Tactics - Thousand Sons

This is the Tactics Page for Thousand Sons fandex

Why Play Thousand Sons

• You absolutely love TS lore and want to play an army of evil space Egyptian sorcerers and undead that aren't Necrons
• You want to utterly dominate Psychic phase.
• You want to rape MEQ armies.
• You're MTG player, and want to set game-breaking magic combos in 40k
• You like to troll people by ruining their plans

Pros

• All your character are psykers, and they are much more effective that most other Psyker in the game with entire page worth of special rules, and another page of upgrades, specifically designed for further altering your psy phase.
• Jetbike psykers. In squads. With in-built meatdustshields.
• Your Psychic powers are generally better than other armies get.
• Everything have an invuln and AP3 bolt weapons. MEQs can eat dirt and die if they find themselves out of cover.
• Your entire army is Fearless.

Cons

• High points cost means you're going to be outnumbered by everything but Grey Knights.
• You don't have some of the most broken BRB spells, like Invisibility.
• That pages of special rules, upgrades, and psychic powers are complicated and require a lot of memorization. You're gonna need a sheet of paper to make a lot of notes during the game.
• Invuln and AP3 don't help against things like Guardsmen or Dark Eldar. Cheap hordes are your cryptonite.
• In close combat your guys are worse than regular tactical marines, despite being much more expensive, unless you pump a lot of points into CC upgrades. The fact that equal points of Fire Warriors can actually wipe your golems in melee should tell you everything. And that Fearless thing combined with a lack of grenades means any walker with AV better than 10 would tarpit your troops forever (or until it kills them).
• Anti-Psychic units, like Culexus assassins, ML3 Librarians with Adamantium Will or Tyranid Shadow in the Warp will fuck you up.

Special Rules

• Old Enemies - TS are better against their archenemies at range, but Wolves become much more effective once they come into melee (in which you already suck). Almost everything in the army have this.
• Fleshless - Grant immunity to Biomancy and Pavony powers save primarises (attached sorceres however could be affected), and Living-metal-esque save against stunned and shaken. First one mostly means you cannot buff your golems and dreads with Biomancy/Pavony, but the last one is great for both vehicles and their passengers.
• On the Sorcerer’s Command - the big downside rule. Without the rubric sorcerer nearby your soldiers and vehicles enter the Stupor statein which you basically lose control of their actions. Always keep your sorcerers in the back (or in the middle of the unit, in case enemy have deepstrikers and outflankers), and beware of snipers and barrage weapons, unless you want chunks of your army suddenly turning into expensive paperweights.
• Rubric Golem - Rubric Marine bundle rule, that combines Fearles, SaP, 4++, Fleshless and On the Sorcerer’s Command.
• Golem Driver - Vehicle bundle, much like the previous one, except with 5++ and no SaP so dustdreads can actually run and overwatch.
• Rubric Sorcerer - The third bundle for Sorcerers. Grant Fearless, Psyker, 4++ and the following:
  • High Sorcery - 5E style psychic tests, based on Leadership tests. You only generate random D3 warp charges but this is not a problem with 97% warp-charge effectiveness compared to regular 50% or even Concave 83%. The real downside is that Leadership-reducing effects (Shadow in the Warp, Mindshock Probe) hits your sorcerers hard and you cannot up chances by throwing in more charges.
  • Innumerations - -1 to all Leadership test results, effectively granting Ld11. This mostly affects psychic tests.
  • Power of Rubric - your know one more power, and deny on 4+ against enemy psykers of equal or lower power.
  • Soul Shield - 4+ save against perils
  • Cults of the Thousand Sons - Each of your sorcerers must pick a cult and generate at lest half of his powers from it, but at the upside it also gets primaris from that cult
  • Sacrifice - Supercharged mode for psychic powers, it consumes a sacrifice token you must buy pre-battle or acquire through special rules, and forces extra dice on Ld test drastically increasing chances of failure and Perils. In return you get empowered version of the spell which most armies cannot deny due to -2 modifier it forces on DtW. Using this rule not always worth it, due to almost 50% chance of fail followed by perils, and on top of that Sacrifice bonuses on many psy powers are only really good in certain situations.
• Soul Hunter - Allows your Sorcerer to generate Sacrifice tokens from his kills.
• Daemon Engine - Same as CSM, but it doesn't come with that once-per game damage booster.
• Rare - Limits units to 1+ per detachment and 0+ in allied one.
• Indirect Effect - witchfires with this effect are denied like they are blessings psyker casts on himself and doesn't count as psy powers, so, for example, they can affect Culexus assassin (as no amount Blankness can protect him from falling rocks).
• Cauterize - FB flaming attacks that ignore FNP and shut down IWND. Most times it is as useless as Soul Blaze, but at least it doesn't throw more tokens on the board. Also, just like Soul Blaze it does not affect Avatar of Khaine, but most things with this rule are ineffective against MCs anyway.

Majick!

Aka the main reason you play this army. All TS sorcs have ascess to Daemonology and SIX of their own discipline. Each must pick one of the five original temples as his own, and must half of his powers from it, gaining primaris from that discipline

Minor Psychic Powers

Each Rubric Sorcerer have them. Do note, thad Young Sons, Hidden Ones and Magnus are not Rubric Sorcerers. You manifest them without any tests, just by expandin a warp charge. Generally they quite weak, compared to actual psychic powers, and should be avoided unless you absolutely need that effect.

• Obey - Simply cancels Stupor on one of your squads. Mostly used for when you need that leaderless squad to score a point.
• Empower - Here to turn up majick weapon, ammo and icons. Do note that you can only use it once per psy phase, so stacking ctystal weapon and bolts on one unit wouldn't be very smart.
• Enliven - Swaps your golems' SaP for Relentless, which means they can actually run, overwatch, and even sweeping advance if by some miracle they won in a close combat.
• Fall Back - Your escape button when tarpited.
• Halo - Fear. Most things either ignore it or have high enough Ld to reliably pass the test, though it may help to slow down enemy tarpits.
• Illuminate - Psychic searchlight. At least it wouldn't light you up like the conventional one.

Unit Analysis

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Building an Army

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Tactics

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Counter-Tactics

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Common Playstyles

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