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The Flesh-Change (1CP)
Thousand Sons Stratagem

The flesh-change that afflicts the Thousand Sons has been embraced by most of the Legion’s sorcerous brethren – some of whom Tzeentch rewards, others he punishes…

Use this Stratagem at the start of any phase. Pick a THOUSAND SONS INFANTRY CHARACTER from your army (you cannot choose a DAEMON). That character is slain, but you can add a GIANT CHAOS SPAWN to your army. If you do so, set up the Giant Chaos Spawn within 6" of the character before removing them as a casualty. You cannot set up the Giant Chaos Spawn within 1" of an enemy unit unless the character was also within 1" of that unit. Roll one D3, plus an extra D3 for every Wound that character had remaining: this is the number of Wounds the Giant Chaos Spawn has. A Giant Chaos Spawn created in this manner has the THOUSAND SONS and TZEENTCH keywords, and does not cost any reinforcement points in a matched play game. You can only use this Stratagem once per battle.

I always found The Flesh-Change kind of disappointing just because there was very little reason to use it – the only scenario was if you had a character who had been charged and was absolutely going to die this turn, in which case you could "kill" him anyway and get a free Chaos Spawn outside of the combat. It didn't scale to the power of the character, and there aren't any characters who'd be more useful as Chaos Spawn in basically any situation, with the sole exception of a Tzaangor Shaman in combat with no Tzaangors nearby (which seems unlikely).

Swapping it to Forge World's Giant Chaos Spawn means it's rather more attractive on a 1-wound near-death Sorcerer. You're getting -1 AP on your attacks, and your Movement is a garbage 1D6"... but your Strength is up by +2 on average, you retain your Invulnerable save, and you get twice the attacks compared to an actual Chaos Spawn. That's actually something worth swapping out for. Now if, say, your Exalted Sorcerer undergoes the Flesh-Change at full wounds, you're getting a Giant Chaos Spawn with 6d3 wounds. Which is hilarious.

It also means that a 1-wound Sorcerer who turns into a 2D3 wounds Giant Chaos Spawn to escape combat can, in theory, regenerate a few Wounds before you fling him into the fight – especially with Temporal Manipulation on hand.

I think 2CP would be too much, honestly, but I'm not sure if 1CP is too little, all things considered. Thoughts?

So, for 1 CP, you get 30 free points, at worst.

I dunno... This seems too powerful to me.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, for 1 CP, you get 30 free points, at worst.

I dunno... This seems too powerful to me.

Well, it still eats a HQ slot and loses any Relics, Warlord Traits, psychic powers, auras, etc.

The cheapest Thousand Sons characters are the Sorcerer (98pts, HQ) and the Tzaangor Shaman (92pts, Elite). They're both 4-wounds, so if you pop this at the start of the battle before they've taken any damage, you are looking at a Giant Chaos Spawn with 5d3 wounds; or 10 wounds on average, which is a full-strength 150-point model. So it's more like a "free" 50-60 points/CP, in the best case scenario.

That's about as efficient as the CP/point exchange rate on Chaos Space Marines for Red Corsairs (with at least 10 dudes) or Chaos Cultists for Tide of Traitors. The key difference is that those "refresh" an existing unit rather than swapping out for a very different unit. Also that those place the new unit on a board edge, rather than in the same spot; this is both more flexible and more inflexible, so I'm tempted to call it a wash.

So this should absolutely be 1/battle, just like those two other Stratagems. Thank you for bringing up the comparison!

Eh... I still don't like it.

Tide of Traitors and its ilk have counterplay. You can wipe the squad before it gets used, and there's a risk/reward between letting a squad get low and risk losing it before you can use the strat and using it early when it's less powerful.

Whereas this can basically read as "For 1 CP, one of your Elite Choices costs 58 points less or an HQ choice costs 52 points less." Since it's activated at the start of literally ANY phase, you can use this at the start of any game, before your opponent has so much as moved, should they have a million and one snipers. Or, alternatively, if they lack snipers, you can move up with Character protection and then spontaneously Spawnify.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Eh... I still don't like it.

Tide of Traitors and its ilk have counterplay. You can wipe the squad before it gets used, and there's a risk/reward between letting a squad get low and risk losing it before you can use the strat and using it early when it's less powerful.

Whereas this can basically read as "For 1 CP, one of your Elite Choices costs 58 points less or an HQ choice costs 52 points less." Since it's activated at the start of literally ANY phase, you can use this at the start of any game, before your opponent has so much as moved, should they have a million and one snipers. Or, alternatively, if they lack snipers, you can move up with Character protection and then spontaneously Spawnify.

Ah, that's true. I would personally prefer a version of Tide of Traitors etc that just lets you recycle a unit even if it's destroyed - the current version feels more like a cheeky workaround of the current reinforcement points rules - but I can certainly appreciate that it introduces a risk-reward mechanic to the Stratagem. If you use it when the unit's at full strength, you get nothing, and it becomes more and more valuable the weaker and weaker the unit becomes... until it's wiped out and you can't use it at all.

By contrast, introducing a variable number of wounds to the Giant Chaos Spawn means you actually have a reason to use it on someone who's not at 1 Wound... but it also means the "reward" factor is lowered, and the fact that you can use it whenever you like reduces the "risk" factor, too. You can use it at any time, but you have no particular incentive to use it at any specific time. It can't even be compared to "upgrade" Stratagems that might have a similar effective points value, since you can use it mid-game. The official Flesh-Change follows the Tide of Traitors model, in that you get the same benefit regardless of your character's Wounds, so it's better to use it on weakened characters... it's just that the benefit is so crap it's dubious whether there's even any point using it except in specific edge-case scenarios.

So I'm left with a few options, I guess.

1) Remove the Wound-scaling aspect, and have the Stratagem create a Giant Chaos Spawn with 2D3 or 3D3 Wounds, every time. This solves the risk-reward aspect, but loses what made the GCS attractive for this modified Stratagem in the first place: its wound-scaling.

2) Turn this into a different Stratagem with a more restrictive use-case, e.g. perhaps it only triggers on a Perils? This solves the risk-reward aspect by moving it out of your control, but means it's just a safety net rather than active tactical tool.

3) Make it more expensive and/or make the GCS weaker-per-Wound. This is fine, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of it being kind of boring.

4) Turn this into a totally different Stratagem with a greater cost and more power, e.g. re-roll one die in a Psychic test until you hit a double, and every discarded die adds up to the Wounds of the Chaos Spawn you create.

5) Abandon the whole idea and just somehow buff the original Chaos Spawn Stratagem.

Going to have to think this one over.

Examples of what I'm talking about:
"Use this Stratagem at the start of your Psychic phase. Pick a THOUSAND SONS PSYKER (other than a DAEMON or TZAANGOR) from your army. For the rest of the phase, that model's psychic tests are automatically treated as rolls of double 6. If the model is killed as a result of Perils of the Warp, you can add a TZEENTCH Chaos Spawn to your army. If you do so, set up the Chaos Spawn within 6" of the character before removing them as a casualty. You cannot set up the Chaos Spawn within 1" of an enemy unit unless the character was also within 1" of that unit. A Chaos Spawn created in this manner does not cost any reinforcement points in a matched play game."

"Use this Stratagem at the start of any phase. Pick a THOUSAND SONS INFANTRY CHARACTER from your army (you cannot choose a DAEMON). That character is slain, but you can add a GIANT CHAOS SPAWN to your army. If you do so, set up the Giant Chaos Spawn within 6" of the character before removing them as a casualty. You cannot set up the Giant Chaos Spawn within 1" of an enemy unit unless the character was also within 1" of that unit. Roll 2D3: this is the number of Wounds the Giant Chaos Spawn has. A Giant Chaos Spawn created in this manner has the THOUSAND SONS and TZEENTCH keywords, and does not cost any reinforcement points in a matched play game. You can only use this Stratagem once per battle."

Hell no on the first. That’s an auto pass with virtually no chance of denial on any powers.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Hell no on the first. That’s an auto pass with virtually no chance of denial on any powers.

Yeah, no, I meant it more as a general example of "get psychic boost in exchange for becoming Spawn". The phase-long aspect being that stronger psykers get more out of it, but obviously you don't want them turning into Spawn or losing wounds.

Honestly, I think this concept might just need to go to bed. I really liked the idea of combining the Giant Chaos Spawn's variable statline with Flesh-Change to solve the twin problems that it's a) only ever useful as an emergency "this guy's dead anyway" button, b) not a very good emergency button anyway... but you've pointed out enough problems with the core concept that I don't see how to salvage it. That flat 2D3 wounds version is the only one that actually seems okay, and it's just Flesh-Change with a statline boost.

My suggestion to it.

When a t sons psyker dies for 1 cp you summon a chaos spawn. If the caster died to a perals of the warp, set up a giant chaos spawn. These do not cost reenforcement points


Keeps it balanced and keeps it more fluffy as well.