9th Edition Thousand Sons Codex Game Feedback

[Ryan3000]

If you have seen the current tournament winning ad mech list you will see that they can trivially blow away any rubric or scarab squads no matter how well they are hidden.

To be fair those lists don't even need the serberys raiders they just delete a thousand points turn 1.

[WarriorFish]

It's a pain if your opponent can obstruct powers but a couple of psykers shouldn't be too much of an issue? A Sons list will have more after all, and you can't always own the entire phase

 

As for AdMech, if they can blast units away that easily it sounds like that's an issue for every army and one not solvable by our own means

[Ryan3000]

As for AdMech, if they can blast units away that easily it sounds like that's an issue for every army and one not solvable by our own means :lol::sweat:

Absolutely, I do think Sons have one of the best match ups into them with All Is Dust and our invul save. But it is like playing against an extra 3 hundred points.

[Xenith]

 

As for AdMech, if they can blast units away that easily it sounds like that's an issue for every army and one not solvable by our own means

Absolutely, I do think Sons have one of the best match ups into them with All Is Dust and our invul save. But it is like playing against an extra 3 hundred points.

 

 

Play cult of time + strat and revive another 400pts of Scarab occult over the course of the game?

 

Not played that type of admech, thankfully, but we are in a decent place to survive lots of D1 shooting. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Xenith

[GreenPlasma]

Time to add a page to the Book of Magus!

 

This is going to be a summary of a highly engaging interview with Liam Hackett on the Art of War 40k podcast. Some notable points :

 

- Currently #1 ranked TS player in the world, tournament win ratio of 86% and on an 18-game win streak rampage.

- Tournament list is : Cult of Time Battalion with Ahriman (Damage powers), Exalted (Echo+Crystal, Weaver, Glamour), 4x10 Rubrics (SRC, Surge), 1x10 SOT (Rites, 2x SRC, 2x Missiles) 2x5 Spawn, 2x Rhinos.

- It’s realistic to recover 2x models per turn; amounts to close to 250-300 points per game. Obviously, this is immensely powerful in wars of attrition.

- Begins with 12 CP and often gains 2 per turn with Cabal Rituals. Being CP rich makes it realistic to use stratagems that are sometimes considered too expensive or too niche — 3CP Phalanx, 2CP Wrath, 1CP Cut Them Down.

- 11 Cabal Points. These are not a minor buff; very influential to interact with bad rolls on psychic tests, negate denial armies, etc.

- The overall strategy is Primary Mission domination and Stranglehold. Rhinos are a key part of this; Rubrics can move 15” with disembark and an undeniable psychic move. Rubrics can be hyperaggressive towards seizing enemy objectives; SOT are defensive and reactive.

- HQ construction was built around support rather than melee push.

- The Crystal was chosen due to its game-changing potential and deterrent effect, very similar to Sorcerous Facade in Duplicity. Huge synergy with the Cult of Time; reliable 5-6 inch charges are possible with Crystal and Time Flux.

- Force construction was to intentionally exploit the greatest strength of TS, Obsec troops that are very difficult to shift and can steal objectives with superior mobility.

- TS are a points factory — they can score 80+ even when tabled.

- HQs are very multidimensional, meaning multiples were not needed. Having a large CP reservoir allows units to CP into different powers as needed. Having less characters exposed makes Abhor/Assassinate less rewarding.

- The stratagem to change Secondaries is relevant. Playing passive on two objectives against Abhor and No Prisoners with TTL will defeat opponents on points.

- Rhinos and Spawn don’t give Abhor points; these units often go forward first. Fearless Rubrics need to be killed to the last man to give VP at all. Abhor can become a trap for unwary players.

- Wrath of Magnus was never chosen. TS is not naturally predisposed to tabling opponents; Mutate Landscape synergizes better with their bias towards board control.

- Banners (1st) and RoD (2nd) were a frequent secondary choice. It’s possible to raise 4 banners on T1 with Infiltrate. Non-kill secondaries make it technically possible to achieve a max score without killing a single enemy model.

- Light cover is more important than obscuring cover, especially on Objectives; target saturation can force mistakes.

- Time Flux can be used creatively. Tri-pointing, extra movement onto objectives, healing into engagement range after advances (!!!), etc.

- 5x man Rubric squads are more vulnerable to damage spikes. 10x man squads can leverage Fearless and recover models rather than being completely removed.

- Future changes? Potentially more Scarab Occult Terminators. Fantastic anti-horde potential with Soul Reap.

 

It’s quite interesting stuff.

[Paladin777]

Wow! And I'm sitting on 50 old-school rubric marines (using ancient heavy bolters as SRC's), plus most a another box worth unassembled! Lucky Me!

 

I'm certainly going to try to make good use of that info!

Edited October 29, 2021 by Paladin777

[Xenith]

Unsure if I like how passive that is - though it's cool that we canactually win games now! 

[Paladin777]

With Rubrics at that!

 

I'm contemplating playing a similar list, only subbing one squad of rubrics for a 5 man SOT squad (fully kitted) as a deep striking troubleshooting unit. Also thinking of dropping the rhinos for a DP with wings and the conniving plate for some better counter charge than just an exalted sorcerer. The list might not be quite as good, but I think it'll be more fun to play in a friendly setting.

 

That still leaves 40 rubric marines, 15 SOT's, and 15 cabal points.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Paladin777

[Mushkilla]

Interesting stuff thanks for sharing.

 

Time to add a page to the Book of Magus!

- Time Flux can be used creatively. Tri-pointing, extra movement onto objectives, healing into engagement range after advances (!!!), etc.

 

Not sure I can see a situation where I would advance and time flux into engagement range (time flux + charging will always give you more movement and you get to shoot). Maybe against units with insane overwatch? That being said I can definitely see falling back and using time flux as poor mans fallback and charge. I was pretty sure there was a rule that prevented this, but maybe that was specific to horrors splitting or something (can't seem to find it).

 

With Rubrics at that!

 

Rubrics are one of the best units in the book (I'd even argue they are the best unit) so not that surprising. 

[GreenPlasma]

Not sure I can see a situation where I would advance and time flux into engagement range (time flux + charging will always give you more movement and you get to shoot). Maybe against units with insane overwatch?

Very sharp deduction, in fact that was exactly the scenario that was mentioned.

[Paladin777]

Rubrics are one of the best units in the book (I'd even argue they are the best unit) so not that surprising.

Yes, but I've been fielding rubrics en masse for the past 18 years and this is the first time they've actually felt like a competitive core choice since 3rd edition, and even then they couldn't compete!

[Mushkilla]

 

 

Yes, but I've been fielding rubrics en masse for the past 18 years and this is the first time they've actually felt like a competitive core choice since 3rd edition, and even then they couldn't compete!

 

 

Haha yeah. Last time they were good they had two wounds and were fearless too. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Mushkilla

[Ahzek451]

 

 

 

Yes, but I've been fielding rubrics en masse for the past 18 years and this is the first time they've actually felt like a competitive core choice since 3rd edition, and even then they couldn't compete!

 

Haha yeah. Last time they were good they had two wounds and were fearless too.

absolutely correct! In a time where wounds counted toward outnumbering someone, especially in morale, it was glorious.

[Xenith]

Ran this on Monday:

+++ New Roster (Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition) [110 PL, 11CP, 13 Cabal Points, 1,996pts] +++

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Thousand Sons) [110 PL, 11CP, 13 Cabal Points, 1,996pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)

Cults of the Legion: Cult of Time

Detachment Command Cost

+ Stratagems +

Sorcerous Arcana [-1CP]: Additional Relics

+ HQ +

Ahriman [9 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 180pts]: 11. Gaze of Hate, 11. Tzeentch's Firestorm, 13. Doombolt, Disc of Tzeentch

Exalted Sorcerer [8 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 135pts]: 12. Glamour of Tzeentch, 22. Weaver of Fates, Dilettante, Immaterial Echo, Inferno Bolt Pistol, The Prism of Echoes, Umbralefic Crystal, Warlord

Infernal Master [5 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 90pts]: 2. Fires of the Abyss, 21. Presage, 6. Malefic Maelstrom, Helm of the Daemon's Eye

+ Troops +

Rubric Marines [12 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 199pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 7x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 7x Inferno boltgun
. . Rubric Marine w/ soulreaper cannon: Soulreaper cannon

Rubric Marines [12 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 189pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 8x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 8x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [12 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 189pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 8x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 8x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [13 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 233pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Ardent Automata, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 4x Inferno boltgun
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ warpflamer: 4x Warpflamer

Thousand Sons Cultists [2 PL, 50pts]
. . Cultist Champion: Autogun
. . 9x Cultist w/ autogun: 9x Autogun

+ Elites +

Helbrute [7 PL, 125pts]: Multi-melta
. . Helbrute fist: Inferno combi-bolter

Helbrute [7 PL, 115pts]: Helbrute plasma cannon, Power scourge

Scarab Occult Terminators [21 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 445pts]: 2x Hellfyre missile rack
. . Scarab Occult Sorcerer: Inferno combi-bolter, Rites of Coalescence
. . 7x Terminator: 7x Inferno combi-bolter, 7x Prosperine khopesh
. . Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Soulreaper cannon
. . Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Soulreaper cannon

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 46pts]
. . 2x Chaos Spawn: 2x Hideous mutations

Created with BattleScribe

 

I went down the many rubrics route, partially influenced by the above tourney winner but will hellbrutes instead of loads of spawn and my own twist. Beat a necron player handily. He conceded end of my t3, if we'd gone to T5 it would have been 100-44. The list dominated with board control. 10 SOT's with presage and the +1S from the infernal master shot a 20 man necron blob off the board. 

 

Hellbrutes massively underperformed again. I'd drop them for another SOT unit, or bump up the spawn to 5. Cultists did their job and screened the rubrics from assault, might be useful still. 

[Xenith]

Updated my Chaos WIP with a report from a game against Slaanesh daemons.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/265816-xeniths-chaos-thousand-sons/page-9?do=findComment&comment=5770573

 

They're on top of you T1 - My loss here is more a me thing than an army thing, but how do you play with TS against that kind of force? I think I should have castled up and gone for kill objectives rather than board control ones. 

[WarriorFish]

This reminds me of my general approach to facing combat armies back in the day, especially against some codices; it's not a matter of if but when they hit. So your approach is twofold in reducing their numbers and options before they do, then managing them when combat begins. Against Slaanesh who are super fast and with Sons lacking in long ranged fire it's not a great match up :confused:

 

Castling would have helped I think but only at the start, after that you'd then be hemmed in and probably worse off in the long run? Maybe a better approach would have been a bit of castling/refusing and putting the rest on mobility? Sons have some good tricks for repositioning which are useful generally, all the more so here. It won't take the Daemons long to catch you again but this is the latter "managing" part, while the Daemonettes are largely ignorable jumping out of combat with a Keeper could make all the difference.

 

Sometimes it's a bad match up and you're going uphill regardless but that's the nature of the game. Paying for fancy AP-2 weapons goes nowhere against Daemons, and smiting chaff doesn't go far either. I think going for kill objectives would have been better too as they will dominate the board with their speed, but are pretty squishy. All valuable lessons and ideas for next game where you can settle the score

[Xenith]

Absolutely - largely my games of 9th have been about who controls the board better, and I have built armies to do so, however this outstripped me in terms of control and speed. As I say in the post, I think castling up and refusing a flank would have been the best strategy to bottleneck his large-based daemons in. If then I can stick the spawn in one access route, and the cultists in another, with a hellbrute behind each, I can feed them 2 chaff units per turn for 2 turns, while preserving my rubrics, at which point I can start slinging them into the opposing backfield to murder his troops and claim those objectives. By the time they're 2 turns deep into my DZ, they won't make it back in time to clear the units from their home DZ. 

 

Similarly, I think I should have webwayed a unit, maybe strat reserved a third, then I could have had 3-4 units dropping in on turn 2 into their backfield, or near it. The only issue is that it leaves my sorcerers out high and dry. 

 

The Daemon player could have easily countered this by leaving 1 of their 4 combat monsters in their DZ in defence as a sweeper - even if I managed to 'port a unit in, the keeper would have been able to murder them not bother. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Xenith

[WarriorFish]

Even if your chaff got occupied with your opponent's (Daemonettes) the potential obstruction for the other units could have made a big difference I agree. Even a single failed/unavailable charge might have opened an opportunity for you.

 

My experience is that people need to experience the speed of Slaanesh to appreciate it, especially with a player who knows how to make it work (I call it anchoring and slingshotting). Once you've seen it in action it should be easier to counter, but sometimes there's only so much you can do with the knowledge "this unit can charge any of my units"...

 

I think going big on shenanigans and redeploying etc is the way to go, it should give you a good shot at countering Slaanesh and also be useful against other opponents? Looking forward to hearing how your scheming goes for the next time :tu:

[Xenith]

 

I think going big on shenanigans and redeploying etc is the way to go, it should give you a good shot at countering Slaanesh and also be useful against other opponents? Looking forward to hearing how your scheming goes for the next time

 

Thanks for the tips, great to have feedback from a Daemon player also! The TS are a fine line in my gaming group - I've played them since they were a single unit entry in the codex, so naturally all I have for them are loads of rubrics and a dreadnought, then in the last 2 years, more rubrics, 5 SOT's and a maulerfiend. This puts me in the position that my painted models are pretty much all rubrics or TDA - which makes my army, incidentally, very similar to the above tourney winning one. I destreoyed that necron force at 2k, and this week handily beat a Marine player at 1500. In more casual games, I might have to tone it down a bit or swap rubrics out for something else. 

 

That said, the group is having another tourney in March next year and I'd like to bring the KSons to it, so need to get practice in! 

[WarriorFish]

Practice makes perfect I'm plodding along with my Sons also, hoping to get to 1k by the end of the year the few games I have got mostly told me I need more games to get on top of things My Sons are my only active "modern" army so the plethora of Stratagems and Cabal stuff is a big change from what I'm used to, plus as we all know Sons are somewhat of a detailed army so you need to know what you're doing.

 

Getting there though. Knowledge is power right?

[Xenith]

Yea, Cabal Rituals is something I need to get my head around to leverage the most in games. I think these are actually more useful than our stratagems - A critical undeiable spell, the +D3 mortals (i use every turn), and last game I even found myself thinking the re-cast an already cast witchfire would be useful (doombolt, to guarantee 9MW on something between 2x doombolt and a scroll smite). Last game I even got a couple of uses of the gain a CP ritual in, which was nice. 

 

Stratagem wise, it's really Risen Rubricae, Phalanx and the ignore a perils ones that I use regularly (every game?) The others are really situational or unit dependent. 

[WarriorFish]

I've only played 500pts games so could only use a couple, but even then it was a great boon. When in doubt the extra MWs to a power is always useful :) I need to get to grips with those like Risen but again, hard to make much use of at such low points

 

How are everyone's games going generally, now the codex has settled in? Are things going as predicted, how have army lists changed and unit stars risen or fallen?

[Ahzek451]

I need more time in general with this edition, but so far the only pains in my side are hyper-competitive harlequins and grey knights. Playing GT missions and maps with lots of line of site blocking terrain and very narrow shooting lanes. Competative Grey knights lists with 5 dreadknights are a pain currently. 

[Xenith]

I need more time in general with this edition, but so far the only pains in my side are hyper-competitive harlequins and grey knights. Playing GT missions and maps with lots of line of site blocking terrain and very narrow shooting lanes. Competative Grey knights lists with 5 dreadknights are a pain currently. 

 

Wouldn't the terrain heavy maps hinder the NDK's? But agree, monster mash, like the daemon force I fought above, is hard to deal with as TS - Only so many smites go go round. 

[Ahzek451]

 

I need more time in general with this edition, but so far the only pains in my side are hyper-competitive harlequins and grey knights. Playing GT missions and maps with lots of line of site blocking terrain and very narrow shooting lanes. Competative Grey knights lists with 5 dreadknights are a pain currently. 

 

Wouldn't the terrain heavy maps hinder the NDK's? But agree, monster mash, like the daemon force I fought above, is hard to deal with as TS - Only so many smites go go round. 

 

Not so much with all the teleporting, shunting and moving shenanigans. Granted I played a cult of time heavy list, but I was easily outmanouvered.