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Author Topic: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts  (Read 7463 times)

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Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #20 on: December 8, 2016, 10:49:15 AM »
Well, the list you describe I still insist would be overall better by *not* taking Magnus. It doesn't really bear a good resemblance to the list you originally described, though. I mean, unless you're playing at 2500 points or higher. There's just no earthly way you can afford all that stuff. 2000 points is *literally* the virtual minimum (assuming you aren't taking Lv 1 Chaos Sorcerers).

Anyway, feel free to post the lists. I'd be happy to take a gander.  :)

I've got strong feelings on Summoning, as I've been trying to get it to work for a couple years now and I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it doesn't help half as much as we imagine, but I'll save that for another thread. The short version is that Summoning is all well and good if you don't need the psychic phase to replace all your heavy weaponry. If you DO (like any pure Ksons or Tzeentch Daemons list does), you end up hurting yourself in the early game.

Anyway, anyway, let's chat about the Psychic Powers, Warlord Traits, and Relics:

The Warlord Table
Is okay. Not crazy good, but has some handy things in there (the Master of the Webway or whatever is pretty cool, as is the extra power and the difficult terrain bubble). I think an aside needs to be made here about Ahriman's "Master of Deception" ability: the new FAQ, which has clarified just how poorly Infiltrate can be applied to units containing ICs, creates a lot of problems for Ahriman. Any Ksons list is going to have a bunch of IC sorcerers wandering around, and they will want to hide in units. Once they hide in units, it becomes very difficult for Ahriman to get that unit to Infiltrate, which sort of renders one of his best abilities worthless. That is a pretty major bummer in my opinion.

Lore of Tzeentch
I actually don't like the new lore much at all, and here's why: my odds of getting Doombolt (the only good power) have been cut in half. It would have been one thing if the three new powers were *as good* as Doombolt, but they just plain aren't. The best of them--the Treason of Tzeentch--is pretty good until you consider the WC cost (steep!) and the fact that it only targets non-vehicle units. In my metagame, I run into a lot of vehicles, which makes it hard to use that one sometimes. Siphon Magic is so-so, if you position the sorcerer right and can get it off on one die (spell familiars, some other kind of boost), but you need to do it on a guy who has the extra powers to make it worth it to exploit. The one where you hit somebody and maybe Spawnify them is okay--certainly takeable--but in every single instance I'd rather have Doombolt.

Side note: has the *requirement* to take one power from the Lore of Tzeentch ever been FAQed away or anything, or am I still forced in perpetuity to waste a psychic power slot on a stupid roll on the Tzeentch table? If I had to pick one rule I hate the most in the CSM codex, that's the one. 

Sinistrum
This is an okay lore if you expect to face psychics across the table. Otherwise I wouldn't bother--the odds of you getting the really cool powers on this lore are too low to put up with all the psychic specific ones if, indeed, you are not dealing with any enemy psychics.

Heretech
I love this one simply for the fact that the Ksons have always struggled to get any kind of decent anti-tank weaponry or psychic powers on the board. The Primaris power is pretty great.

Ectomancy
(Might be getting the name wrong there). I like this one a lot, actually--a lot of useful powers, a lot of cool movement abilities. Not much I don't like. The Primaris is pretty solid against light infantry, too, which is nice.

Geomancy
(again, I think I have the name wrong) This is a really interesting one. Writhing Worldscape (where you move terrain) is freaking awesome and a lot of the other ones have significant tactical applications if used cleverly. Don't know that I'd spend all my psychic rolls here, but I definitely would spend some.

Gotta run--will discuss Relics later...

Offline MagicJuggler

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #21 on: December 8, 2016, 12:25:54 PM »
I don't believe it's been FAQd, yet though let's see what Traitor Legions does?

I generally agree that the points required to get a lot of Warp charge generally outpace the payoff. Daemons can get a free pass due to lots of fast multi-wound models with redundant layers of defense (Screamers and Plague Drones), but 1k Sons...don't have that.

While improved BS is nice for small-scale witchfires, it doesn't do anything for Beams, Shriek, etc. I imagine smaller Sorcerer units will be the norm, or maybe Bike escorts from a vanilla CAD.

The Exalted Sorcerers look like they're mostly there for some melee warding, more than anything else. I could see them being interesting with the Cult of Destruction for an "Oblit-Star" build but otherwise, meh.

Edit: The more I think of it, especially compared to what 1k Sons sacrifice in order to take their Grand Coven, the more I think that their detachment bonus should have been "+1 Mastery Level" for all their characters, rather than "an additional spell." If I face down a Grand Coven, I would be cool with my opponent using that houserule. Currently I'm working on updating my Traitors Hate army for Word Bearers.
« Last Edit: December 9, 2016, 07:41:34 AM by MagicJuggler »

Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #22 on: December 9, 2016, 09:00:13 AM »
Edit: The more I think of it, especially compared to what 1k Sons sacrifice in order to take their Grand Coven, the more I think that their detachment bonus should have been "+1 Mastery Level" for all their characters, rather than "an additional spell." If I face down a Grand Coven, I would be cool with my opponent using that houserule. Currently I'm working on updating my Traitors Hate army for Word Bearers.

Yes yes yes. The current Grand Coven rules are pretty lame. Re-rolling Perils is nice, but you're still suffering Perils and few of those choices are "good." The extra spell to cast thing is pointless, since you will pretty much never be in a position where you will run out of spells to cast *before* you run out of warp dice. Well, unless everybody's locked in combat, but then you're more or less screwed anyway.

I think the only house rule I'd push for (and I may just) is removing the stupid requirement to take a spell from the Tzeentch Lore while *also forbidding* you to take more than half your spells from said lore. It's basically a rule saying "no psychic focus for any of you losers!" That sucks big-time.

Relics
I haven't looked at the book in a day or two now, so my memory is slightly fuzzy, but here's my thoughts on the new Ksons Relics.

Seer's Bane
This is a pretty sweet piece of kit. You're knocking down almost anybody with this thing, though you need to pay a pretty penny for it. Ld10 doesn't quite grow on trees anymore, so slicing through Greater Daemons, for instance, just got a hell of a lot easier. You could make relatively short work of a Wraithknight with this thing. I like it. Of course, it costs in an army that has very few points to spare, so I can't say I'd be fielding it often.

Athanaean Scrolls
This has been getting all the press and I can see the appeal, but it seems awfully fiddly to me. Consider this: in order for it to work, you need some kind of doubles to appear on the dice. In order for this to actually be feasible, that means this is probably a power where you're rolling 4+ dice. In those instances, you are very frequently rolling sufficient successes that your opponent won't even bother trying to Deny, since the odds of success are so low. Instead they're just going to save their dice to deny one or two of your low-wattage witchfire attempts, at which they will be modestly successful. The exception of this is using it as a way to get around lots of enemy psychics boosting Deny rolls for their units. So, you know, it's *okay,* but not an auto-take.

Astral Grimoire
The idea of Jump Scarab Occult Terminators appeals to me. It appeals to me a lot. This is a nice, fluffy way to add mobility to a sadly very static army. You've got to shell out for a pretty expensive IC to get it, but you have to do that all the time anyway in this army.

Helm of the Third Eye
This is pretty okay. It becomes down right special if, for some crazy reason, you're putting Warpflamers in your Rubric units. That would be the optimal build, in my opinion, but, again, the overall cost of everything makes that an expensive and doubtfully useful proposition. If you're taking one giant unit of Rubrics with 3-4 Warpflamers in them, then yeah, I guess this would be boss. I don't see it as super useful elsewhere.

Staff or Arcane Compulsion
This is actually pretty sweet. It's cheap and adds a very handy bonus to the unit its in. Of all the relics, this would probably be the one I end up taking most often, given that it's affordable and a nice way to make assaulting my rubrics more inconvenient.

Coruscator
Yeah, this is so-so. I'm really not crazy about small blast templates unless you can drop them in groups of 3+, so I'm doubtful I'd bother with this. This, like the Helm and the Scrolls, would fall into the category of "if I had points laying around." This is the Thousand Sons we're talking about, though, so that's never going to happen. 

Offline MagicJuggler

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #23 on: December 9, 2016, 03:34:33 PM »
They removed the "more than half" restriction for Legions, so there's that.

The Third Eye is a cute relic if you're trying to make an Obliterator deathstar I suppose. The Anathean Scrolls are cute if you're running Telepathy for those Maledictions, as you will want to toss multiple dice at such powers anyway and Deathstars do tend to have extra defense. It could be funny to have an entire Barkbarkstar bite Azrael so they lose their 4++ and FNP :D

Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #24 on: December 9, 2016, 07:00:32 PM »
It's not *really* the no more than half that bothers me, it's the no less than one. But yeah, that is something.


Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #25 on: December 9, 2016, 10:38:18 PM »
I just finished reading 'Wrath of Magnus', and it is a fun read. I caved in and bought the digital download of the book. Lots of excitement, and a planet explodes and some folks die. There are (IMO) three really big things that come out of the book, which I'm excited to see effect the future of the game.

The Tzeentch Warp Table is hilarious and goofy, I love it. Also, I'm starting to get an itch to maybe starting the Space Egyptians too. Uh oh.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #26 on: December 10, 2016, 08:33:56 AM »
Also, I'm starting to get an itch to maybe starting the Space Egyptians too. Uh oh.

My sympathies.
Great fluff, okay rules, too many damned points.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #27 on: December 10, 2016, 09:22:22 AM »
To be fair, I do kind of like the Scarab Occult Terminators as a support-piece, in theory.

There is a funny fringe-case use for the Coruscator in a Terminator Annihilation Force, where you can technically replace your HQs combi-bolter with it so you get the extra melee attack and can fire it twice on your DS turn.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #28 on: December 13, 2016, 03:32:00 AM »
I finally managed to try the new rules last weekend - it's just amazing! Yes, the Sons are still pricey. I didn't even bother with the new weapons the rubrics can have etc. And on paper, the Scarab termies were also not so impressive.

But the new psychic powers make for an extremely flexible armory. E.g. if you're facing a lot of tanks, take Heretech, etc.

The new Thousand Sons rock! And while they rocked in CSM3.5, this time they rock with fluff and in style. The new powers are amazing, and the Sons cast them very well. Some of the old tactical challenges with the Thousand Sons have at long last been fixed - e.g. anti-tank: check out Heretech!

And it all comes together really nicely on the table. Yes, there is a huge over-reliance on the psychic phase. But it's such a great force multiplier. My first-cut 1850 list is a War Cabal with Ahriman, Exhalted Sorcerer (level 3 with Seer's Bane) and 8 Sons in a Land Raider (pretty cool to have 3 sorcerers disembark), 5 Scarab Termies with a heavy warpflamer in a Land Raider, 9 Thousand Sons on foot and a Heldrake.

The way the psychic powers work off manouver and shooting and charging is really nice.

But one thing's for sure, the Sons are still not for beginners, by far
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #29 on: December 13, 2016, 09:57:50 AM »
*If* the psychic phase behaves itself, then yeah, it's great. The trouble is the levels of uncertainty between you and a functional psychic phase. And relying on the psychic phase to kill any and all tanks is a rough place to be in.

At 1850 or higher, I can see you getting some workable builds functioning. Still, that's only 5 units. How well that will do depends a lot on the opponent you're matched against. Against some folks (Battle Company comes to mind) you literally will be unable to do enough damage to remove them from objectives, Heretech or no Heretech.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #30 on: December 14, 2016, 10:07:01 PM »
Against some folks (Battle Company comes to mind) you literally will be unable to do enough damage to remove them from objectives, Heretech or no Heretech.

Yup, them's the breaks, and has always been with the Thousand Sons. Still, while WOM has been largely under-whelming, it is a relatively huge boost for the Thousand Sons. And no, it won't bring my Thousand Sons win record to its old amazing CSM 3.5 self, but it does make things a lot (relatively) better.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #31 on: December 15, 2016, 06:35:23 AM »
On that, I'd broadly agree. They are better, if only for the formation bonuses. My problem, ultimately, is there isn't much in here to compensate for their glaring weaknesses.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #32 on: December 15, 2016, 11:38:27 AM »
There are a lot of...questionable things about Thousand Sons.

-Why aren't regular Marines in a 1k Sons Detachment Fearless/S&P? We know that Rubric Marines can be re-animated, with successively weaker incarnations. Plus it would allow for stuff like Thousand Son Devestators/generic Terminators.
-Why can't the Grand Coven take Cultists? What about ye Olde Spireguard?
-Why is the Exalted Sorcerer's Lord of the Silver Tower ability not a barrage? The fluff describes it as a beam from above, but nothing otherwise.
-Why are 3 of the formations just xerox "Boss and 3-9 Sorcerers that conditionally manifest powers on 3+?" Where's the originality, GW?
-Why are the core formations so restrictive/bland? Why even bother with a Grand Coven if you don't take Ahriman or Magnus?

Etc, etc.

I've been drafting rules for redoing them and posted them on the Forge.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #33 on: December 15, 2016, 11:09:27 PM »
Yeah, the redundancies between the War Coven, Ahriman's Exiles, and Rehati War Sect is a bit perplexing. Of the three, I think Ahriman's exiles is the most useful, but it is prohibitively expensive. Not so much as the War Sect (I mean, COME ON), but the War Coven's only harnessing on 3s with *one* lore is kinda dumb. Granted, we'd all like an army of nothing but invisible dudes, but the odds are against you on that ever happening.

Yeah, Cultists would have been nice. I think, at minimum, the Tzaangor Warherd should have been a Core choice and Tzaangors should have been available to the War Cabal. I'd love to take 10 or maybe 20 Tzaangors, but the odds of me wanting three groups of 10 is kinda low. They just aren't all that useful.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #34 on: December 16, 2016, 07:58:42 AM »
The re-rolling 1's for saves can be really good, especially when you pump up their inv. saves to a 3+. however, The fact you need to take the full allotment of units to achieve this is crazy restrictive. I tried making lists using the war coven as the core, with max units and almost no upgrades, and it was nearly 1500pts right there :(
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #35 on: December 16, 2016, 09:23:33 AM »
Yeah, the Favored of Tzeentch rule is unusable. You can only practically do it on the Warherd, and rerolling 1s on a 6+ save is stupid.

(Incidentally, I think you might be mixing up the War Coven with the War *Cabal*)

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #36 on: December 16, 2016, 11:39:03 AM »
It's crazy. A Grand Coven has a Cabal as a Core and Coven as an Auxiliary, with the Cabal being rank-and-file troops, while Black Legion have a Cabal (not a Coven) which is just a lot of Sorcerers, like the War Coven (not Cabal).

I know. I got confused the first time around.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #37 on: December 16, 2016, 11:41:26 AM »
Yeah, me too--I keep double-checking the book to make sure.

GW seems to have very little idea of what those words are supposed to mean, so they've been using them somewhat interchangeably. To everyone's mutual confusion. 

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #38 on: December 20, 2016, 08:59:14 AM »
I picked up my own copy of Traitor Legions this weekend and have a more complete picture of everything Chaos Marines get, and it's then I noticed that one little thing that arguably makes Rubric Marines  worse.

In the codex, the Aspiring Sorcerer can take a Force Weapon.

With their new kit, the Aspiring Sorcerer automatically has a Force Stave.

In the softer games where I considered running small Rubric units, I would imagine using the Sorcerer with a Force Axe, so his unit could act as a "breacher team" of sort, and that the Sorcerer could at least pretend to threaten a Riptide if he could actually get into melee with it (as ID AP 2 would have been a thing). Instead, this option was arbitrarily removed in exchange for them getting new wargear "upgrades" nobody wanted.

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Re: The New Thousand Sons: Initial Thoughts
« Reply #39 on: December 20, 2016, 09:47:22 AM »
Yup. Noted that as well.

Granted, the Force Staff has its uses--the High Strength makes them a credible assault threat against most vehicles, instakilling Eldar w/o Force is nice, and the AP is sufficient against a lot of the enemies in my metagame (mostly Eldar, Orks), but yeah--that sucks. I used to run one with an axe and one with a staff, but now I'm stuck with staves. 

 


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