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Hello all,

So first, I would say that I am very pleased with the new Chaos Space Marine codex. Awesome art, cool hardcover and much more versatility and customization, That being said, it seems that the thousand sons are the one thing that hasn't changed, if anything they have become a bigger investment in points. Its not that they are bad or anything, but with the same focus on all AP3 bolters and nothing else, they pretty much are stuck doing anti-infantry as usual. If anything, the fact that the sorcerer sarge now has a randomized psychic power (greater options, but you still cant pick it specifically like before) this means that I cannot rely on bolt of change to help take care of vehicles. Unfortunately, most of my army is based around and painted as thousand sons. Since I want to stay true to the fluff, I avoid using raptors, havocs, or regular marines since all of them were suppose to be either turned into rubric marines or gifted sorcerers, of course I will make an exception or two, but basically I would want to just have one squad of thousand sons and then a bunch of regular marines, then I'm not really representing thousand sons.

I ask, is there still some fight in a Thousand Sons army? I initial was drawn to chaos because of the thousand sons and their horus heresy novel, but more than any other army I play, I lose the most with thousand sons. Does anyone have some good advice or any complimentary units that can work with Thousand Sons? As I run it now, I usually include two 9 man squads of thousand sons, a helldrake (yes, I am probably the only person who likes the look of the model), obliterators, about 30 cultists, 5 terminators and a vindicator or defiler. Ocassionally, I have played with possessed or mutilators too, but I still end up losing quite frequently. Should I just give up and let my sons sit on the shelf and repaint my marines into something else or is there a way to make this work?

What I would suggest mate, stick to your lovingly painted army. Merge competition with fluff. What I would do in your place, I would make 1k sons into regular Tzeetch dedicated marines. Create your own fluff or borrow something from GW, I bet there is non-rubric Tzeentch space marine warband. I would also sometimes, or maybe always take like 1 unit or more of 1k sons, to fill in some tactical role (well, 1 role specific specific sadly). Other units could be marked Tzeentch or just undivided, or for example Khorne marked regular marines or berserkers could fit into theme as hired expendable assault troops.

So basically make rubric's normal marines painted Tzeentchy, (no need to take a useless mark for that really) and supplement your fluffy army with additions which doesn't contradict your own view of your army.

There is a handful of tzeentch warbands that are not thousand sons and you could probably get the information on lexicanum....another option is to do a warband based around the character you liked from thousands sons the book as they wouldn't have access to rubricae marines as they were banished by the cyclops.....and its not unfeasible for one of them to lead a Tzeentch warband

Ok, good advice. Tzeentch is my favorite god and I do want to stick with him, but that doesnt mean I have to be constrained by the thousand sons legion themselves. I'll check the lexicanum for some other groups, in fact I really like the background for the scourged in the new book.

Still, from a tactical perspective, what do you think about using Ahriman? To be honest, Ive never used in before as he is pretty expensive point-wise, do you think he is worth it?

Firstly, you really need a haircut

Ahriman could be sooo good, if he could guarantee 2 decent shooting spells each game, his infiltrating ability is a bonus also. I think he can work but its just working out how best to run him.

Probably best ran in a blob of TSons that are infiltrated to mid table. I would think about adding an unmarked level 3 Sorcerer to the unit also rolling under biomancy aiming for Endurance to further buff the Tsons unit into something even more durable.

As I own the model I'd advice... Don't. He's sadly not worth it. To use Ahriman to his full potential, is in my opinion, a very difficult task and even then it's hard to tell if he makes his points back. Well, if you have the model already, make interesting and effective infiltrating tactics and play with him aggressively - 3 psy shooting powers at generally 12" range asks for very aggressive playing style.

And on the other hand, sorcerers are great, highly customizable and competitive. Oh, and if you aim for competitive don't use possessed or mutilators.

The Scourged

They were a working Loyal Space Marine Chapter that turned to Chaos because they started to doubt what they were doing, so the Chapter Master Gallus Herodicus prayed to find out if a man was lying or not. Tzeentch was glad to answer his prayers and made the chapter hear every lie spoken. This drove them made and turn to chaos! They are really close to the paint schemes of the Thousand Sons so using your already painted army wouldn't be that hard. Now since they were a codex chapter they are going to have access all of the equipment of a Space Marine chapter; Jump Packs, TDA and all the other goodies.

Fluff wise you can start to expend your selection of units in the Chaos codex, Raptors, Chosen, Warp Smiths, Dark Apostles, Cultist, Bikers etc etc... I would imagine that they have been operating for awhile so bring the more daemonic units into their fold wouldn't be too farfetched. Playing Thousand Sons as your troops can be Chaos Space Marines that have devoted themselves completely to Tzeentch and therefore he has gifted them with the gifts to do his bidding. Your HQ's can be quite fluid because since they were a full Chapter then that means that you have a lot of liberties in what you want to use. Using a count-as Ahriman leading your force would work great, or a Chaos Sorcerer at mastery lvl 3 would too, unlocks Thousand Sons troops and gives you access to all the psychic power goodness. Obliterators and Havocs in my opinion have always worked well with the Thousand Sons, MoT and Icon of Flame on the Havocs armed with heavy bolters is just great for fluff! Obliterators definitely can benefit from a MoT too, thanks Tzeentch for the 2+/4++ 2 wounds each! Really any daemon unit that you can fill a FoC slot with and put a MoT on it is working fluff in my book. Warp Talons are a good example of this, although the internet doesn’t like them, I find them quite useful for a good what they do. I don’t make use of the warpflame strike rule though because in my opinion it’s too risky for a 6” range, moving them up the board with the rest of the army has worked for me. Warp Talons fluff wise works for my army which is primarily Thousand Sons based and adds a really solid assault unit, which can make or break a Thousand Sons army.

If you do end up going 100% Thousand Sons you are going to need the Chaos Daemons codex to really augment you damage potential. I was a 3ed Thousand Sons player and back then I had purchased the Daemons needed to really make the Thousand Sons shine, so nowadays this can be done with Allies. Last edition my force was as strong, but with the addition of taking your Daemons allies, has made a pure Thousand Sons nothing to laugh at. Flamers, Horrors, Screamers and a Greater Daemon or Herald add a lot of the options that a Thousand Sons player needs; anti-TDA, horde killers, anti-tank, FMC or a cheap HQ respectively. If your local group plays armor heavy then you should really pick up the obliterators or havocs for the anti-tank, predators work too.

There are a lot of opinions out there on the Thousand Sons being overpriced and no change in the new codex, but being a long time Thousand Sons player it doesn’t matter much to me. I like them, that’s why I play them and have put so much time into them. Over the course of codex’s and BRB editions I still always find time to make my Thousand Sons work for me while maintaining 100% fluff.

sadly Tzeench didnt get much love in the new codex.

I think to be fluffy AND have a chance to win you might want to consider

2 sorcs one in TDA and one on a bike

Fairsized terminator squad on foot with MoT

Spawn(very tzeenchy)

1 unit of Tsons on foot

2 units of CSM on foot, painted like tzeench but not MoT


Pair with either:
a primus psyker, psyker battle squad and some IG cultists(love dem flamers)
Tzeench Daemons (love dem OP flamers)

You can still bring vehicles and such, since the rubric marines still have all the skill and knowledge of the original marine (read "Battle for the Fang" if you havn't, solid book and has some nice moments where you get to see rubric marines from the point of the enemy), 100 points for a pred with twin-linked lascannon can probably pop a transport or two before going down. Also, anything in the codex that has the daemon rule should be ok, since the changer of way can mutate creatures in so many wonderful ways. Lastly, allied daemons.

 Limbo wrote:
You can still bring vehicles and such, since the rubric marines still have all the skill and knowledge of the original marine (read "Battle for the Fang" if you havn't, solid book and has some nice moments where you get to see rubric marines from the point of the enemy), 100 points for a pred with twin-linked lascannon can probably pop a transport or two before going down. Also, anything in the codex that has the daemon rule should be ok, since the changer of way can mutate creatures in so many wonderful ways. Lastly, allied daemons.

while the Tsons do have all their old vehicles, my impression was that they rarely used them. Also it doesnt really fit with what they want to do, they have great relentless shooting from 4++ termites and from Tsons squads that want to be outside of transports. Once you have a lot of stuff outside it is probably best to just get rid of all vehicles period.

Just play a regular csm army with thousand sons models. Or play GK even, whatever.

Almarine wrote:
Just play a regular csm army with thousand sons models. Or play GK even, whatever.

yeah actually the coolest tzeench army I ever saw was a GK army

Well, I don't own any chaos daemons, but it does seem like now is the time to get them. Flamers and Screamers seem to be really effective now.

I actually like the idea of using IG allies and just using cultists to represent the guardsmen with a primaris pskyer that I can just kit-bash into some crazy, psychic cult leader. Both are an intriguing idea.

You could use a squad of sorcerers as havocs and just say their "powers" had the same effect as whatever heavy weapon they are wielding. As long as you let your opponent know what weapons they are representing (they may have to all have the same weapon for simplicity) and it is clear which is the champion it would be a fluffy way of including heavy weapon infantry in your army.

You could do the same for raptors by making sorcerers on disks of tzeench.

Don't see why rubric marines couldn't use autocannons if they're slinging bolters at bs4.

 edbradders wrote:
You could use a squad of sorcerers as havocs and just say their "powers" had the same effect as whatever heavy weapon they are wielding. As long as you let your opponent know what weapons they are representing (they may have to all have the same weapon for simplicity) and it is clear which is the champion it would be a fluffy way of including heavy weapon infantry in your army.

You could do the same for raptors by making sorcerers on disks of tzeench.

I think a better idea would be tzeenchy oblitorators out of crazy psykers with psykic force shields(2+ saves). Something like hovering psykers in glass cylanders. Might be hard to model the powerfist, but otherwise it would be awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djdutton wrote:
Well, I don't own any chaos daemons, but it does seem like now is the time to get them. Flamers and Screamers seem to be really effective now.

I actually like the idea of using IG allies and just using cultists to represent the guardsmen with a primaris pskyer that I can just kit-bash into some crazy, psychic cult leader. Both are an intriguing idea.

yeah tzeench daemons are crazy good, but for me tzeench armies should have lots of mutant psykers drawn to them. The primus and psyker battle squad arent great, but they can be ok too and it allows you to take some cultists(IS or Vets)

 edbradders wrote:
You could use a squad of sorcerers as havocs and just say their "powers" had the same effect as whatever heavy weapon they are wielding. As long as you let your opponent know what weapons they are representing (they may have to all have the same weapon for simplicity) and it is clear which is the champion it would be a fluffy way of including heavy weapon infantry in your army.

You could do the same for raptors by making sorcerers on disks of tzeench.

Some pretty awesome modelling ideas. Ok, so my burning passion for tzeentch has been reignited! (and it burns pink and blue)

I'm trying to think of some ways to do some disk raptors, maybe some with wings from the possessed kit as a mutation and some havocs modeled as sorcerers, probably all with autocannons for simplicity. I know this isn't really a tactics discussion anymore, but I would still love to hear some tactical suggestions and, of course, any conversion suggestions.

With the new codex you can run any of the Chaos Legions as a pure list except thousand sons, so basically No there is not fight left in a thousand sons army, to be competitive you would have to branch out heavily to the point where your *insert name* renegades featuring some thousand sons stuff.

Honestly just ask the people where you play if you can just use the 3rd Ed codex for thousand sons. (because everyone loves Sorc. spam)

Thousand sons still work. I recommend a sorcerer with the brand or completely tricked out with level 3, MOT, sigil and spell familliar over arhiman any day.

Use your possessed, one thing tzeentch lists lack is a good melee unit, with fleet and their boosted invul possessed are wrecking balls on the field.

Also don't use just one vindicator or just one defiler, they don't do much alone, but with friends (ie more than one) they do well.

To give you an idea of the tzeentch lists I've been running, and winning with, even against nids were our powers are crap, please view the following:


I've had great success with these, mostly because I can leave the cultists at home and march forward. Use them as inspiration for pulling a win with your guys.

As far as tactics, remember that thousand sons will die to massed fire, and only massed fire/melee. With this in mind, use your thousand sons to stay away from the enemy while at the same time keeping the fire going. The primary tzeetch power is excellent for taking out hordes btw.

Oblits are oblits, there isn't much to say about them, just keep shooting and assault when necessary.

For possessed, just keep them near your important units and go lock something in melee for the rest of the game. You will probably kill whatever it is no problem, possessed have a nasty habit of killing anything expect dreads, don't forget that.

And finally the sorcerers. Choose your powers wisely, biomancy may be the thing everyone screams about, but properly used telepathy powers make all the difference. Power number 6 is my favorite as it normally knocks something out of the game for a full turn. Number 5 is good too, but thousand sons don't need it, however putting that on possessed is just funny. Don't discount the usage of power number 1, removing fearless and counting everything as having fear is wonderful. Nothing like a fearful swarmlord in melee with my possessed. Finally don't discount puppet master, that enemy tank over there really want's to shoot his own side, trust me.