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Hello DakkaDakka,

My buddy at my FLGS runs a CSM list chock full of thousand sons touting around those stupid AP3 bolters. I'm running spam GK strike squads and some dreadknights. The peanut gallery said to bum rush the sons and take my lumps until I can get into assault. I just don't know about that. Even if I ran he'd have two turns of shooting at three ten man units (plus the forgefiend shooting). I'd prefer not altering my 5x10 man strike squad + 3 dreadknight list because I think this will work as an ACL.

Strike Squads can deep strike, right? How about some psycannons to the rear of the Forgefiend?

You need to throw single dreadknights at each Tsons unit because the sorcerer has to challenge. Once you get rid of that force weapon, the unit will be safer to try to tie up in melee for your power armored units. From personal experience, I can tell you that he probably rolls some absolutely cheat-level invulnerable saves, but remember one thing: For every GK he drops with Ap3 bolters, he will be twice as pissed for every armor save you make him take. Tsons are expensive.

Believe it or not, you can win in a shootout. Stick to ruins and he turns your save to 4+ cover, while his Invulnerable gives no benefit to his 3+ armor. At 24", you have more shots. I've never won a game against a good SM player soley because of my AP3 bolters.

If he swamps you with fire, just have a strike squad go to ground to keep them in the game while the dreadknights approach.

Unless he has chosen with melta or plasma, your dreadknights will be safe.

Remember that in assault Thousand Sons take your #1 melee strength away because of the Invulnerable save (though they can't overwatch). Don't forget that they are the only unit in C:CSM that has Veterans of the Long War included, and so they will reroll to hit against you in the first round of assault. This is absolutely devastating for Strike Squads unless they have Halberds. Even if you do, he may have a high-level sorcerer who can roll up Invisibility. It's imperative that you have a way to shut these powers down. I suggest a Rune Priest and 5 Grey Hunters as allies. Invisibility coupled with Fire Shield can really make a unit of Thousand Sons virtually unmovable. I use it quite often, and any Grey Knight player who has no Rune Priest usually wishes he does afterwards. Things have definitely changed for Tsons in 6th.

You said you had 3 Dreadknights, which is my mind says you have answered your own question. Chosen are the only thing in the Chaos Dex that threaten Dreadknights, so unless he has some of those with loads of Plasma babysitting, you should be able to rush the 1k Sons with the Knights and kill them. Get the rest of your squads into some ruins where you can outshoot him; never forget that you get twice as many shots at more than 12" away, so that's where you keep you PAGKs.

Also as a consideration, think about getting a Storm Raven. It will make your list more all-comers by giving you something to fight flyers, but will also help the current situation as Mind Strikes can pop the Sorcerer while the rest of its guns still do good damage to the unit. Popping the Sorcerer makes your Dreadknights more viable at assaulting the unit too as there's no risk of him getting challenged or Force Weapon'ed.

Thanks for the advice! My buddy did tell me about the long war stuff but it sort of went in one ear and out the other so it's good to see it in writing. Should probably bone up on the new CSM codex

In my first game I did, pretty much by accident, tie up his tsons with my dreadknights but sort of failed to do that in the second game - lesson learned there. The only bad thing here is that I think we was running a 10 man squad and those little buggers held out pretty much the entire game. Granted once they're tied up there's not a lot of other things on the board that strike squads can't deal (except two helldrakes that I really can't touch and the forgefiend would be a bit of a problem even though I have a hammer and two psycannons in each squad)

We're starting to play with less terrain these days due to tournaments tending to run only three ruins and a few pieces of area terrain but I will need to keep that in mind - never had to really worry about having to take cover so much. I also need to take advantage of going to ground more often. I was vector striked a couple of times by a heldrake and probably should have gone to ground rather than just died


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After thinking about the game some more I obviously didn't take advantage of cover like I should have. Knowing there was going to be at least one ten man unit of tsons, two helldrakes and a forgefiend running around and I had nothing in cover

I started looking at the aegis defense line with a quad gun for both cover saves and some shooting against the helldrakes. Albeit not the best gun for av12 but still better than psycannons in terms of hitting.