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Finished off the other members of the 'new plastic' rubric squad I've been building to update my force:
Finally have a painted power armoured soulreaper cannon to vaporise some T3 fools in my games. Next up is getting some paint on the 4 warpflamer squad, and I need to make a sorcerer for them also.
Arkaniss, Grotsmasha, Dumah and 2 others like this
Got another 5 Scarab Occult made up and basecoated today, allowing me to have a unit of 10 SOT's with sorcerer. I already have another TDA sorc who can lead a second unit if needed. Looking forward to using the big 10 man unit in game!
Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)
Cults of the Legion: Cult of Prophecy
Detachment Command Cost
+ Stratagems +
Sorcerous Arcana [-2CP]: 2x Additional Relics
+ No Force Org Slot +
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [7 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 120pts]: 11. Gaze of Hate, 11. Tzeentch's Firestorm, Battle-psyker, Force axe, Inferno combi-melta
+ HQ +
Exalted Sorcerer [8 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 150pts]: 13. Doombolt, 22. Swelled by the Warp, Disc of Tzeentch, Inferno Bolt Pistol, Rehati, The Stave Abominus
Mine - Wrath of Magnus, Engage, Raise banners (still on 2020 pack)
Opponent - Spread the sickness, Engage, Grind them down.
I took prophecy and glimose of eternity to attempt shenanigans with getting free reroll and fixed dice, etc. Brazier went onto the dread pretty much every turn, ideal for a unit like that. The Prophecy standard spell (divine the future) was ok, would have been amazing if I rolled better - I think I got 1,2,2,5,5. I cast it early in the turn with my buffing exalted, then used the 5's to guarantee a super smite if anyone rolled a natural 6 on a smite.
My shooting, aside from the flamers, was vastly underwhelming, and pretty much all the damage was done through mortals.
Turn 1, the infernal master facaded the flamer unit to 9" away from the poxies, flamer unit then surged themselves, and got to 3" away, flamed most of them then charged in, with a big charge over some containers to contest their home objective, charging and killing some more that got resurrected with the strat. Finally killed them all in T3 and hel their objective.
My rubes did great in holding my own objectives all game, scarabs got mauled early by plaguebursts and never achieved much, deathshroud teleported in and assaulted my infernal master, killing him. They were then psychiced from existence by everything in my army. First was a super smite for 6 mortals killing 2, then 4 other units variously failed smite or did 1 mortal leaving the last guy on 1W to be axed by my TDA Sorc.
PBC's were monstrous, the entropy cannons with D3+3 D murdered SOT's and my maulerfiend, and the mortars have a strat for flat 3 damage, and splash mortals onto anything within 3" - My dudes were clumped together T1 and I got got.
Thoughts:
The prophecy dice roll is decent, however it can only effect a prophecy unit meaning a large part of the army has to be that cult - I dont think it's that great over the army - duplicity or time is better. If It could affect any THOUSAND SONS unit, then I'd probably consider taking a Prophecy detachment every game, as fishing for super smites was fun and powerful.
Helm of the daemons eye did it's job this time and netted me CP back until the master died. Would use again.
Glamour/Weaver didnt do much this game. You put them on one unit and the opponent shoots another. Maybe if I had 10 SOT's, or I had got first turn. I might try a game with only damage dealing stuff.
Maybe 4 Character casters is one too many at 1500, I think I could have done with another unit of rubrics somewhere.
Mauler did little again, same with the Hellbrute - will try swapping the mauler for something with more ranged ability, which is what I was really lacking.
I got full primaries and Wrath of Magnus but dropped a bunch of points on Engage and Banners, might need to rethink that, or get more duplicity for engage.
One bolter dude in the new style to go with the last unit, the new Flamer marines just need a sorcerer to go with them, who'll be made from the new style CSM sculpts to go with them - I'm thinking the CSM champion from the Shadowspear set - the new CSM box champions just don't look right fot it. I'll swap the chainaxe for a staff and be done with it!
Yea, it's weird. I originaly stuck the new plastic Thousand Son's heads on the CSM bodies, but they just looked a little off, too ornate, so I managed to rip one off and replaced it with the older metal one, and thught it looked amazing. I could get another off, to make 2, but the other models heads were glued on just too tightly. Next guys for this unit will have the metal heads.
I have a 2k game tonight, likely against Necrons using a CTan, and after a couple of games with my Blood Angels Armoured Company, I want to get the KSons out and about again, so I can at least get a few games in with them to bring down the cost of games per codex purchase
Will chuck a list up here when I have a go at making one. I thinking of running a bit more infantry heavy this time, my last games have featured Hellbrutes and a Predator, which have all underperformed incredibly. My second 5 Scarabs also are not painted, so I might have to stick them on 40mm bases and just use them anyway for now.
Enjoying your 1ksons! I love the posing and contrast on the beakie rubric!
Thank you! You mean this guy?
Yea, took a while to find a pose I was happy with - the exalted Sorc box has so many arms leading to great combinations.
Also, some photos from my game on Monday:
A bunch of people in my local group are tournament training for early next year, so I went ahead and made up what might be a stronger army to do objectives - all my other forays with thousand sons, the vehicles have done nothing, so I stuck to mainly infantry this time, maybe what is the most effective stuff in the book, Rubrics and SOT's.
Opponent Secondaries - engage, banners, grind them down
I need to get the 2021 book so we can practice with the newer secondaries. The game turned into abit of a drubbing, with my opponent's army essentially crippled at the end of T1 - this was a combination of bad positioning/choices and hot dice on my side (as usual). As for the game, I'll describe objectives based on the clock system using my board edge as 6 o clock.
Deployment
1 rube unit on my 6 objective, then 2 more ready to walk onto the 4 and 8, SOT's in the middle. I inform my opponent of the umbralific crystals ability to teleport a unit, and he splits his doomstalkers (away from the technomancer) into back quarters to zone them out 10 warriors on my left, 20 on my right.
My opponent won the roll off to go first and moved everything up, 20 man warriors onto the 2 objective, 10 man and scarabs onto the 10, both raise banners (!) I think this was his first mistake. CCB moves up, and the nose is poking out just in front of the warrior blob. Second mistake against smites. 2 banners raised, death arks kill 3 rubrics from my right hand unit. Poor show T1. He should have fired with those 20 man warrior squad.
In my turn, everything moves up, left rubes onto objective 8 and raise, right rubes onto ob4, who raise banners, but with srdent automata, they shoot something. I cast a psychic power with them, forgetting it will cancel banners, so that fails on Ob4. Exalted glamours and weavers my SOT's. Flamer rubes move forwards towards the 10 man warriors, temporal surge into flamer range, then wipe out all 10. Infernal master pops +1S onto the SOT shooting, then presages them. Ahriman then unloads on the CCB. Doombolt for 3, malevolent for 1. Firestorm for 1 leaves it on more wounds than I wanted, and I can't kill it with a scroll smite. Oh well. I roll for smite and get a 10, or 11 with the +1, amazing. I roll a 5 and the barge is dead, explodes, wounding the lychguard and 20 man warrior unit, who comes back.
SOT's, now pumped from fires and presage, and getting rerolls from Ahriman unload into the 20 man warrior blob, popping off Soul Reap for good measure. 20 S7 soulreaper and 32 S5 AP-2 bolt shots later and the unit is wiped to a robot, zero overkill. Lucky. Back rube unit mutates my home objective for 3.
After this, it as pretty much clean up.
The CCB is a little too far forwards, and Ahriman moves to make it the closest target
SOT's wipe the 20 man warrior blob
Doomstalkers take aim at the SOT's
The Skorpek Lord and Skorpeks veil of darkness behind my lines, but both units fail 8" charges on the hellbrute
Emdgame
Next turns, the CTan came after my rubes, but couldn't move them off objectives. I fell back, psychiced and shot, he re-charged, failing to kill, then I psychiced again with scroll to knock it to 1W, then charged killing it.
Skorpekh contingent appeared on my left side rear, failing a charge. My hellbrute charged in and got killed. The necrons then went after my backfield, the skorpeks failing to kill 10 cultists, and the lord killing off my spawn. SOT's then shot the skorpekhs off the board my T3.
Below are the scores from the game - we called it end of my T3 as all my opponnt had left were the 2 doomstalkers and a couple of scarab bases, while I was on 5 objectives, and had only lost the spawn and hellbrute. It was a brutal game all in all.
Retrieval Mission
Me: 57 (90)
Primary: 10 + 15 = 25 (45)
WWSWF: 5+5+5 = 15 (15)
Raise Banners: 0+2+3 = 8 (15)
Mutate landscape: 3+3+3 = 9 (15)
Painted: 0
Opponent: 40 (44)
Primary 10+10 = 20 (20)
engage: 0+2+2 = 4 (8)
banners: 0+3+3=6 (6)
grind them down: 0 (0)
Painted: 10
Tallarn Commander, BadgersinHills, Sagentus and 1 other like this
Got another game tonight which will be Slaanesh Daemons + BeLakor (probably), I'm thinking of using my Thousand Sons, maybe a list the same as the above I sed last week. The hellbrutes and cultists will be upfront as sacrificial pieces, I'm wondering if 40 Rubric bodies will be able to withstand the charge from them. Moving out of my DZ will be hard, as the Slaaneshis love to get in your face fast. We'll see what happens!
I figured Time to keep the terms alive, and then Duplicity to be able to hop out of combats if needed.
All in all, the game was a bit of a wash. We set up late, my opponent's first turn took ages, he got some super lucky rolls, and most of my powers failed!
Deployment, I stuck the warpflamer unit up front to try and speedbump/block off the advance on that side. I then lost first turn, and pulled them back with master misinformator, but still stuck them on the left hand objective, which was probably a mistake as it shortened the charge for the daemons. I otherwise blocked out my deployment with sacrificial units, the cultists, hellbrutes and spawn, but I truly didnt do a good enough job of it - I was both trying to screen my rubrics from T1 charges, but leave them in a place to be able to take objectives T1. This is where I lost the game. I've never played against an army like this before - I'll go into what I should have done below.
Daemon T1: Daemonettes consolidate their positions on objectives, 1 keeper runs down the middle, 2 on the left, Be'Lakor on the right, seekers generally get 5" advances, so cover 19 of the 24" between us. I deny ost psychic powers, central KoS peril's on a double 6 getting off the 6+ FNP, but taking 2 MW's.
Left hand seekers charge the rubes and get flamed, 1 unit of fiends gets in, as does one keeper, Shelaxi is blocked out due to space. right hand side, seekers move into the cultists. Most crucially, in the centre, the keeper made a 12" charge into my scarabs (in retrospect, I think I screwed up here. I recall the KoS needing a 12 on the dice to get within engagement range, however that would have put it as more than 12" away, so should have been inelegible to declare a charge in the first place). Keeper goes into the scarabs. Opponent attacks first with seekers, then I interrupt with the SOT and do ~4 wounds (10 scarabs = 30 attacks, ~15 hits, 6 wounds, he made 4/6 5++ saves - my opponent seriously had >50% of his dice rolls come up as 5+'s for this game. I can honestly say this with no exaggeration). Left hand keeper wipes the rubes there. Right hand seekers wipe the cultists, centre keeper fights, I activate phalanx, and he kills 2, regaining 3 wounds from the hand. No damage to LH KoS, central is on 13 wounds.
TST1
Pretty tricky now! Command phase I umbraelific crystal the SOT's out of combat, basically moving them back 9" so they can shoot. Exalted fails to weaver the SOT's even with a reroll, glamour goes off. Ahriman. Oh dear. Fails to get the big firestorm and does 2 MW's (11 remain), +1 with maleific (10), doombolt for 3 (7), super smite for 3 (4). I think I can do the rest with shooting, so my backfield rubes duplicity to their backfield and shoot up one objective holder, SOT's try to time flux and fail with no reroll. Right hand rubes move forward onto objective and mutate it.
Shooting: No point putting bolters into the centre KoS as it's -1 to wound, so SOT's put both hellfyres and both reapers into it, causing 1 damage. 4 storm bolters go into a unit of fiends, killing 1, 4 bolters into seekers killing 3/5. 10 reaper shots into the KoS get 3 wounds,all saved, and 2 missiles get 2 wounds, 1 saved for 1 damage. Hellbrute plasma into the keeper does nothing, hellbrute MM into it is saved. SOT's charge in on a lucky 10, but are at -1 to hit, everything saved for no damage. My entire army attacking that thing for 1w outside the psychic phase. Should have tried more smites. KoS attacks back, killing 3 with no CP for phalanx. Hellbrutes charge in and double team the LH KoS and fiends. KoS attacks first as I chose my SOT's to attack, and does 6W to the mm dread. Scourge dread kills 2 fiends. MM dread has 5A, 3 hits, 2 wounds, both saved.
After that, it was like 11pm so we called it. He was on 3 objectives, and I'd be on 2 by the end of his T2. We did a rough playthrough, BeLakor would have been able to multicharge the SOT's and Ahriman who was left behind by the scarabs, and would have killed the 5 remaining with piercing strike, LHKoS probably kills my fist brute to take me off the LH objective, I would have been left with 3 full units of rubes, and him with 4 functioning greater daemons, unless Ahriman could knock the 3 wounds off the central KoS between firestorm, gaze of hate and scroll. Couldn't have done anything against BeLakor who'd have killed him in my combat phase.
End of opponent's T1 movement phase:
I think this game was lost in deployment for me - I tried to play the objective game, across the table, whereas I should have castled in a corner to concentrate my smites, and made him bottleneck even further. Keeping even 2 objectives would have been great. I could then have slung units into his unprotected backfield each turn to clear out the Daemonettes with bolter fire, while smiting the greater daemons. All theoretical though. This was a tough game, and I want a rematch! There wasn't much I could do against my opponents insane luck, other than stop him from using casino dice
I've managed to get my 5 SOT's finished and based over XMas, and am basing the last 5 rubrics I've painted also - I'll be doing a 'class of 2021' photo for all the stuff I've painted last year, so will get some good pics of them then!
The AL paintscheme looks quite good! The other painting is great too.
Maybe you could model TWC-sized "were-templars" who's inner Templar took over in the fury of battle transforming them into a giant half man - half templar?
Your SOTs are looking really nice!
I was thinking - I know there's this whole 'automaton' thing with the TS, but perhaps you could add some color variation on the more prominent ornaments? Not all of them, but perhaps on one every 2-3 models.
I was thinking - you could use a light purple or green contrast-based glaze on some of the silver objects like those round shields, or odd scarab or weapon barrel ornament? Both colors are close to blue, so would not strike out too much, but they contrast well with yellow, so would be noticeable.
The AL paintscheme looks quite good! The other painting is great too.
Thanks! Still experimenting with the AL, but this is a contender for sure!
Your SOTs are looking really nice!
I was thinking - I know there's this whole 'automaton' thing with the TS, but perhaps you could add some color variation on the more prominent ornaments? Not all of them, but perhaps on one every 2-3 models.
I was thinking - you could use a light purple or green contrast-based glaze on some of the silver objects like those round shields, or odd scarab or weapon barrel ornament? Both colors are close to blue, so would not strike out too much, but they contrast well with yellow, so would be noticeable.
Looking at the models I've forgot to do the gun barrels, so I'll come back to them at some point - agree on the bird heads on the flamers, I think they need something else. I believe I actually did go over one of them with a thin yellow/green wash, but I might have to play around some more. The flat silver is just a bit lacking.
Typical mass-rubrics (33) backed up by SOT's, dreads, then sacrificial spawn and cultists. I played a warm up tournament game against a DA player taking a tourney army also.
DA
Spoiler
Super slash chappy (teeth of terra, mantra, champion of humanity)
Buff librarian (might, quickening)
5 THSS terms
5 assault intercessors
5 assault bolt intercessors
5 incursors
Lastalon gladiator
Dark talon
Whirlwind
10 assault marines
Drop pod wth 5x tacs, 5x MM devs
It wasn't pretty, despite being relatively matched - the dark talon got too close dropped 9 mortals on a rubric unit (!), and first smite of the game was a supersmite for 6! Ahriman then dropped it to 1W and shooting finished it off. Assault marines escorting the chaplain were in the open so the SOT's killed 8 and the rest lost to morale. Turn 1 I was on 1 objective, and of T2 I was on 3 and most of my opponent's army was gone. My secodnary choices were bad - mental interrogation never seems to work as I want to kill my opponent's characters. Wrath of Magnus is an easy 15, but stops me from taking To the Last. Burn Empires triggers in command phase, so not ideal. Mutate landscape might be the best option - however in some missions making it to 5 objectves might be hard, unless you're already winning by loads.
I have a tournament or two upcoming and am uncertain with Thousand SOns list writing, I have a topic in the TS army list section, if you'd like to critique!
Key changes were swapping orrery for prism, which might be a mistake, then gaze for devolution on Ahriman. If there's no good targets I'll CP it out for gaze, or just use smite. There's some really tough looking lists out there, hopefully my mishmash can compete! I count 30+ custodes lists, of which >20 are with the 4+ ignore mortals, so that might be a bad match for me. No denying ability though.
Well, the tournament was fun, and I (we) did better than we were expecting. I won 4/5 of my games, and as a team (Sisters, Death Guard, Necrons, Dark Angels, Thousand Sons) we lost 3 and drew 2 in total against the other teams. Considering we were very much 'not meta' and had armies made up of our collections, nothing newly bought or netlisted, and we were facing down Ork Buggy lists, custodes, crusher stampedes, more custodes, etc, I'm super impressed with how we did.
I'll sketch out some rough battle reports below. For now, here's the lists I faced, with a reminder of my own list:
Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: Iron Warriors, Thousand Sons, Chaos, The Horus Heresy, Heresy, Xenith, Rubric, Emperors Children, Death Guard