Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Thousand Sons (section)

=Tactics=

===Abhor The Witch And You!===

Remember when we were hyped to get an early codex and have all these fun rules and different combos, plus D2 swords and Obsec Terminators. Then we got Armor of Contempt and suddenly no one could scratch Rubrics with D1 weapons. We even used the Daemon Codex to fuck around with everyone with a torrent of 15+5d3 high-AP autohitting deepstrike flamer shots. 

So why didn't we ever become truly OP? Because of Abhor The Witch. In an army where your troops, elites, and every single HQ option is a Psyker, the Secondary is basically tailor-made to reign in excessive Psykers. Your opponent is just as likely to have no Psykers as they are to have just one or two, so it's a good decision to build a list to address the advantage your opponent will have in Matched Play. There are no exact rules to it, but things to consider include

# '''Limit your Characters''': Each character lost gives your opponent 3 VP, any other Psykers give them 2. There is no way to avoid losing Psykers but taking more than two or three makes maxing this out so much easier, especially when you consider that every additional HQ costs just as much as an additional layer of bubblewrap. Consider taking only the HQs you actually need, like an Exalted that's been kitted out with Relics, Ahriman, or an Infernal Master for buffing. You can also take a Sorcerer in Teminator Armor and keep him tucked away until you absolutely need him. 
#*Daemon Princes are risky choices because they make all their points back in melee, but will not survive getting charged or being counter-attacked, especially not now that the [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/World_Eaters_(9E)|skulljocks are coming back]]. Similarly, there's no point in Tzaangor Shamans; they're just too squishy and niche, you may as well just use an Infernal Master or a basic Sorcerer to do actions for you.
# '''Go For Dust and Mutants''': Similarly, Terminators and Rubrics give off the same amount of VP when they die, and are both Obsec. You should make Scarabs the core of your army and take large groups to avoid giving away VP: 1x10+2x5 or 2x10 are reasonable loadouts. Still, leave room for Rubrics, which can be taken in Flamer Bricks for deepstrike/redeploy, or in reserve as MSUs with Soulreaper cannons. Tack on your non-Psyker units to fill in the rest of your slots: Cultists give you board presence while Tzaangors will actually have a chance of not dying; have them move around to corners of the battlefield where they wont be seen, or have them advance ahead of your Discs so that in the next turn you have some bubblewrap already in place. Other good list fillers include the Terrax, Chaos Spawn (take groups of 3-5 to give character protection), and Daemon Engines. But you can also outsource your Heavy Elite Supports with...
# '''Auxiliaries''': You may as well soup with factions that have better non-Psyker options, especially now that they don't cost CP. A Patrol of Tzeentch Daemons or a Knight makes a good distraction from the Witch-hunt. That being said, if you're taking a Knight, they can also take ''Bring it Down'', and can get 2/3 VP for killing it anyway. Take only enough vehicles that they can't max it out, or deal with their anti-tank ASAP; otherwise, stick to Daemons.
# '''Ramp Up On Secondaries:''' You will always have Psykers, so you may as well think of your units in terms of how many points you can squeeze out before they die, Rubrics especially. 
#*Consider ''Mutate Landscape'' or ''Burn Empires'', making use of Duplicity's teleporting or our other deepstrike/redeploy options; at 3/4 points, you're gaining a point over them so long as you complete the action. 
#*''Sorcerous Prowess'' is a trap. Any army that can Abhor the Witch can't give you 5/3 points for killing their Psykers because they have none. Getting two points for killing something isn't very good, and you may as well take Bring It Down or Grind Them Down because they don't care how enemies die.

===The Scarab Meme Team===
A list basically revolving around blobs of Scarabs, when making your list, you gotta ask yourself: [[That Guy|20 or 30 Scarabs]]?[[Cheese|3 Blobs of 10, or a Block of 10 with two MSU squads to stay cheap,both points and CP-wise]]? No one will willingly use D1 against you, which is why you have a 1 CP (3 for 6+ model units) strat to bring damage down by 1. 30 models costs 1305 pts, and 20 costs 875. Always give them the shooty options, and upgrade one 10 man squad with Rites.

Regardless, you can take 2 exalted sorcerors and an Infernal Master (switching out the ES for a DP/Ahriman being your choice), but always kit the Infernal Master for support: Malefic Maelstrom and Glimpse of Eternity, Empyric Guidance for extra range, and a support Relic like Umbralefic or the Orerry. The Orerry works best for a Terminator firebase, letting them ignore any modifiers and abilities that reduce damage. 

Cult of Duplicity for mobility, but Time players should always go for 30 Scarabs. While Cults are mutually exclusive now, Duplicity and Time can situationally access each other's shenanigans at least once a battle: Umbralefic for teleporting once, and Rites + Warped Regeneration for bringing models back. The Cults are just surer ways to do them.

===The Crimson King===
The short and sweet of this tactic is easily summed up in these two words, BUFF MAGNUS!!! So take Magnus and take Ahriman on disc and either a daemon prince or exalted sorcerer of disc. Then give Magnus all the buffs possible from powers:  -1 to be hit (Glamour of Tzeentch), +2S/+1A (Swelled by the Warp, which you're only casting for the +1A, as it takes Magnus to hitting at S18 A9, and S16->18 doesn't matter), healing if hurt (Temporal Manipulation), then give +2 to Magnus' already +3/+2 from Cabalistic Rituals and throw smite up the board at the nearest unit and then fly him up the board and have him also cast as many mortal wounds as possible and then charge what's still standing. Wash, rinse, repeat till either Magnus is dead or you've won.  If your casters can keep up well enough to target what Magnus plans on charging, you can include debuffs on his target, too, the most important of which is Twist of Fate to let him ignore invuln saves once he gets into melee.

===The Teleporting Mutator===
This simple tactic relies on having a Cult of Duplicity Sorcerer in Terminator Armour with the Loyal Thrall upgrade (psychic actions cost one cast rather than taking all of your casting!) and the Umbralefic Crystal. Drop this psyker in the second round via teleport strike and have him perform the Mutate Landscape secondary objective (remember, you get +1 to those as well!), then use Sorcerous Facade to escape or move to another objective or back to the safety of your backlines, then perform this again using the Umbralefic Crystal next turn. You aren't likely to be able to mutate the objectives in your opponent's deployment zone as they will most certainly try to protect them, but this will allow you to steal a few objectives that would normally be out of reach. Do keep in mind that this will redirect some of the attention back to your sorcerer, so position him properly. If you're lucky, you might even be able to force your opponent to expend a teleport strike while you escape freely with your endless amount of redeployment powers.
*Don't forget, Loyal Thrall ''doesn't'' let you ignore the standing rule that no psyker can perform more one psychic action per psychic phase.

===The Dice Master===
Bring a Cult of Prophecy Infernal Master whose entire job is to perform the pact Glimpse of Eternity and the Cult Psychic Power Divine the Future and the Oraculae Brazier relic. This gives you a character who's dedicated to providing re-rolls and guaranteed dice rolls. I don't need to tell you how good those are, right?

===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 6s they get to 1s via Capricious Crest (which is no more than 1/round, don't forget, so you're not using it to buff your casting, you're committed to messing with theirs) 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 and the Psychic Dominion stratagem (roll one extra D6 for deny tests) 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.  But you should mind.

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000 9E]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40000 Tactics (9E)]]
[[Category: Chaos]]
[[Category: Chaos Space Marines]]
[[Category: Thousand Sons]]

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