2k event this weekend

[Archaeinox]

Hey folks, wanted to share some of my ideas for what I'd like to bring to an event this weekend. As usual I'd like to spark some helpful "talk shop" discussion and of course since this includes a list, I wasn't sure whether or not I should post in the Army Lists section.. This list doesn't necessarily have a plan, but I'd like to think I can react well and also take some damage. Sorry for the bad pics, I have cracks in my phone's camera lens.

 

The missions are ITC and I suspect out of ~18 attendees, only 3 or 4 will have lists that are filthy. As such, I'll bring something with teeth but I don't think it's unreasonable should I face a newer player in this tournament. Another goal here is to have less HQs so I have less spells to track and can play faster. I considered dropping the rhinos and trying to make it 2 Battalions but I'm not in the mood to run 5 MSU rubric units right now.

 

Do you think pulling 2 Rubric Marines from the big squad and upgrading the Magic sorcerer to an Exalted would be worth it? He would be 1 wound tougher and provide the 1s aura to his boys since he wants to get closer anyways. 

 

Anyways enough of that crap, here we go: 

 

 

2000pts Thousand Sons

 

Cult of Duplicity Battalion:

 

-Ahriman on Disc of Tzeentch

 

-Exalted Sorcerer

 

-10 Scarab Occult Terminators w/ Hellfyre Missile Rack x2

 

-18 Rubric Marines w/ Warpflamer Pistol

 

-9 Rubric Marines w/ Rhino

 

-9 Rubric Marines w/ Rhino

 

Cult of Magic Spearhead:

 

-Sorcerer

 

-AutoLas Predator

 

-Lascannon Predator

 

-Lascannon Predator

 

--------------

 

1. Warlord is the Magic sorcerer. My idea is that barring a bad close combat mistake or snipers, he'll just be a cheap guy behind stuff who wants to get short-mid range and pewpew with mind bullets. He will take Devastating Sorcery as his Warlord Trait and Arcane Focus. He will likely start the game in a Rhino. 

 

 

2. The Duplicity exalted sorcerer will babysit the predators. I might spend 1 CP to take Helm of the Third Eye.. Not sure. Maybe the book, if I'm not worried about getting crushed by an opponent (in the case of a new player or what I perceive to be a bad list). It's likely that he will take Magister for Duplicitous Tactician. Since the Scarabs can teleport, I might just deploy them in relative safety and try to teleport them up turn 1.. It all depends, but options are nice. I could redeploy d3 things if I took DT trait, which might have value.. Like putting the terminators in Teleport if I'm afraid of them starting on the table. 

 

 

3. The unit of 18 Rubric Marines will probably use Risen Rubricae although who knows. "Be like water" and all that. They can teleport, of course, so that's cute.. I'll probably have to spend CP to save them from lots of casualties but not much we can do about that. This guy has a warpflamer pistol in the picture. 

 

 

Thoughts appreciated, just wanted to give you some insight into what I want to run this weekend. I'll report back and let you know how it goes.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Heliomanes]

You might want to get the Cult of Magic character upgraded to an exalted on disc, or a flying daemon prince - with the warlord trait and relic. Fly up into range for his best spells, cast 2, preferably 1 more with the stratagem, all with +1 to cast and +1 to mortal wounds, then cast warp time on him from another sorcerer out of deny the witch range to fly him back into safety. It's a neat little combo.

I think I'd switch out the exalted from the cult of duplicity with a regular sorcerer to save on points. They cast as many spells, after all, and the cult of magic characters might make better use of a points boost.

Looking forward to seeing how you do! I have a 2k point one day tournament coming up in a week, and a pretty big ITC tourney coming up a few weeks later - so I'm in list building/talking mode.

[Archaeinox]

Thanks for the input bud, as always

 

I'll shuffle some stuff around and see what things look like. I don't own a prince at the moment but I just finished a commission and there's 2 on the shelf in the store...

[Archaeinox]

I just converted up an Exalted Sorcerer on Disc from some spare parts that were in bit bin purgatory to be the Cult of Magic HQ. What do you think? 

 

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Love it!

[Prot]

Sorry I just saw this, but I was definitely going to recommend the Sorc on a disk for magic. The astral blast is amazing but short ranged. 

[Archaeinox]

Okay Cult of Magic is stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupid.. good.

 

Round 1: GK vs. TS. My friend who you might have seen in the pic batrep recently. He had double battalion and a Vanguard, I think. He stopped a lot of my powers. The sorcerer with Astral Blast is silly lmao. I can't get over it. Killshot predators didnt do much, but managed to pewpew strike squads in his deployment zone over the course of the game. He was in Escalation quickly.. Very scary. I failed every Sorcerous Facade cast. At the end of the game, I didn't have Rubrics left. Just my terminators holding it down, and a predator. He definitely had more on the table at the end.. Maybe 10+ paladins. I played very aggressively with Ahriman and he died. I gambled and put him in combat with Voldus, who had 3 wounds remaining. He failed a save and spent a CP to re-roll it. Next turn he hit Ahriman with a painful smite for 4 mortal wounds. Oof. TS, 19-15

 

Round 2: Sisters vs. TS. New guy I've seen around. Very sharp fellow with the Sisters rules but I had to help keep him on track about 8th ed BRB rules. It felt like whatever I hit him with, he made batches of 6+ saves to ignore wounds. Brutal. The Magic sorcerer took Gift of Chaos and did 7 mortal wounds to Celestine.. Twice. lol, what. Astral Blast did what it was supposed to but it was very frustrating to see him deny a max Infernal Gateway. A very hard fought game. Killshot was wasted, as there was a huge LOS blocking piece across the center of the table so my predators shot at seraphim and the occasional penitent engine that showed itself. Not much to say on this one. Slug fest til turn 4 when we called for time. 14-14.

 

Round 3: Raven Guard vs. TS. New guy I've never seen. Learning everything but has a very hard list. I managed to get first turn and  the blob of Rubricae do what they do.. Half the Aggressors go away, along with some snipers. Ahriman charges snipers he put close, after the predators finally use Killshot. A Lascannon predator melts the Repulsor in a single volley. The other 2 predators are pretty much blasting snipers. Few shots connect. Not sure killshot is that important anymore in tournaments. The Magic sorcerer blasts the leftover aggressors and splash damage hurts the Librarian. Infernal Gaze from the same guy kills him. I took Perfidious Tome and in 6 turns, got 3 points and gave him 1. The first two games I had Helm of the Third Eye and got 2 back in each game (we could change relics and warlord traits round to round). TS, 25-16.

 

Had I been unlucky on saves, there's no way I would have tied vs. the Sisters player. I contribute the win vs. the Raven Guard player to my going first, and killing as many Eliminators as possible turn 1 and 2. 

 

Most Used Stratagem: Indomitable Foes. I need more CP. I would have used this more.

 

Most-swapped-to power: Infernal Gateway. In response to specific enemy formations.

 

Most important units: Rubric Marines. Wow. I never thought I would say this but the little buggers were tough. 

 

Most underwhelming unit: Exalted sorcerer babysitting the predators. I thought I could use his re-roll 1s aura but next time I'll just make him a little sorcerer and run him up. I needed extra smites and rolled mostly 2s if the predators missed.

 

I think I was 7th out of 18. Sorry I didnt take pics because ITC scoring is a struggle for me lol. I much prefer CA2019 missions.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Stupid good or stupid bad?

[Archaeinox]

Oh stupid good, absolutely. I can see why so many gravitate towards it. It worked phenomenally. The spell is still situational, it just had a huge impact when it went off.

[Prot]

Nice batrep. Thanks for putting that much detail in the report. 
 

I stopped using predators a long time ago. I don’t think they are terrible though. I’m usually just using dreads or Magnus to fill that role. 
 

I think now you see why I was so certain Magic was going to be soup ingredient number one. I really don’t like how they wrote these rules at all and there’s really no reason to not use Thousand sons in a continued soup role going  forward. 
 

im glad you went first vs RG. They are a brutal counter to most CSM if played correctly. 
 

congrats on the great showing!  Now what else would you change?

[Archaeinox]

Yes I concede that it is much more powerful than I had initially imagined, Prot.

 

I think I keep the predators in most of my lists because of the effort I spent on the transfers and such, and my dislike of the daemon engine look. This stubbornness probably contributes to some of my losses in general, for sure. 

 

I need more CP. 10 Scarab Occult is cute but 5 would have done the same thing they did over the course of the event. I think a brigade is in order. I want to add spawn and either 2x hellbrutes (old TS forgeworld dread) or 2 contemptors. I'm a little clueless of which way to go... If I sell a 3000pt ultramarine army I could buy random stuff for the TS army and maybe get another faction like Black Legion to soup. 

 

I kinda want to wait and see what happens for Tzeentch in PA because my first choice of 'soup' would be a Tz battalion for CP and because I like the LoC. I'm using this post-event as time to reflect on that..

 

There's a 2day event late March. 2000pts, ITC. I want to attend because there is a painting award, and a Best in Faction award. If I can get it finished, I'd like to have the LoC flying around with a 3++ because Risen Rubricae changes the game and goofs with the enemy's target priority considering how both things can get an ok invul

Edited February 10, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Prot]

I totally understand and respect your decision on those beautiful Predators!

 

I would wait too.... I have been having a lot of the same thoughts on Daemons. They have been deplorable aside from some janky side play in tournaments, and I could see a good play becoming available in a Tzeentch detachment.

 

I like your long term plan there. Until then, keep refining your core Thousand Sons. I like how you've approached this whole thing. :tu:

[Archaeinox]

The Mindstealer Sphiranx would probably represent a shape-shifting sorcerer (aka Daemon Prince) if I place him on a 60mm. Cult of Change would be fun in a small game with him using Dark Matter Crystal and re-rolling charge distance. A cute trick.. and an excuse to use a slick model

[SirVulkan]

Ya I think 2 bats and some other additional detachment is the way to go right now for a pure list.  Not a bad showing at that tournament though.  Sisters are no pushover these days.  They remind me of Dark Eldar players.  The good dark eldar players will wreck you because they are hard to play.  Very unforgiving in mistakes.  

 

Im not sure about the 3 preds.  I feel like you would get more mileage out of contemptors but they are not cheap models.  Sometimes I feel like id rather just take a prophecy detachment for that spearhead.  

 

You could do an outrider detachment of magic with 3 spawn and an exalted sorc on disk.  Thats a cheap way to get a good Magic detachment in.

[Archaeinox]

Good point, I was using the spearhead to get the magic guy for sure