just isn't going to work as a whole list, the effectiveness of every squad after the first drops off too hard, just like with letters. You need more elements. I'm highly unconvinced that the best of daemons and csm is going to be overshadowed by the best of Tsons and daemons/Csm in tournaments.

This thread feels redundant.

I made my points in the other thread.

In short:

- I don't care if this codex is very powerful or awful.
- I want to have a proper representation of the background and story and variety of units of the Thousand Sons LEGION in the 40k universe.
- This codex does not meet anything of those. It is not a Thousand Sons Codex, it is a Servants of Tzeentch Codex or a Tzeentch Random Crap Circus Codex...
- The "design" team of GW has showed here that they cannot come up with anything minimally imaginative or interesting. They had the problem of a lack of variety of model kits for this codex, but instead of waiting to have more kits availables or USE the current kits to make 2 or 3 different units with each one, they simply grab some random crap from dead Fantasy and stick it in the "supposed" TS codex. Lazy and boring.

So, this altogether with dull and stupid rules for 8th in general, made me to stop playing 40k. Maybe if some of us gather together and think about it, we can come up with a better codex for the Thousand Sons than GW, but the basic rules would still be crap, so...

 Warpspy wrote:
This thread feels redundant.

I made my points in the other thread.

In short:

- I don't care if this codex is very powerful or awful.
- I want to have a proper representation of the background and story and variety of units of the Thousand Sons LEGION in the 40k universe.
- This codex does not meet anything of those. It is not a Thousand Sons Codex, it is a Servants of Tzeentch Codex or a Tzeentch Random Crap Circus Codex...
- The "design" team of GW has showed here that they cannot come up with anything minimally imaginative or interesting. They had the problem of a lack of variety of model kits for this codex, but instead of waiting to have more kits availables or USE the current kits to make 2 or 3 different units with each one, they simply grab some random crap from dead Fantasy and stick it in the "supposed" TS codex. Lazy and boring.

So, this altogether with dull and stupid rules for 8th in general, made me to stop playing 40k. Maybe if some of us gather together and think about it, we can come up with a better codex for the Thousand Sons than GW, but the basic rules would still be crap, so...

I would have been stoked on life if they would have added a silver tower model into the game, or rules for it and just say, the silver tower is x by y in base size and can look how ever you want.

 Warpspy wrote:
This thread feels redundant.

I made my points in the other thread.

In short:

- I don't care if this codex is very powerful or awful.
- I want to have a proper representation of the background and story and variety of units of the Thousand Sons LEGION in the 40k universe.
- This codex does not meet anything of those. It is not a Thousand Sons Codex, it is a Servants of Tzeentch Codex or a Tzeentch Random Crap Circus Codex...
- The "design" team of GW has showed here that they cannot come up with anything minimally imaginative or interesting. They had the problem of a lack of variety of model kits for this codex, but instead of waiting to have more kits availables or USE the current kits to make 2 or 3 different units with each one, they simply grab some random crap from dead Fantasy and stick it in the "supposed" TS codex. Lazy and boring.

So, this altogether with dull and stupid rules for 8th in general, made me to stop playing 40k. Maybe if some of us gather together and think about it, we can come up with a better codex for the Thousand Sons than GW, but the basic rules would still be crap, so...

If you really want a variety of units that represents the Thousand Sons LEGION, as you put it, and doesn't have any of the things you don't like about 8th, I think I know a game system that might make you very happy...

...meanwhile, in 40k, the thousand sons are what they've always been. A cabal of sorcerors that uses rubrics, daemons, daemon engines, cultists, mutants, and whatever other disposable tools they can get their manipulative scheming hands on to get their plans to fruition. They aren't and havent been a cohesive LEGION for 10,000 years, or however many editions of 40k. Tzeentch Random Crap Circus is what you get when you play Thousand Sons in the 40k time period. It's obviously not what you want. So don't play it. But don't pretend that everyone else should be forced to eat the same power-armored dry cracker sleeve of cookie-cutter boredom that you want to, because the fluff doesn't and hasn't ever supported that.

30k exists. The 30k version of thousand sons exist, in 30k. If you want to port them over, be my guest and do it, but it's going to start and end as a fan project because the way that the thousand sons fight in 30k is different from how they fight in 40k, with all power armored units, a command structure, non-psyker units, and specialist power armored units.

Well, to be fair though, there are actually tens of thousands of t sons marines, from various cults and sects.

That's said! I do wish we would have gotten 1 new unit, like a psyker dreads but over all I'm pretty damn happy with t sons.

 Backspacehacker wrote:


That's said! I do wish we would have gotten 1 new unit, like a psyker dreads but over all I'm pretty damn happy with t sons.

As much as I'd love some sort of venerable psyker-dread as well, we did techincally get 4 new units:
- Tzaangor Shamans.
- Tzaangor Enlightened.
- Tzaangor Skyfires. (Same datasheet as Enlightened but they're as different from another as Mutilators and Obliterators.)
- Mutalith Vortex Beast.

Now some might argue that these model's got ported over from WFB/AoS, and sure they did, but they're new units for us regardless.
Alot of people also are against the fact that we mostly got Tzaangor-units, which while true, it is also highly subjective if this is a bad thing or not.

Personally I love Tzaangors and I love Disc's, so I'm all over this "new" release and our new codex.

the_scotsman wrote:

...meanwhile, in 40k, the thousand sons are what they've always been. A cabal of sorcerors that uses rubrics, daemons, daemon engines, cultists, mutants, and whatever other disposable tools they can get their manipulative scheming hands on to get their plans to fruition. They aren't and havent been a cohesive LEGION for 10,000 years, or however many editions of 40k. Tzeentch Random Crap Circus is what you get when you play Thousand Sons in the 40k time period. It's obviously not what you want. So don't play it. But don't pretend that everyone else should be forced to eat the same power-armored dry cracker sleeve of cookie-cutter boredom that you want to, because the fluff doesn't and hasn't ever supported that.

Well, i'm afraid that that is not true. We have discussed this before, so if you want to make things up, go ahead, but it doesn't mean that what you say is more true. I'm sorry, i will repeat again.

RT is not 40k, not in background specially. Current fluff was a thing from 2nd onwards. In 2nd edition there was "Thousand Sons marines" and "Tzeentch demons". In 3rd edition there was "Thousand Sons marines" and again demons. And in the 3.5 codex there was a complete expanded army list for the Thousand Sons army. Guess what? There were no cultist, no mutants and no demon engines as you say.

The list of units were:

- Characters - all sorcerers
- Sorcerers units
- Terminator sorcerer units
- Rubric terminators units
- Rubric marines units
- Tzeentch demons: Horrors, flamers and screamers units
- dreadnoughts, predators, land raiders and rhinos

And as another user said it, that little army list was much more varied and had more love and work into it than the whole 8th TS codex. Cultists was a thing for the alpha legion and nobody else. Mutants and gakky-things were a thing for the "Lost and the Damned" army list, representing hordes of crap exiting the Eye of Terror. They were not part of the other legions. Nor in the 4th edition codex, that was for the 4th and 5th editions if i'm not mistaken. I don't know what kind of gak came in 6th and 7th so all the people is so content and likes the dull codexes of this edition, for me it is getting more and more disappointing and sad...

From that list, you can ADD more units: Psyker dreadnoughts, special vehicles, demon engines, etc... It really is not so hard to do, even with the current plastic kits. It just baffles my mind that they added nothing at all...

And if you think those mutants are a part of the fluff, ok, it's not a problem. I never had a problem with the single unit of Tzaangors. It is fine to be there as part of the army, as long as you have the core of the units properly fleshed out and represented. And not the other way around. In the "TS" 8th codex, GW has expanded the mutants and left untouched the proper TS units, so yes, that pissed me off really badly, i'm sorry to be an annoyance to anyone.

the_scotsman wrote:

30k exists. The 30k version of thousand sons exist, in 30k. If you want to port them over, be my guest and do it, but it's going to start and end as a fan project because the way that the thousand sons fight in 30k is different from how they fight in 40k, with all power armored units, a command structure, non-psyker units, and specialist power armored units.

I stopped playing the first time at the very beginning of 5th edition, way before FW released any model for the Horus Heresy. That is not for what i started 40k in the first place. So, no, it is not 30k ported to 40k what i want.

 MinscS2 wrote:

Personally I love Tzaangors and I love Disc's, so I'm all over this "new" release and our new codex.

Well, I love the Tzaangor models and rules, but I think the discs looks goofy as hell. I would have loved if Enlightened were simply Tzaangors with wings, Swooping Hawk style.

It also would have been nice if the (very excellent) exalted sorcerer kit were a sorcerer+termie sorcerer+exalted sorcerer kit. I doubt that many will run triple exalted sorcerers when Ahriman and Demon princes are so good. And the CSM terminator sorcerer is simply not as great a model as the excellent TS sculpts.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I was incredibly disappointed by the Sons. I was playing a VERY casual Blood Angels army against a Sons player who had:

-Magnus
-Ahriman
-2x Daemon Princes

-2x big blobs of Goats
-1x 5 man Rubric squad
-1x 5 man Scarab squad

-2x Helbrute
-1x Maulerfiend

He went first, failed most of his high cost powers (or they got denied), he got Magnus into my lines against a Razorback and Mephiston. Killed the Razorback, and only did 2 wounds to Mephiston. Mephy in return did 12 to him, and killed Magnus in my turn 1.

The rest of his army really didn't do much besides the two Daemon Princes, the Rubrics died horribly to Overcharged Plasma. Ahriman easily died to Chainsword Death Company, and the goats were penned in by some Rhinos. It was a pretty lackluster showing of the sons.

The other two games the guy played against Guard/Black Templars and Guard/Custodes went even worse than the one he played against me. I watched the first game, and just over half the army died top of turn 1, and the goats did nothing when they came in from deep strike besides kill a screening unit of guardsmen because the other unit failed the charge.

Magnus looks like he lost a lot of his durability, and our Sons player is probably going to shelve them for now since he doesn't want to buy 60 more Tzaangors.

I was going to write a long and boring critique of this post (not the person post, but its contents). then I just decided to cut to the chase. And here it is. That list is balls to the wall horrible. For so many reasons. I mean terrible. If he enjoys playing it, sweet. But he has no business being salty when losing with it. Because that is what is going to happen repeatedly. He is also playing a pure army vs soup which is a huge disadvantage to him. The playing here is what was the worst. Why is he playing Maggy like he is Morty? Maggy is NOT a beat stick. One look at his underwhelming melee stats (compared to other walker super heavys) could have told him that. Why is Ahriman not being screened by cultists? Where is is ranged AT that should have taken care of the Rhinos? Where is the mutalith? Where is the shaman? tzangs need support. They demand it. Just taking one big blob wont be blowing anyones socks off unsupported. And as far as cheap bodies cultists do it cheaper and have auto-guns. How is Meph putting 12 wounds on Magnus is one round of close combat? Why is Magnus targeting the Razorback when hes getting into a fight with a HQ?

Honestly, this is how a new player plays and makes a list.

Now you may think I am being hyper critical and a bit WAAC. I am not. I am pointing out how posts like these fuel the dakka hyperbole. You cannot judge the health of a codex on three games , two of them vs guard soup, where he not only brought one of the worst lists ive seen AND played horribly on top of that.

So 3.5 Edition fluff is the standard of fluff for 8th Edition? I'm sorry but that's a stupid argument to try and justify one's distaste for Tzaangors. Tzaangors existed prior to 3.5. The fluff of Warhammer 40,000 as a whole has changed massively from 3.5, just as it changed massively from Rogue Trader.

Should Genestealer Cults not be in the game too? What about the Adeptus Mechanicus? The Solitaire was around at one point, then it left, but now it's back. So fluff-breaking amirite lads? Sarcasm aside, let me put it succinctly so everyone here can understand it clearly.

They are EXPANDING the army list and fluff of Thousand Sons. This codex has more fluff written about the Thousand Sons than any other codex before them had combined. Sortarius being inhabited by scores of mutants makes perfect sense and isn't "lore-breaking". Thousand Sons in 40K are not actively against mutation, or are we going to start poking fingers at the Exalted Sorcerer kit? Hell, someone on this forum implied Daemon Princes were unfluffy for Thousand Sons when their Primarch is literally a bloody Daemon Prince.

I can't believe people can hold religiously to one part of the fluff yet try to invalidate the fluff that PRECEDED it. Goodness. The irony is that none of you would be complaining about "muh fluff" if they had simultaneously added the new units we got (Shaman, Enlightened/Skyfires, Mutalith) AND released an additional Rubricae kit or two (i.e. corrupted Osiron, melee Rubrics), it's just an inane complaint that's completely tangential to the legitimately valid issue, that being the lack of diversity in the actual Thousand Sons Astartes kits.

Now, as far as the codex goes...

I'm really digging it, and under-selling how competitive it can be when paired up with other Chaos factions is to your detriment. By spending 1-4 CP you can Deep Strike 1 to 2 units, teleport a unit mid-game (Dark Matter Crystal) and get one of Chaos' only means of regenerating CPs (Helm of the Third Eye). That can seem like a lot of CP but consider that you can get a Tzeentch Daemon battalion for ~230 points, and said battalion gives you the equal cheapest screen in the game and two decent psykers. Tzeentch armies have such cheap access to CP that it'd be a crime not to have at least 9 in every army list, and for only a few dozen points you can upgrade one of those cheap psykers to the Changeling who effectively doubles the durability of those screening units, can be situationally scary in combat and makes your Daemon Engines tankier if they have the Tzeentch keyword. If you're not running Daemon Princes, having access to Flickering Flames on a Defiler/Forgefiend is amusing and worth every point spent on the Daemon detachment. Besides, the Horror bomb works amazingly well in conjunction with Tzaangor bombs.

Deep Striking Tzaangors are scary as hell. Are they as scary as Deep Striking Bloodletters? As I myself have pointed out, it's an unequivocal "no" even if you mega-buff them. The difference is that Tzaangors can be much, much harder for your opponent to actually get rid of because you can combo up Weaver of Fates and Glamour of Tzeentch on them; T4 bodies that are -1 to-hit with 4+ invulnerable saves that can be Warptimed straight into combat are not easy to deal with. They are better for tarpitting than Bloodletters in that sense. However, Bloodletters are both completely self-sufficient and hit harder. There is a note to be made of CP costs, though; 1CP for the crucial banner, either 1 or 2CP to Deep Strike the unit (usually 2 as you'll want one of a good size) Contrast this to Tzaangors who can Deep Strike for 1CP regardless of unit size, or 3CP for two units, and who get their buffs from psychic powers instead of spending more CP. Something to keep in mind.

Also, I dig Mutaliths and think they're going to be more common than people expect. Not too expensive, can dish out a lot of pain up close if not dealt with quickly (mortal wound aura) and super-buff both combat units and Horrors/Flamers.

Again, the animosity is not behind tzaangors, the animosity is that the codex is geared up more to buff tzaangors then rubrics/SoT which are what make the Tsons. tsons.

So it's weird to say I run a T sons army here is my one, rubric unit and my ass ton of tzaangors.

A lot of people got into the sons because they liked rubrics and spell casters, and the bread and butter unit of the new Dex is more favorable to tzaangors. It would be like saying hey I'm really into Tau, ok the best thing to do for them is run a crap ton of kroots, and like 2 battle suits.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Again, the animosity is not behind tzaangors, the animosity is that the codex is geared up more to buff tzaangors then rubrics/SoT which are what make the Tsons. tsons.

So it's weird to say I run a T sons army here is my one, rubric unit and my ass ton of tzaangors.

A lot of people got into the sons because they liked rubrics and spell casters, and the bread and butter unit of the new Dex is more favorable to tzaangors. It would be like saying hey I'm really into Tau, ok the best thing to do for them is run a crap ton of kroots, and like 2 battle suits.

this.

Tried a few games out with 2 big units of Enlightened with Bows (2 units of 9) - and I know they aren't popular from a fluff stand point but man from a rules stand point they get nasty. I had the 2 unit surrounding 2 Tzaangor Shamans (probably could have cut one) and Ahriman and I was very pleased with the results.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Tried a few games out with 2 big units of Enlightened with Bows (2 units of 9) - and I know they aren't popular from a fluff stand point but man from a rules stand point they get nasty. I had the 2 unit surrounding 2 Tzaangor Shamans (probably could have cut one) and Ahriman and I was very pleased with the results.

Oh yeah they are dumb, like the bows, just wounding on a 5+ for your to hit roll is crazy against high toughness units. Then giving them prescience and making it so a hit roll of 4+ is a wound, no questions asked, is crazy good.

Oh I see you have a land raider over there. Ok my 2 vortex beasts are gonna make my bows -2 AP, buffing them so they have a +2 to hit, and here comes 9 assault 3 weapons at you4+ auto wound.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Again, the animosity is not behind tzaangors, the animosity is that the codex is geared up more to buff tzaangors then rubrics/SoT which are what make the Tsons. tsons.

So it's weird to say I run a T sons army here is my one, rubric unit and my ass ton of tzaangors.

A lot of people got into the sons because they liked rubrics and spell casters, and the bread and butter unit of the new Dex is more favorable to tzaangors. It would be like saying hey I'm really into Tau, ok the best thing to do for them is run a crap ton of kroots, and like 2 battle suits.

It is optimal to run exactly. One. Unit. of tzaangors. We've been going over this - you can only cast Warptime once, and it is THE SPELL that makes tzaangor bomb function. The defensive buffs that make them worth taking over the 'letterbomb are again, solo unit, one use. The stratagem that allows you to deep strike them is again, only optimal when dropping exactly one unit, and is absolutely capped at two.

Skyfires? Shamans? Both are entirely optional units, and while they're Ok, even good when you combo them together, their mid-strength weaponry that's good at wounding things but low damage is hardly unique and essential in the Thousand Sons roster, especially if you include daemons.

You are probably going to have less rubrics than Tzaangors if you run a mix of both, numerically, because rubrics cost three times more. I am either going to use Tzaangors, Daemons, or Cultists with my army, not because Tzaangors are so op omg broken gw pushing the new models, but because 8th edition requires you have some bodies if you are a shooting army. You need something standing in front of your shooters, or you will fold, that is a basic fact of 8th. Don't like the new Tzaangors/Mutalith? The only thing you could even say comes close to essential is a single unit of tzaangors to use as a flexible bomb/screen. The same unit of tzaangors we had rules for before, and you took no issue with, and the same auxiliary playstyle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Tried a few games out with 2 big units of Enlightened with Bows (2 units of 9) - and I know they aren't popular from a fluff stand point but man from a rules stand point they get nasty. I had the 2 unit surrounding 2 Tzaangor Shamans (probably could have cut one) and Ahriman and I was very pleased with the results.

Oh yeah they are dumb, like the bows, just wounding on a 5+ for your to hit roll is crazy against high toughness units. Then giving them prescience and making it so a hit roll of 4+ is a wound, no questions asked, is crazy good.

Oh I see you have a land raider over there. Ok my 2 vortex beasts are gonna make my bows -2 AP, buffing them so they have a +2 to hit, and here comes 9 assault 3 weapons at you4+ auto wound.

And, oooooooooooone more time, you are forgetting the mutalith only works on melee weapons, it can't give AP to the bows. Also, mutaliths can't give you +1 to hit either, so I'm not sure what the second one is doing in this scenario.

It's super easy to find OP combos in the rules if you continuously get those rules wrong.