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

==Tactics==
===The Crimson King===
The short and sweet of this tactic is easily summed up in these two words, BUFF MAGNUS!!! Take Magnus, Ahriman on disc and either daemon princes or an exalted sorcerer of disc (with High Magister trait for +1 to cast). Then, during the psychic phase, just give Magnus all the buffs you can (Glamour makes him -1 to hit, Weaver gives him +1 Invul, +2 Str/+1 A from diabolic strength, healing D3 wounds by Temporal Manipulation, etc). Magnus's 2D6 smite is your best weapon, even better than his stick - which even though is formidable, still only does 3D per hit. He can cast/deny 3/3 respectively, at default +2 to cast which can be improved by additional +2 (from Cabalistic focus) allowing him to 2d6 supersmite on 8+ roll. 

A recent tournament list used this very same tactic to a devastating effect by taking Magnus (with Smite, Infernal Gateway, Diabolic Strength), Ahriman on Disk (w/ Weaver of Fate, Temporal Manipulation, Warptime), High Magister Exalter Sorcerer on Disk (w/ Glamour, Prescience) and 9x Tzaangors Enlightened Bowmen w/ a Shaman. Everything moves as one, up the board while keeping all psykers within Magnus's 9" reroll bubble. At this point, order of casting becomes important. First, your Warlord casts Glamour on Magnus (and Prescience onto Tzaangors). Then Magnus casts his Smite (use Cabalistic focus for +2 to cast), Infernal Gateway, Diabolic Strength. Lastly, Ahriman casts Weaver of Fate, Smite (or Temporal manipulation if Magnus needs healing) and at the very, very, very end - Warptime to catapult a fully buffed Magnus in the direction of the enemy. On the charge, Magnus is at -1 to hit, with 3+ invul, and strikes with 9x Str20 Attacks at 3 damage each, hitting on 2+ (rerolling 1s). Meanwhile, the Psykers remain behind the Tzaangor Enlightened who spam autowounds on whatever Magnus didn't get a chance to tie up on a charge.

***Keep in mind, Magnus (even when fully buffed) doesn't have the hitting power or the sheer resilience of Mortation - but when you take into account the mortal wound spam during the psychic phase it equals out the damage output. Keep an eye out for any enemy Null Zone or Death Hex casting characters, because while Mortarion is capable of surviving without his Invul, Magnus most probably will not.

===Beastmen, Beastmen Everywhere===
A very cheap and affordable way of putting a lot of wounds on a target.

Step 1: Take either Ahriman on Disk or a normal Exalted Sorcerer on Disk (make him Warlord, with High Magister for +1 to cast). Give him Prescience and Glamour of Tzeentch (both 7+ casting value at base, Ahriman and High Magister lower casting value to 6+). 

Step 2: Take a Tzaangor Shaman with Weaver of Fates (5+ casting) with a unit of 9x Tzaangor Enlightened with Bows.  

Step 3: The Enlightened get 4+ Invulnerable (from Weaver of Fates), and become -1 to Hit (from Glamour of Tzeentch). The squad unloads 18 Str5 Ap-1 shots at 24", hitting on 1+ (re-roll 1s thanks to Sorcerer) and auto-wounding on 4+ (Guided by Fate is subject to both +1 to Hit modifiers from Shaman AND Prescience).

The result is a lot of autowounds on your target (irregardless of its Toughness!) ... and whatever doesn't autowound still hits at Str5 Ap-1 which is formidable. Your opponent will probably get their save, but with so many armor save rolls a good number will fail. This a fairly cheap and efficient way to shred wounds off of large, high toughness things like enemy Land Raiders, Russes, Transports, Knights without having to use Lascannons on them. Only in 40k universe can you absolutely murder an Imperial Knight with a volley of arrows from a bunch of flying birdmen. Keep in mind though, this doesn't mean you can't massacre anything T5 or below. After autowounds, you are still hitting with a good volley of Str 5 Ap-1 shots which is formidable against any hordes and MEQs. It's just that autowounding irregardless of Toughness makes the Enlightened fundamentally more dangerous to high toughness targets, so try to shoot big things first if you can. Thousand Sons army lists already suffer in the anti-tank/anti-monster heavy weapon department so it's always best to use any advantage we have in order to compensate for that deficiency.

You can buff the squad by having a nearby Mutalith Vortex Beast cast Ephemeral Touch on the Enlightened to give them additional -1 Ap, but generally speaking there are better things to be using your Vortex Beast on than the squad Enlightened.

===We Beastman now! ME SMASH!===
Almost offensively obvious but here we go: Winged Daemon Prince Warlord with Aetherstride, Dark Matter Crystal, two sets of malefic talons, Gaze of Fate, and Demonic Strength. 2x20 Tzaangors with Tzaangor Blades and Brayhorn. A Heldrake with Baleflamer, and some other psyker with Warptime and Gaze of Fate. Use Webway Infiltration (3CP) on the Tzaangor units. Deploy and move your units across the table. Drop the two Webway Tzaangors 9.001" away from the enemy. Use Dark Matter Crystal on the bearer). Place him alongside his Beastman. Use Warptime to get your Heldrake in, and Gaze of Fate. CHAAAARRRGEEE! BLOOD FOR THE ...Oh, wait. Wrong Chaos god. But you get the point.
*Without any additional buffs, your odds of making these charges are 41.67% for the Tzaangor units, 47.84% for the Daemon Prince, and 72.22% for the Heldrake; you can spend CP on re-rolling to raise the Tzaangors to 65.97%.  You have a 72.22% chance of having Gaze of Fate available to help with the charges, but that's unreliable as hell, since you can flub Gaze of Flame, and even if you don't, the re-roll might not help.
*Since you are completely based on a first turn Alpha Strike, if you fail your charge, all your units are exposed and probably at Rapid Fire Range. Basing your strategy on a single move is '''NOT''' a good idea if most of your units can be brought down in one hit.
*Let the Heldrake charge first and tie up those torrent flamers.
*Instead of the Drake (or in addition to it) Magnus might be used.
*Add a second HQ and a unit of Cultists for +3CP and backfield objective camping.
*Add Alpha Legion detachment. Infiltrate whatever you feel like: Berserkers? Possessed? Warpflamer Rubrics? Maybe bring some Obliterators and/or Terminators too?

===Magic Nuke===
One of the new tactics you can employ thanks to the release of Ritual of the Damned. 
Sick of that Tau, Guard, or Iron Hands player sitting in his castle every game? Take a Daemon Prince in a Cult of Magic detachment. Give him the new Cult of Magic WLT Devastating Sorcery, the new Relic Arcane Focus for a +1 to his psychic tests, and use Cabalistic Focus for +3. For this Daemon Prince from Hell, you'll want to take the psychic powers Infernal Gateway (WC8) from the Tzeentch discipline, Astral Blast (WC6) from Cult of Magic, and Gaze of Fate for insurance. Use any means at your disposal, whether it's the Dark Matter Crystal(You cannot actually use DMC on a DPoT unless he is the bearer.... In which case he does not have Arcane Focus so take your pick between mobility and more reliable Psychic tests), or Warptime slingshot, or whatnot to get him in position. Pick a really juicy target, particularly any large screen that could be within 3" of multiple enemy assets. Drone, Guardsmen, whatever. Cast everything: At +3 Infernal Gateway has a 83.3% chance of going off (27.8% chance of double MWs), Astral blast 97.2%, and Super Smite goes off at 41.7%. Thanks to the wording of Devastating Sorcery in the rulebook, not only is the main target taking an extra Mortal Wound with every power, so is every unit around him. Watch your target get obliterated by the blast of D6 + D3 + 2 Mortal Wounds, and everything 3" around him suffering D3+3, giving you a good chance of outright killing Characters caught in the blast, obliterating drones and putting a big hole in your opponent's castle to exploit. Keep your Daemon Prince screened and repeat until he is dead, and ignore any perils with a CP.

A second delivery option is a Terminator Sorcerer with a chaos familiar, he is cheaper than a DPoT and can deepstrike innately. You will however have to use the Chaos Familiar stratagem to gain access to infernal gateway so you trade some pts for CP depending on your needs, with a familiar his first cast of the phase will be at +4 if you managed to pull this off and have him in range for Cabalistic Focus.
You can also give him Boon of Mutation and hope for the +1 to cast. While by no means reliable, it will give you a chance of +5.

===The Psychic Phase Belongs to me and me Alone!===
If you want to prove to all of your (former)friends that the Thousand Sons are the undisputed masters of the psychic phase, then take 2 Thousand Sons detachments, make one of them Cult of Change for the Capricious Crest relic, make the other Cult of Mutation for the Attempted Possession psychic power, take a small detachment of Tzeentch Demons and squeeze in the blue scribes... The net result is -1 to psychic tests while within 12" of the scribes, another -2 to a psyker of your choice via attempted possession for a total of -3, change any 6's they get to ones via Capricious Crest and to top things off they lose access to any powers they fail while within range of the scribes for the duration of the battle, since you've unlocked chaos demon stratagems by including a Chaos Demons detachment... Sprinkle demonic possession as desired.

If you don't mind going multi-god, Fiends of Slaanesh have ANOTHER -1 to enemy Psychic tests, on top of locking enemy units in melee, and the Burning Chariot can take Chanting Horrors, giving you a total of -3 to cast from Daemons alone, -5 on the chosen character. Have fun as most powers will auto-fail.

[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(8E)]]
[[Category:Chaos]]

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