tactica Thousand Sons

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**Urlock Gaur**

How do you field a thousand sons effectivily? I truly have no idea but i eventually want to make an army of them and there is no thousand sons forums out there so i'll see what you guys have to say.

**cygnnus**

Posted By Urlock Gaur on 10/09/2006 2:52 PM
How do you field a thousand sons effectivily? I truly have no idea but i eventually want to make an army of them and there is no thousand sons forums out there so i'll see what you guys have to say.

There are, or rather were, a few Thousand Sons Fora out there but most of them have died off... I posted the following in response to almost exactly the same question a while back on another gaming forum:

"Advice? Don't play the army unless you really like the background and/or models and are willing to take an army that will, at best, struggle to win against more powerful lists.

If you are interested, then I'd suggest opening up your Codex, taking a black Sharpie in one hand and completely scribbling out the sections titled "Chosen", "Possessed", "Horrors", and "Screamers". Doing that will reduce the possible temptation to buy any of those useless units.

In the case of the Chosen and Possessed, you simply have to play far too many points for the Mark of Tzeentch (MoT) considering it really doesn't do anything other than force you to spend MORE points to actually do anything.

Horrors are aptly named. They're horrible. For 6 more points per model, you can get Flamers which are, if not nearly as nice as Bloodletters or Daemonettes, at least worth considering taking.

Screamers just stink. MUST Hit and Run makes them far to fragile and they simply don't have any punch in combat.

Now, on the plus side...

Normal Rubric Marines are not bad. Not great, but not bad. Unfortunately, a big part of what Slow and Purposeful used to get us has been given to everyone (move and double-tap). But hey, any army that has two wounds per model has a lot going for it, right?

Cult Terminators are DEFINTELY worth looking at. I absolutely love my Cult Termies and they almost never let me down. They're expensive, to be sure, but on a "points per terminator-class wound" they're actually a steal. A full unit of 9 means you have 17 T4 2+/5+Sv wounds. Armed with TL bolters and power weapons. Plus the Asp Champ and his kit.

Most of the Heavy Support slots are worth looking into, although generally it's better to take a Las/Las Predator over a Dread since you should have enough HtH firepowe and the Predator is more shooty than a Dread for the points. Defilers are very nice to consider as well considering they can throw pie plates out which is a define plus for an army that's weak in firepower.

On the HQ side just be careful about wargear. A lot of the Tzeentch-specific wargear is pretty craptacular and you can go a lot better with the "generic" Chaos kit. But there are a few gems in there (Thralls in particular!).

Now, on tactics, the thing to consider is that your Characters (Asp Champ Sorcerers and IC's) really have to do all the heavy lifting for the army. They're your real HtH power. They're your "Heavy Weapons". They're your "Special Weapons". So don't be afraid to spend points there. Be at least a bit judicious about giving stuff to IC's, but Asp Champs in 9-strong units of Rubric Marines are very hard to kill and usually get their money's worth out of any wargear you can give them.

And if you can use the Chosen of Ahriman, then by all means consider taking them! GW didn't do us any favors with how they implemented the idea, but if you can take 'em, then they can be really handy!

Generally, I restrict my Sorcerous powers to Bolt of Change (Lascannon/ML replacement), Doombolt (HB replacement), Winds of Chaos (Flamer) and Gift of Chaos (great for "sniping" at enemy characters, especially those with Powerfists!!!). Many people don't like Doombolt since you already have a lot medium S firepower, but I've found in handy from time to time. Both WoC and GoC are great for units you want to get into assault range, although WoC is better saved for Rhino-borne units since SnP means you're going to be hard pressed to get good template shots when you move ~4.5" per turn...

The odd part about the 1kSons list is that it's really an Assault-based list rather than a Shooty list. It's VERY hard to build a 1kSons list that'll outshoot most armies (although we'll talk about different list ideas later). But a kitted out Asp Champ (say with MC'ed Lightning Claws or Powerfist), Gift of Chaos, Spikey Bitsz, Daemonic Strength, and Daemonic Mutation) backed up by 8 Rubric Marines can deal out a ton of damage in a Melee. And that's not even counting what the same Asp Champ leading Cult Terminator can do! Just watch out for enemies with Powerfists.

But in shooting, you're stuck with limited Heavy Weapon options and, in effect, 24pt Bolters... That makes it very hard to outshoot most people, so you need to be careful getting drawn into shooting matches at unfavorable odds. Of course, SnP makes that easier said than done...

On to lists:

There really aren't too many lists that "work". My main 1kSons list is something like this:

HQ (either a DP or Sorcerer Lord) fairly well kitted out
1 unit of Cult Termies
2-3 units of Rubic Marines with kitted out Asp Champs
0-1 units of Flamers.
HS with the reminaing points (say a Pred and Defiler)

The variations there ususally "to Rhino or not to Rhino" and what the Wargear is. Rhinos are a tougher call now than they were under v3 since even Fearless units get stuck in destroyed transports. I tend to always take as many Thralls as possible (i.e. 4 unless the unit is in a Rhino) as they're a good way to add cheap firepower. I ALWAYS take the Cult Termies! As I said, I've found them to be the best part of the list!

The second list, and one I'll be using as much as possible in the future (i.e. as soon as I get them all converted and painted up) will be a "Dustwing" army:

1 Sorcerer in Termie armor (Chosen of Ahriman if possible!)
3 units of Cult Terminators
2 units of Flamers.

It's all Deep Strike/ Summoned so the slow speed of the army isn't critical. but it does have VERY few Scoring units so it'll be a hard army to win with. But I love the idea and, frankly, I'm kinda bored with the base list.

The final option I've considered (and actually tried with some success) is to abandon Favored numbers and go with Rubric units that are 5 strong with a kitted out Sorcerer. Something like:

4 Rubric Marines
1 Sorcerer with Familiar, 4 Thralls, Bolt of Change, and Doombolt.

You can squeeze in 4 of those units, along with HQ, HS, and some Flamers to make a fairly shooty army. But it's still outshot by most shooty armies, and it's far more fragile in HtH. But it's a different list to try.

In any case, you really have to watch your mission objective when you play 1kSons since the basic units of the army are so expensive and you won't have many scoring units. Worse still, you're slow, can't outshoot most armies, and don't have many neat "trick" units that can do great things for you. Plus, heaven help you if you run into a Marine army with a Psyker with a Psychic Hood!

Now, all that said, it's a fun army as long as you know you're going to struggle to find wins against good opponents. I'm still a few games over .500 since I started playing the army, but it's always a challenge.

Hope that rambling helps... All's not hopeless for the followers of Magnus the Red, but by taking the Thousand Sons you're really starting behind the power curve... "

On top of that, I argued that a Lord of Change is a pretty poor option as well:

"I see two big problems with using LoC's in the Thousand Sons list.

First, they're really the crappiest of all the Greater Daemons. They don't have enough attacks (A3, meaning you're generally looking at <2 kills/turn on average) to clear out thier killing zone and that means they're relatively easy fodder for PF-armed non-IC's. To make things worse on that front, they lack the T or W to soak up the hits that they'll take.

Second, and bigger in my mind, is the fact that to get a LoC, you have to lose one of your Characters. Since Asp Champs really are the core off the Thousand Sons list, that's asking a lot. Consider that you usually have 4-5 characters total, and that they represent the real HtH and Heavy weapons power in your infantry units. Take that out and you have 200pts of unit that is, in effect, 8 slow bolters... Not to mention the fact that any points you spend on wargear, etc for the Character are going to be lost when he "goes Daemon". Of course, you can opt not to give him any wargear but that gets you back to the bit about spending a lot of points on, in effect, a unit armed with nothing but bolters...

They are big and imposing as models, but I tend not to want to rely on my opponent makin mistakes for a unit to work in my list. A relatively experienced opponent will make a fairly accurate assessment of how powerful the LoC and allocate sufficient resources to deal with him accordingly. And in my experience, that's just too easily done because of the problems the LoC poses for the Thousand Sons list.

As with so many things in the Thousand Sons list, I love the LoC figure, but I've yet to see a way to really make them work. I'd MUCH rather spend the points on a tooled out Daemon Prince. He's tougher in HtH, he doesn't cost me a precious Asp Champ, and he's more customizable.

The LoC might not be as worthless as Possessed, Chosen, Screamers, of Horrors, but he's, at best, a second tier unit that's really only worth taking if you absolutely love the model and can't see not taking one."

Others have pointed out that the LoC is better under v4 than it was under v3, although I'm not 100% convinced that it's "better enough" to seriously consider.

Hope that helps a bit. It's not a true "tactica" per se, but I think it's a pretty good summary of the units available and the tactics that you can/have to use in order to try to make the list work.

Vale,

JohnS

**The Happy Anarchist**

One thing that has been suggested is mass amounts of the Gift power, and making a bunch of spawn.

Not sure how/if it panned out though.

**Urlock Gaur**

HQ (either a DP or Sorcerer Lord) fairly well kitted out
1 unit of Cult Termies
2-3 units of Rubic Marines with kitted out Asp Champs
0-1 units of Flamers.
HS with the reminaing points (say a Pred and Defiler)

cult termies? you mean rubric terminators?

**cygnnus**

Yup. I certainly don't mean Chosen in Termie armour!!!

Vale,

JohnS

**Urlock Gaur**

I think the thousand sons can be easily competative in a 2000 point army, you can have 36 terminators just in that army

but I really don't know where to find or what is chosen of ahrim