Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Thousand Sons (section)

==Why Play Thousand Sons?==

As one of the founding Legions, the Thousand Sons have, along side their pantheon opposite the [[Death Guard| Sons of Mortarion]], been promoted to full Codex Status. Alongside this there has been a small release of new models (some being shared with [[Age of Sigmar| Age of Sigmar.]]) If you love [[Just As Planned|Convoluted Schemes,]] [[Beastmen_(40k)#Tzaangors|Tzaangors]], [[Rubric Marines| Robots,]] Space Wizards with Mind Bullets, or [[/d/|Twisting Bodies in Unnatural ways;]] then this is the army for you! 

Boasting some of the most powerful psychic powers in the game, Thousand Sons armies are for the connoisseur of Chaos Space Marine commander; encouraging play with trickery, deception, and multi-layered planning. The army allows you to manipulate the dice, the board and even your opponents units. This encourages you to play with finesse, rather than purely brute forcing your opponent into submission. Alternatively you may simply believe that [[Magnus the Red| Magnus Did Nothing Wrong.]]

===Pros===
* Almost every unit has a way to cut through armour saves. As the Inferno Bolt offers a reliable AP-2.
* As Masters of Magic you get a boosted range on all your powers; so you can buff/debuff/shoot mind-bullets from even farther away. In addition you aren't penalised for spamming Smite like most other factions.
* Exalted Sorcerers act as a mid-way point between a Choppy Murder Lord and Flimsy Spellcaster.
* Fairly fresh sculpt-wise and also contains the first Primarch to be introduced to Modern 40k (Magnus).
* Great Synergy between units in the Codex and with other Chaos Armies. Thousand Sons are able to provide and receive a range of game-changing bonuses to and from Daemons & Fellow Heretic Astartes - all the while without stealing the spotlight from [[Your Dudes| Your Dudes.]]
* Invulnerable saves everywhere.
* Lets you take the fight to the [[Primaris Space Marines|Space Chads]] as you have ascended to become [[Mary Sue|An Enlightened Mage Warrior Riding on a Disc of Magic.]]
* Nine Sub-Factions to select from that influence your play style.
* Stratagems, Relics and Powers with the Ability to Deep-strike pretty much everything.  
* Three Psychic Disciplines and Nine Cult powers to choose from, and multiple Psykers across the army as Sorcerers lead the rank-and file troops. The Thousand Sons are true masters of the Psychic Phase with access to a large toolkit of powers for any situation. Even Eldar will watch in envy as you cast into the double figures.
* Tzaangor models (except those with Chainswords and Guns) as well as the Mutalith Vortex Beast can also be used for an Age of Sigmar Tzeentch army. Letting you eke out extra mileage for what you paid for. 

===Cons===
* Although the sculpts are quite good, the overall range of units to choose from is small.
* Very difficult learning curve for a new player and the smallest mistakes can often cost you the game.
* Consistently miss out on new releases due to Keywords; leaving you frustrated to see other Chaos getting new toys you can't use.
* Magnus is a huge investment of money, time and points.  He costs a lot, and you will want to put a lot of buffs on him to make sure you make the most out of him, otherwise he's just a gigantic target for your opponent.
* Reliance on your Psychic synergy means Anti-psyker units like Sisters of Silence, Culexus Assassins, GC Sancti/Magi/Abominants and Tyranids (''especially Hive Fleet Kronos'') will give you no end of problems if not eliminated quickly.
* Some models were ported in from Age of Sigmar in lieu of getting new stuff like the Death Guard. Which is a con due to the fact that the models don't look at all like they belong in a 40k setting.
* Subsequently, your HQ's are your biggest threat as well as the linchpin of your buffs; meaning most people will focus them first. If this happens your army can take a huge hit very quickly and struggle to recover.
* The Thousand Sons have a very limited armoury and only few units have access Plasma and Melta weaponry.
* The Thousand Sons also have a very limited selection of anti-tank/anti-monster weaponry. They do have access to lascannons on predators and land raiders, but these units are often difficult to include in many Thousand Sons army lists due to their cost in addition to the overall high cost-per-model of the rest of the army. This has been somewhat addressed at the end of 8th edition by introduction of Hellforged units like Hellforged Contemptors, Sicarans, and additional Land Raider variants. Nevertheless, Hellforged units are very dangerous to keep around your psykers because of their Containment Breach rule. Therefore its not uncommon to see Thousand sons armies having to rely on Smite spam to bring down 12-14 wound vehicles/monsters.
* The Thousand Sons can't take some of the Forgeworld models that are available to other Chaos Legions. Specifically the Hellforged Rapier, Chaos Hellwright and Chaos Hellwright on Dark Abyant; as well as any unit that cannot take Thousand Sons and Tzeentch keywords. All in all, Thousand Sons have an extremely limited selection of FW models that they are able to field and other Chaos factions generally get to benefit from a much wider selection of FW gear.
* You can also cripple your army on your own, as constantly casting means a high chance of rolling Perils of the Warp and blowing yourself up.

===Getting Started===

The Thousand Sons are one of the middle releases of 8th edition, and experience has shown this to be a negative rather than a positive. Contemporary Codexes either copy elements and features of previous releases, or build upon lessons learnt from player-feedback leading to power creep. You are now quite reliant on splat-books. It's also a grey-area about when GW will revisit the entire army again. On the other hand, 8th Edition has been marked by continual change, with unit entries being rewritten and tweaked constantly both in Chapter Approved, FAQ's, White Dwarf and now Psychic Awakening so take that as you will. Despite this you should get your hands on the following in the listed order:

*'''The Most Recent FAQ and Errata''': For rules clarification and fixes.
*'''Codex Thousand Sons''': Released February 2018.
*'''Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned''': Grants rules for the Nine Cults and additional stratagems and the latest point costs.
*'''Chapter Approved 2019/Munitorum Field Manual''': Additional missions and useful points updates. (Ritual of the Damned also includes latest points so skip this unless you want it for other armies.)
*'''Codex Chaos Space Marines, Version 2''': Released in April 2019. Allows you to Ally in the new units from Shadowspear and Vigilus Ablaze.
*'''Index: Forces of Chaos''': For all your Forge World needs.
*'''Start Collecting: Thousand Sons:''' A good launching off platform for new players. Contains Ahriman (weird for a named character but there's not much else), 1 unit of 10 Rubric Marines, 1 unit of 10 Tzaangors, and 2 Tzaangor upgrade kits, in case you want them to have the chainswords and pistols (you don't). 
*'''Thousand Sons: Legends PDF''': For 'Legacy Units' and Wargear options (eg. Combi-Plasma's and force axes.)