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Author Topic: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army  (Read 5621 times)

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Offline Wyddr

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Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« on: June 24, 2016, 09:39:46 AM »
So, Vonny just reached out to me and asked how I won games with a pure Ksons list. I should hasten to note that I haven't played Ksons in 7th Edition (for reasons I feel are abundantly clear), but I'm happy to lay out the basic philosophies, anyway.

The Rules of the Theme
So, my personal thematic rules for playing Ksons (and, I should note, there is literally *no* reason to play Ksons if you don't play themed. None whatsoever) are as follows:

  • Thousand Sons (and Cultists) are your only troops.
  • As strong a psychic phase as you can manage.
  • Everything that can gets the Mark of Tzeentch. No other marks. No Undivided.

So, this means no Plague Marines/Noise Marines/CSMs/Berserkers.
I should also add that this is not a good army list. It's going to suck. In a competitive 7th Ed environment (read: BONKERS), you will get massively curb-stomped. Have the decency to paint up a pretty force so you get compliments before they all die.

How I Did It/Would Do It
To my mind, the Ksons should be powerful, slow, and full of psychic trickery. In 6th Edition, I did this with Ahriman (who is expensive, but as a high BS psyker who can triple tap powers, he's AWESOME), two 9-strong units of Ksons, a bunch of daemon engines (Defiler, Forgefiend), some Rhinos, and a small allied contingent of Tzeentch Daemons (10-12 Horrors, Lord of Change).

This list netted me 10-11 Warp Charge, much of which I used to summon more units. Or, barring that, I was a big fan of the Portalglyph for bringing in tiny units of Horrors. Fun fact: 1 horror has exactly as much psychic firepower as 10 horrors. More psychic dice meant more psychic shooting, and the list is *entirely* reliant on psychic shooting. That sucks most of the time, but when it works...hoo boy, it's nice.

The Daemon Engines are the fire support, basically. They can also assist in assault. Were I to play Ksons in this edition, I would 100% field a Renegade Knight of some kind, as this both fits with the theme and fits the tactical role. Forgefiends and Defilers and Knights and Maulerfiends bombard/tie up the enemy in assaults. If they die, they die, but I've found those units to be surprisingly durable most of the time, so long as they aren't being smacked around by chainfists or Strength D shenanigans.

The Thousand Sons/Rubric Marines take Rhinos with Havoc Launchers (because any real long range firepower is a huge benefit) and their job is to amble up to midfield objectives, getting their psykers in range of things. Thanks to Ahriman, they can frequently Infiltrate forward and, also thanks to Ahriman, they can sometimes wind up Shrouded or Invisible. They can't break, they have robust invul saves, have objective secured, and work as a pretty sweet shield for a hidden force weapon. They are WAY overpriced for what they do, but we're playing a theme, here. I've got an article on the front page describing their worth in greater detail, and it *mostly* stands in this edition.

That leaves the psychics.

How To Manage the Thrice-Damned Psychic Phase
The psychic phase will either bless you with an embarrassment of riches or screw you over royally. This varies from turn to turn, game to game. Get used to it.

First, the Tzeentch powers:
  • NEVER take Boon of Tzeentch. Never. It sucks, sucks, sucks.
  • The Primaris power will never kill anything. I've played this army for a while now, and it literally never has.
  • You want BOLT OF TZEENTCH because beam powers are the best thing ever. They can't miss, and taking any uncertainty out of the psychic phase is an unadulterated boon.
  • Wind of Chaos (or whatever the flamer power is called these days) has a Warp Charge a bit too high for what it does, but if and when you paste a squad of Wraithguard with it, you won't be crying too many tears.[/i]
If a psyker has a bum power, just don't use them. Use your warp charge dice on powers that are good. Which brings me to Ahriman.

Ahriman's Powers:
  • Go Telepathy first. Take psychic shriek and then pray for Invisibility or Shrouding. Psychic Shriek is pretty fantabulous, honestly, since Ahriman can cast it REDACTED times, which will whittle down wounds on even Gargantuan Creatures pretty quickly or absolutely devastate mid-leadership squads.
  • Ahriman *has* to take one Tzeentch power (stupid, stupid rule), so pray for the Beam power.
  • If you have a power left over, consider biomancy just for Smite, which is pretty sweet with Ahriman's boosted BS and special abilities.


Finally, your Horrors and Lord of Change should either take the new Lore of Change (which is incredibly awesome) or Malefic Daemonology.

About Summoning things:
  • Sacrifice is a great value! Sacrifice one horror for one Herald of Tzeentch w/an extra level and it is pure profit. Do it as often as you can!
  • Summoning costs more Warp Charge than it is worth (usually), but Incursion is great. A free unit of Bloodcrushers is a game changer, no lie.
  • Possession seems like fun, but it also brings an FMC onto the board in his undies while the rest of the enemy army can just blast him to oblivion OR he will be flying and it will take him 3 damned turns to assault something. Not recommended.

So, there you are--that's the basic plan. Is it a good plan? Hell no! You have very little assault recourse (well, Maulerfiends and Knights, I suppose), very little mobility, and you have to pin your hopes on the psychic phase. That said, if you like living dangerously and are playing in a friendly group/league that isn't walloping you with the Superfriends or silly Eldar shenanigans every game, it can be a lot of fun.

Offline Irisado

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2016, 10:19:26 AM »
I miss your battle reports using Thousand Sons.  They were my favourites from your sixth edition series.  I think that you need to field them in seventh edition, even if it is a total disaster, just because they are the most interesting and narrative rich Chaos Space Marine army in the game, in my opinion.

Very sage advice on the psychic powers.  This is clearly the most critical aspect of putting the army together, which is why the army is so inconsistent to field.

I agree that you've got the thematic constraints spot on.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2016, 11:12:38 AM »
Thanks!

I'm honestly waiting to see when/if the CSM codex is updated. Then I'll look into taking a Renegade/Traitor Knight, just to make the list partially relevant. This might excise the Daemon elements of the list, but it would keep it in-theme.

I've also always wanted to try a group of Tzeentch Terminators with a Terminator Sorcerer. By all accounts not a great plan for a unit, but it might be fun.

The single thing holding me back, though, is the absolutely ABYSMAL CSM psychic powers coupled with the fact that you HAVE to take one. So, so bad.

Offline vonny

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2016, 05:20:55 AM »
Well, being the instigator of this topic, I figure I should chime in.

I never really liked fielding daemons much. Until I read the Ahriman trilogy, I figured most of them would stay far clear of them (and after reading the Ahriman trilogy, I'm fairly certain most do. But that one guy who didn't, whooo boy). For this same reason I've never really looked into daemon engines, as I couldn't see the 1ksons binding the unreliable daemons to constructs.

So, this left me with very little to chose from. I fielded Ahriman too, because his warlord trait allowed for some shenenigans as well as his psychic prowess being the thing to carry the army... if you roll well. It's just a pity you can't buy a spell familiar for him, because that makes a normal lvl 3 sorceror more reliable, just not able to cast the same witchfire three times in a row.

as well as some 1ksons units of course. What else to field in a 1ksons army?

I never put havoc missile launchers on my rhinos. I felt anti-infantry power wasn't what I was lacking (we'll get to that later) but it's something to think about.

So, for my ranged firepower, I went with a couple of predators (fairly good anti-vehicle weapons) and some obliterators. I hear you think: obliterators, but allow me to explain. Back in 5th I think it was, the mark of Tzeentch made you automatically pass any psychic test. As uninspired as always, most of the Tzeentch powers were pew pew, so why not have a bunch of Thousand Sons sorcerors in terminator armour who could do various pew pew as well? Hence, oblits. Currently, I'm very tempted to give them the mark of nurgle and explain their increased toughness away with more psychic might, as it's both better and cheaper than the mark of Tzeentch.

this would just about round out around 1200 pts, and I never knew what to do with the extra 300 to make it nice and round 1500 pts (what was usually played here at the time), but it remained a difficult army to wield.

After reading the first book from the ahriman trilogy, I thought: maybe I can run some 'allies', some other warbands of chaos that Ahriman attracted or pulled strings on and is now using for his own machinations. While I like the idea of being able to build more pretty chaos things (because there's so much to discover conversion and painting wise), I never knew what kind of stuff I should add then, rules wise (havocs? melee units?), so I never got around to building anything.

It's funny to see how we all think differently on what a 1ksons warband would be like. I agree with Irisado though, it's just such a rich army in aesthetics and in lore, and especially the lore is what originally drew me to them.

Also: no pics here, right? Else I would've shown some of the stuff I've done already.

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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2016, 07:11:08 AM »
I *think* you can post pics here. Not sure.

Anyway, I would argue that you basically need daemon engines, at minimum. Daemons are a bit more optional (the psychic power they offer is second to none). They also aren't that far from the fluff, really--Ahriman has a reputation for manipulating daemons into doing his bidding and binding them to his will by his knowledge of their true names. It might be dangerous, sure, but Ahriman isn't swimming in other military options in this game.

Daemon engines are some of the best units in the CSM codex, and if you're going to dedicate a fair number of points to lousy Rubric Marines, you should really get something to make up for that.

Predators aren't terrible, but they also aren't great. They're a lot less flexible than Forgefiends, for one thing, and less mobile. And less shooty.

As for Havoc Launchers: The Thousand Sons have precious little anti-infantry firepower they can apply outside of a 30" bubble. That enemy objective in their backfield, squatted on by a combat squad, is basically never going to be in your sights unless you sacrifice a turn of Defiler firepower or something on it. That's where Havoc Launchers come in. They've seldom let me down. The Ksons suffer from an extreme lack of firepower (their units are too expensive to field very many of them, none of their core units can take heavy or special weapons), and Havoc launchers are a very cheap way to boost that.

As for Obliterators, I don't oppose them at all (I rationalize them as being versatile sorcerers). I don't take them just because the models are literally the ugliest things in the entire CSM line and I can't see spending money on something that looks like my dog ate it. They're great units, don't get me wrong, but until they get a resculpt or I find a suitable proxy model, I'm just not buying them. 

Offline Irisado

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2016, 07:16:26 AM »
The best place to post pictures to showcase your Chaos army is in this sticky topic.  It hasn't been posted in for a while and needs some love, if you've got pictures of your Chaos army that you want to share, please do so :).

I have to say that I agree about Obliterators.  You might be able to rationalise their inclusion, but models are just so ugly that I would never contemplate fielding them on that basis alone.  I'd rather use the Daemon Engines or the Predator for fire support.

Ahriman is the only special character I would ever use these days.  I'm not usually a fan of named characters, but his lore is marvellous and I am really interested in books and other extracts in which he features.  I also rather like the model.  I will get round to purchasing it one day.
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Offline vonny

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2016, 01:49:00 PM »
Thanks Irisado, I will post the pictures there. Check out my solution against the ugly obliterator models!

@Wyddr: I understand I'd need daemon engines to be more competetive: Like you said, they're more versatile and have more firepower and are quicker and are more durable than the tanks. I really can't figure out how to make it fit in the story. Unless perhaps they're 'allied' (as explained earlier) with some word bearers/iron warriors or something.
It would be so nice if you could add some heavy weapons (heavy bolter with ensorcelled bolts?) to the thousand sons squad, to make some more out of their slow and purposeful.

@Irisado: yes, Ahriman is my only special character as well :)
« Last Edit: June 25, 2016, 02:03:58 PM by vonny »
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Offline furryblueelf

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2016, 09:27:12 PM »
I like what you are doing good sir, for the love of 1kSons!
As for Obliterators, I use the FW Mechanicum Myrmidon Destructor models but have painted the weapons like many others do the ghosts for WHFB.  Corax white, oxide wash, etc, so they look like weapons have been manifested by the large cloaked sorcerer.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2016, 09:40:22 PM »
I like what you are doing good sir, for the love of 1kSons!
As for Obliterators, I use the FW Mechanicum Myrmidon Destructor models but have painted the weapons like many others do the ghosts for WHFB.  Corax white, oxide wash, etc, so they look like weapons have been manifested by the large cloaked sorcerer.

Hmmmm...not a bad proxy, I must say. They look *very* mechanicum, but with a little bit of swapping/modding, they might just work. Hmmmm...I'll have to consider this seriously...

Offline vonny

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2016, 12:21:03 PM »
Did you see the oblits in here, Wyddr? I know they technically should have powerfists...

Anyway, say we start with the basics: 2 squads of 1k sons, Ahriman, a pair of rhinos (with haco launchers), and, perhaps, three oblits. What would the army need to grow further? What do you use those daemon engines that you use for, and is there anything else that could replace them in that (even if they don't do that quite as well).

Another thing: I'm not that familiar with the daemon codex, but would it be possible to make some kind of cultist model to represent pink horrors (to be used as batteries for casting more powers), with the 5++ save being the favor of tzeentch, and the fearless being their zealotry, and the daemonic instability being that when they get slaughtered, they get slaughtered badly because they throw themselves into the fray because they're so zealous about chaos? I'm just throwing out ideas here.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2016, 01:17:00 PM »
Did you see the oblits in here, Wyddr? I know they technically should have powerfists...

Those look very nice, yeah, but both a *little* beyond my ability to modify and they don't really *look* like Obliterators. So I dunno.

Quote
Anyway, say we start with the basics: 2 squads of 1k sons, Ahriman, a pair of rhinos (with haco launchers), and, perhaps, three oblits. What would the army need to grow further? What do you use those daemon engines that you use for, and is there anything else that could replace them in that (even if they don't do that quite as well).

Well, I guess you could replace Maulerfiends with Hellbrutes (but that's a very poor trade), Forgefiends with Predators (same), and Defilers with Vindicators (which have the advantage of being much, much cheaper, anyway). I've personally always felt regular tanks are an even larger fluff violation than daemon engines, though, in that the tanks are so...so *normal.* I just have a hard time believing rubric marines drive predators.

I mean, I eventually held my nose and got Rhinos, but still.

Ultimately, the BEST replacement for all of that crap is a Renegade Knight. Assaults better than a Forgefiend, shoots better than a Defiler, and is tough as nails.

Quote
Another thing: I'm not that familiar with the daemon codex, but would it be possible to make some kind of cultist model to represent pink horrors (to be used as batteries for casting more powers), with the 5++ save being the favor of tzeentch, and the fearless being their zealotry, and the daemonic instability being that when they get slaughtered, they get slaughtered badly because they throw themselves into the fray because they're so zealous about chaos? I'm just throwing out ideas here.

I personally accept just about any justification if the models are cool enough. Horrors, though, wouldn't be your problem--they can work as cultists just fine. A Lord of Change, though? Heralds on discs? Screamers? There's some problems to be had there.

Offline spunkybass

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2016, 03:39:57 AM »
I've been playing Thousand Sons for awhile now, and they have come a long way (down) from Codex CSM 3.5, that's when they hardly lost. But I kinda like them now, just for the heavy reliance on the psychic phase which makes them very thematic to start with.

This is the list that I use most often since 7th ed arrived, and it's actually thematic and quite successful against most armies:

1850pts CAD
HQ:
Ahriman
TROOPS:
9 Thousand Sons - including Aspiring Sorcerer with force axe and meltabombs
9 Thousand Sons - including Aspiring Sorcerer with force staff and meltabombs
Chaos Rhino
FAST ATTACK:
Heldrake
HEAVY SUPPORT:
Chaos Land Raider - w dozer blades (Ahriman's ride, accompanied by the first Thousand Sons squad)
Defiler
Chaos Predator - autocannon, heavy bolters, dozer blades
ALLIED DETACHMENT:
Lord of Change - ML3 upgrade, 2 greater rewards, 1 lesser reward (which is really the Staff of Change)
10 Pink Horrors (funny thing about this is that I originally painted 9, but later found out that the minimum size is 10)

This army is actually pretty successful. It gets super strong if I get Invisibility, but I don't rely on it, and Ahriman's multi shriek/scream abilities is nuts. I get about 10 power dice with all psykers alive, which is healthy. The army works best as a close assault force (their main weapon's most effective range is 12", they are slow and purposeful, so you might as well plan for assault).

If the pictures below don't show, you can go to the links:

Picasa Web Albums - Azlan Ramli - Thousand Sons
Picasa Web Albums - Azlan Ramli - Thousand Sons
Picasa Web Albums - Azlan Ramli - Thousand Sons







« Last Edit: June 29, 2016, 09:22:08 PM by spunkybass »
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2016, 08:33:37 AM »
Thanks,spunkybass! Yeah, that's broadly similar to what I do. Not a huge fan of the Land Raider, myself, but basically that's it.

It totally *can* work, if the psychic phase is kind to you. If it isn't, well...

I, too, miss 3.5 edition Ksons, though I like these psychic powers better. The old Bolt of Change was super lame for the cost.

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2016, 09:26:38 PM »

It totally *can* work, if the psychic phase is kind to you. If it isn't, well...


Yup, totally hear you ...  ;)

The Thousand Sons will probably always be one of my favorite armies still

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Offline vonny

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2016, 05:19:30 AM »
that's quite a good looking 1k Sons army, SpunkyBass. Looks quite nice indeed!
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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #15 on: July 11, 2016, 09:58:38 PM »
Thanks.

Just happened to take the army out for a Kill Points game vs Tyranids this past weekend. It was simply awesome. Had some really good pschic powers, though my psychic phases weren't that fantastic (Lord of Change rolling to cast Prismatic Gaze (WC3) with 9 dice -1,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,4), the Thousand Sons carried the day decisively rolling up the Tyranid flank
« Last Edit: July 11, 2016, 11:09:11 PM by spunkybass »
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: Winning (and losing) with a Pure Thousand Sons Army
« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2016, 09:18:56 AM »
Good for you! Yeah, Ksons vs Tyranids is one of our better matchups--their squishy infantry are easy kills and our vehicles are tough to crack for them. Even stealers struggle against rubrics.

 


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