[Kawauso]

Hi there everyone.

Alright, so I've always kind of liked the look of the Thousand Son marines, but I've also always kind of hated the aesthetic of Chaos armies in general. I hate the mutations, I hate those Nurgle pus-bags, I hate those Slaaneshi whoremongers, and Khorne followers are a little too crazy for me. I know Tzeentch is all up on mutation and what have you, but I like the Thousand Sons so much (and their lack of mutation) that a little while ago, I bought four boxes of them and a Chaos Terminator Lord (which I made into a sorcerer, of course), because that is one hell of a cool Chaos model.

Problem is, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this army.
To give a little additional background, I collect armies like a crazy person (currently: Necrons, Space Wolves, Codex Marines, Tau Empire, Imperial Guard and Chaos Marines, with Tyranids coming soon). The armies I started with are Necrons and Space Wolves (and by extension through leftover bitz, etc., Space Marines), and I never really had any plans for those armies beyond getting minis I liked and having lots of options. However, as I lost more and more of my sanity and started picking up other armies, I realized I needed to be careful and plan ahead with them more than I had in the past (i.e. I have an entire company of Space Wolves numbering over 120 marines, complete with vehicular support, etc.).

Sooo...I have a few Thousand Sons units, but before I start expanding I want to plan ahead and figure out where this army is going, in order to keep it as cheap as possible and make painting, converting, etc. easier to plan around. I'm aiming for a 2000-point, all-rounder sort of army that can comfortably play most game types well enough that I don't have to worry about swapping things around. When I say "cheap" I'm not worried so much about the cost of actual models - I'd like to made an extensive conversion of a demon prince to make it look "Tzeentchy" - so much as I'm concerned about planning out a 2000-point force and sticking to it. Oh, also, I don't want to use any Chaos units with any of that gross mutation stuff going on if I can avoid it - I'm looking for something as pure Thousand-Sons as I can get! I'd prefer if this army had a good portion of psykers in it, too, in keeping with the Tzeentchian feel of the Thousand Sons and in order to distinguish it from my other forces.



Any way, I don't play competitively, but I'm still concerned about being able to assemble an army that's fun and functional (and fluffy!). Keeping these things in mind, here's the list I've been considering:



2000-Point Thousand Sons Army

HQ
Chaos Terminator Sorcerer - Combi-Melta, Force Weapon, Mark of Tzeentch, Doombolt, Wind of Chaos - 190

Daemon Prince Sorcerer - Wings, Mark of Tzeentch, Gift of Chaos, Warptime - 205
Only real CC unit in the army; intend to use Warptime charging into combat and Gift of Chaos whilst locked in combat.

ELITE
N/A

TROOPS
Thousand Sons Squad - (7x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Wind of Chaos - 251
This squad is intended to be in a Land Raider with my Sorcerer

Thousand Sons Squad - (9x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Bolt of Change; whole squad takes a Rhino with a combi-melta - 337

Thousand Sons Squad - (9x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Bolt of Change; whole squad takes a Rhino with a combi-melta - 337

Thousand Sons Squad - (4x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Doombolt - 162
This squad is stuck footslogging, unfortunately.

FAST ATTACK
N/A

HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider - Added Havoc Launcher - 235

Vindicator - Added Havoc Launcher - 140

Vindicator - Added Havoc Launcher - 140

TOTAL: 1997



Right then...thoughts/feedback? Thanks to any who offer, in advance.

As a side note, I tend to play most often against Tau (Farsight Enclave), Witch Hunters (mostly footslogging force with lots of bolters/flamers) and Daemonhunters/Codex Marines. Again, we don't play competitively, just for fun, but I do want an army that's able to put up a good fight against my friends, hehe.

[HiveFleetGoliath]

I don't see the point in a Landraider, besides the AV14. I mean, you don't want to be assaulting with your thousand sons. You don't have a BP/CWW!

[IcyCool]

You might want to look at making your Thousand Sons squads 9 men each (8 Rubric marines and a Sorcerer), And mounting them in bare-bones rhinos.

You could ditch the daemon prince, swap the sorcerer's Doombolt out for Warptime, and buy a unit of terminators with an Icon of Tzeentch and have them ride in the Land Raider with your Sorcerer. And ditch the Havoc launchers, they seem like a great investment, but what you really need is anti-tank, since your Thousand Sons have anti-infantry solidly covered.

The problem with Thousand Sons armies is getting enough anti-tank in without sacrificing your AP3 bolter shots. This is generally why you don't want to put Bolt of Change on the sorcerers in your Thousand Sons units, because if you shoot at a vehicle you are wasting that units bolter shots to fire a single useful shot. That leaves tank popping as a duty for your HQ, Elites, and Heavy Support options.

Relatively efficient tank hunters for Thousand Sons are:
Predators (I avoid the tri-las configuration as it is expensive)
Daemon Prince (You have to catch the vehicle in melee though)
Greater Daemon (Melee only)
Terminators (Chainfist or Powerfists are best, but you can pack a combi-melta surprise as well)
Dreadnought (Risking crazed attacks on your own forces though)
Defilers (Inaccurate)
Vindicators (Inaccurate)
Combi-meltas on Rhinos (If the rhinos live long enough to drop off the Sons and move close enough to enemy vehicles)

[Kawauso]

Damn, this is tough.
I really want to go for a daemon prince, because I have some wicked ideas for a conversion...but I've been thinking for a while it's not worth having both HQs in the army.
Maybe I'll hold off on the prince and use the points towards something else...

About the havoc launchers...
They -do- look really tempting.
I mean, I'd want to put something small like that on a vindi any way so that it's not useless after just 1 weapon destroyed result..what's the harm in adding another blast template weapon? It's not great against vehicles, but it could scatter onto infantry/discourage an opponent from trying to shelter infantry behind vehicles as cover...And, on the vindicators, at least, I could see them being useful if there aren't any tanks around for the vindis to shoot at (heavy armour, i mean). No harm in adding a second blast template to pummel infantry into submission, is there? It's not like the vindicator would be doing much else with a combi-weapon or bolter on top other than using it as a "wound" of sorts.
...Or is this just pie-in-the-sky thinking on my part?

[Kawauso]

Well, I just remembered that ordnance weapons won't allow any other weapons to be fired in the same turn on vehicles. Whoops.
I guess that frees up another 45 points or so...

[Kawauso]

Hm. But on the other hand, having that second weapon to get destroyed is still nice, and of all the options available, it seems to me like the best one. I mean, no matter what option is taken anyway, it won't be able to fire along with the demolisher cannon. And the havoc launcher can fire within the 24 inches between 48-24 that the demolisher can't. Then, should the demolisher be destroyed, the tank can still pose a half-decent threat against infantry with the havoc launcher, and another weapon destroyed result won't render the tank entirely useless right away.

I've revised the list a little and now I'm considering the following.

HQ
Chaos Terminator Sorcerer - Combi-Melta, Force Weapon, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt of Change, Wind of Chaos - 190

ELITE
Chaos Terminator Squad - (4x marines) all armed with Chainfists and Combi-Meltas; squad takes a Land Raider with a Combi-Melta which it shares with the Sorcerer - 430

TROOPS
Thousand Sons Squad - (9x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Doombolt; whole squad takes a Rhino - 312

Thousand Sons Squad - (9x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Doombolt; whole squad takes a Rhino - 312

Thousand Sons Squad - (9x Sons, 1x Sorcerer) Sorcerer has Doombolt; whole squad takes a Rhino - 312

FAST ATTACK
N/A

HEAVY SUPPORT
Vindicator - Added Havoc Launcher - 140

Vindicator - Added Havoc Launcher - 140

Vindicator - Added Havoc Launcher - 140

TOTAL: 1991

Not sure to do with those last 9 points, but this is still a work in progress...

[crazyguy832]

Right, I don't have my Chaos codex on me at the moment (loaning it to a friend), so I'm going to have to go purely off of memory for points costs. This'll be rough...

Havoc launchers are okay but don't synergize well with the vindicator's primary weapon. The extra range is pointless. 24" is easy to close. In fact, it's far too easy. Your vindicators should never have trouble firing. If they're not, it means you control that third of the table. Plus, as you noticed, you can't fire both at once. Drop all the havoc launchers and take daemonic possession. That'll make your vindicator far more of a threat than the havoc launchers ever will (I can explain this if you want, but I'm pretty sure it's been covered somewhere on this forum before, probably at least mentioned by me, haha). You'll be 6 points over now, so let's see what else we can do.

Termies should not all be armed with chainfists. Completely and utterly pointless. You want one, two max, powerfist type weapons in a combat squad (the sole exception, of course, are TH/SS termies, which we do not have access to). Your 5+ invul is not good enough to only have I1 attacks (whereas the 3++ is). Given it's a fluffy list, I'm surprised no IoT. Anyways... drop two or three of the chainfists. Give them an icon if you feel like being fluffy. The 4++ can be fun. Drop one of the combi-meltas for a heavy flamer. Four combi-meltas is more than enough to pop anything save a monolith, trust me on that one. You want the heavy flamer for that "just in case" scenario.

Drop BoC on your sorcerer and give him warptime. He's going to be using the combi-melta to pop tanks and it's the exact same S/AP as the BoC anyways, so it's not like you need it to instagib characters. You want warptime to make your sorcerer scary in close combat (with WT, he's pretty similar to a Lord). Wind is awesome, of course, and synergizes stupidly well with warptime. What it doesn't do is synergize with BoC. You can never fire both BoC and WoC in a round while WoC just gets better whenever you pop off WT (not to mention the close combat benefits).

Thousand Sons squads are fine. I'm confused if they're 9 or 10 man total. Either's fine.

Anyways, I'm not sure where the points would end up after that. Just a few suggestions.

^_^

[Kawauso]

You raise some interesting points, crazyguy.
I'll admit I'd forgotten all about daemonic possession...must be too used to playing Imperial marines.
Hm. I fiddled around in army builder last night and swapped the havoc launchers for possession, and gave the termies all IoT (which I've been trying to squeeze in there any way) in exchange for a couple of chainfists. Also threw in a heavy flamer.

Looks good so far...still not quite settled on anything, though. This army's proving one of the tougher ones I've ever tried to plan out.

Oh, and the Sons squads are 10-man (9 rubrics, 1 sorcerer).

Thanks for the help so far.

[Ironwinds]

Glad to see you liked some of the advise put out there so far.

One thing I want to stress is trading BoC for warptime. You can't use BoC and wind in the same turn(both are shooting powers), plus there are few targets that both are appropriate for. Plus you have a combi melta in addition.

I doubt you will every have a battle where you will use all three. Use one coming out of the raider... then your in combat for a turn or two, maybe live and use another... but highly doubtful you'll get all three.

On the other hand warptime goes great with everything he has. It can be used in combination with the combi or wind of chaos. Shooting a tank.. re-roll the hit with the combi melta. Shooting infantry w/ wind, re-roll the wounds. In combat, re-roll to hits and to wounds, and he can still use his force weapon. Its a win, win, win situation.

[Kawauso]

Thanks for the help on the psychic powers and weapon loadouts and such so far, everyone.
I'm still tweaking this list and trying to find something that I like, which may have gotten more complicated just now...

I mentioned above how I hate obliterators, right?
Well, hot damn, I could get behind them if I modded some Ushabti to fit the part, like so:
http://www.bluetablepainting.com/vie...hp?imgID=75637

...Which leads me to my next question: what's the general consensus on obliterators?