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Work's getting super crazy for me but I want to quickly get this out there, because I haven't reported any of my recent Thousand Sons games, and this was the result of a conversation I had on the forum with some of you about using Magnus because I had been getting kicked around pretty good with my Thousand Sons. If you recall, I wasn't sure if going full Magnus was something I'd regret or not. Well some of you may know I like to start my batrep's with a critical moment.... and that would be right about here.... + " Hold my spear... I got this...." + So here we go: It's Orks vs. Thousand Sons. His list is experimental, he's been having good success with a Morkanaught. He uses a few trucks, and puts 10 boyz in each one. He has a repair dude on a bike to help fix the Morkanaught, and a few Choppas in reserves. Here's my list: Setup and Game: - It's my basic list, but with Magnus this time. I'm sure it was illegal now that I think of it because I put 9 blue horrors and one 1 pink horror as a squad. I haven't really used them in 8th and thought I'd throw them into the list for something to try. They are my 4th troop choice. I guess I could have made it legal by simply making the Rubrics an elite choice. Oh well... no biggy. - We play Spoils of War, and I go first because I'm awesome. Spoils of War dictates you can never throw away "secure Objective X" cards. (not to be confused with "Defend Objective X" which I see some people still accidentally putting in the same category). - The deployment looks like this: + There be green men on Mars, but they ain't martians. Ahriman surveys the battle ground. The Tzaangors spread out. Magnus is off camera to the left, and some Orks aren't quite in the picture. + Early Game: + I figure I should hold Magnus back. I explain him to my opponent. I decide in turn 1 NOT to use Magnus. I move him with his beautiful acid trip looking wings, but no psychics, no Weaver of Fate, no Warp Time. This would be a severe under estimation on my part, and I should know by now. + My lascannon Preds open up on the Dorkbot, and I do nothing. T8 isn't that bad, but out of 4 lascanons, and 3 Autocannon shots I do 3 damage total. This doesn't look good. + I score one point for grabbing an objective, but I don't even get first blood. I have to advance a bit with Tzaangors or as usual Orks will dominate the table space. + In his turn he picks up first blood, and a point.for something else, but he puts out horrendous firepower while advancing his trucks. He smokes a squad of Tzaangors... a squad that Ahriman cast Fate on and even with rerolling 1's, I lose all but 2, and Ahriman is assaulted T1. I thought I was deep enough to protect him, I know that Orks can, advance + assault, but I didn't think it would end up on Ahriman in T1. He dies quickly to a pile of attacks. Slay the Warlord goes to Orks. I'm losing 2-1. + After the Orks kill off Tzaangors and Ahriman, I get the Rubrics out and with 4 flamers, and bolters and I kill only about 10 orks in total. They get around the moral test ,and the orks are fine. I realize the trucks are advancing on my endges, trying to leverage the Predators. I fire on them.... get this... I finally get a Pen- 6 DAMAGE, and he Ramshackles it down to 1 DAMAGE! He does it again on another lascannon shot from 5 DAMAGE down to 1! Ugh. Man is that ramshackle annoying when it kicks in. + I realize after the Morkanaught finished firing, and his army finished assaulting, I was out gunned, and probably out assaulted, but I had the psychics. On the right flank my disk sorc went to town on some dreadnoughts, but I really had trouble killing them. I had to rely on SMITE a LOT this game for vehicle damage. Too many walkers, and trucks. + Magnus is angry, and I can't blame him, I still do not cast Fate on him because I just want to see what happens.... He swoops in and joins a pile of Tzaangors in the middle. I've been here before and if you don't contain Orks early they will own the real estate and you can't get them off of stuff with Warbosses and large mobs around. + I decide to drop in the Scarab Occult (7 termies) in behind the scene to set up some reinforcement for Magnus.... + Magnus, Goats, and Scarab Occult! Now we have a game going.... or do we? + Well Magnus does what he can but the trucks are all full, and the Orks on the ground are wasted pretty good. I thoguht I'd try to put some dents into the Morkanaut but the Orks keep repairing him about as much as I can damage him. Magnus spanks down a large mob, and surprisingly the bladed Tzaangors blow up a trukk... but 10 dudes come out without losing a guy. + + The Scarab Occult fire up Smite, Hellfyre Missiles, bolters, and Soulreaper cannon.... on the Morkanaut and do one damage. Ouch. This is looking uglier and uglier. Late Game: + The Orks counter with everything they can. What this does is buy my back lines some time. I knew he'd do this... he has to, but this way I have some breathing room. I get some valuable points. He has very doable cards though, but he can't do them without killing some stuff first.... + The Ork Morkanaut opens up it's belly button and a squad of Boyz with Big Choppa's comes out. I hate these things.... sure enough he piles them into my Scarab Occult termies..... + And here we are.... the Morkanaught pours everything into Mangus..... + + The Morkanaught hits a ton. There's an Ork banner I cannot get to that has him re=rolling 1's in a radius. He hits Magnus pretty hard, and he's quickly down to half wounds even with my Invulns, re-rolling 1's. + + Magnus interrupts and splits his attacks against the two most damaging units I can see.... two Warbosses with fists. He kills both of them... barely. But the Orks continue with boyz galore, and a dreadnaught. Even without fists, Magnus goes down. + The Scarab Occult get owned pretty hard. This is why I don't like Terminators in 8th. Everything affects them... heavy bolters, fire, assault cannons, etc. In this case a cheap squad of boyz... with Big Choppa's hits a ton, and they are S7 I believe, wounding easily, reducing my save to a 3+. Each Big Choppa does 2 Damage. The Scarab Occult are easily diced up here. + So things are going pretty bad for the Thousand Sons as usual.... but it's okay, I still have... .Tzaangors! And predators (which have done nothing even with prescience running). They plink some more wounds off of the Morkanaut. The Disk Sorc I have gets me "scour the Skies" by killing a chopper, and he directs Tzaangors to take down some cheap troops for another victory point. + I'm playing for points here, it's all I have.... the Rubrics use good ol' fashioned Rhino wall to stay alive... I'm still shocked people don't play more Rhino's. This Rhino literally keeps the Rubrics alive for 2 additional turns. + The demise of Magnus has acted as distraction keeping my Rubrics alive.... The Rhino blocks the Morkanaught buying me 2 turns+ + I snag a few more points here. The Morkanaught cannot get through to the Rubrics who are roasting the Orks trying to get close... I can't kill them all, but he can't get within 8" of me for the assault without melting..... + so here we are at the end. I've been down a Primarch since T2, and I have the points to win.... I'm purely playing the objectives, and somehow my Rhino lasts through all shooting... down to 1 wound, this forces the Morkanaught to assault the Rhino instead of the Rubrics which he desperately wants to kill to so he can move around mid table easily, but it won't happen... the game ends and Thousand Sons literally win by one point.... wow, what a close one. I never thought I had a chance. Thanks for checking out the batrep!

I just played another Tau game, but it was against a 'fun list'. Tons of vehicles, lots of tanks so very few saves for me. I took so much damage from AP 3 or better it was insane. I lost my two biggest squads the turn after their arrival, but before I did I used the Beacon Angelis to flip a Chaplain and 5 Custodes across the table. My HQ being wiped and two fair sized pod squads was typically Tau, but I think the worst part was I could only cause 2 Tau vehicles to jink on arrival (they still lived even after being targeted with an Auspex each.) In his ensuing turn he moved tanks slightly (I couldn't get all his hammer heads in the picture below), but the Breacher squads are just so gross.... they are incredibly anti-drop pod , basically cleaning up anything that Interceptor couldn't. About halfway through my opponent's turn I realized I was hardly rolling any dice. It came to me that most of what was targeting me doesn't allow me a save.... moments like these the game feels so anti-marine right now. At the end of the day he had a heck of a time trying to get rid of my Custodes.... again. + Tau 'fun' deployment: squads of Breachers, and a long tank line with a Drone Commander in the middle and lots of marker lights. + So here's me dropping in.... shockingly in this game there was no Interceptor!!! I was shocked.... however with 90% of his army in boxes, I couldn't kill anything. + - I'm picking up a lot of models and just putting them away with no saves.... but the Custodes did pop his throwaway squad of ObSec Kroot. - He is ramping up the score bigtime.... I have a squad in the background (see top picture) to continue the IHB (Infernus Heavy Bolter) experiment. They are in that Grey Rhino.... T1, even with dozer blades, I move the rhino 2 inches, I roll snake eyes and the thing is immoblized. o_0 - I give up Warlord, and two of my best Aquila squads, my Libby (dead) failed to kill anyhting with Psychic Shriek. - I now have 4 Custodes, an Aquila of 5 Stalker Bolters (never killed a thing, it's all in tanks) with a Cyclone Terminator (maybe he got a hullpoint off a vehicle all game? Caused some jinks mostly. - The IHB squad got out of their dead rhino. All game they maybe killed 3-4 Kroot caught in the open. He saw that they were only Infernus Heavy Bolters, so he flew his vehicles right into them, shocking them off of objectives, knowing I could not even glance the front armour of his transports. + Tau coasting to a win.... I am playing magic wound time with these Custodes..... and they're angry. + - Custodes play magic friends, get into CC smoke a squad. He's having trouble getting past my 2+ saves and 3++ shields. Custodes kill a tank, marker drones, Drone Commander, a full breacher squad, a Pathfinder squad (top of buliding), and a Hammerhead Tank.... THEN leave the runes near end game with 3 models left!!!! - My BSSF Ancient comes firing in automatically on T4 (he failed all reserve rolls) and I have to kill a vehicle with him... that's all he has to do. He lines up the back of a transport with his Assault cannon, misses 3 shots, fails to pen/glance on fourth shot. He is annihilated by Breachers in the next turn. - He was running away with this. He drew good cards, and while I had solvable cards, they were hard... kill this, grab that... nothing I was sitting on. - My IHB squad is so innefective he is just dancing around it knowing I can't damage anything in range. He gets out of his transport to grab a big point turn and quickly ramps up 13 points on me. - My Custodes take some serious tank shots but the Tau are used to me just putting models in the case... but not the Custodes. Everyone, including the Chaplain has a wound on them, but 3 models still live. I get out to mid field with the Custodes, they wipe up some remnant Kroot, and the Custodes smash into the Transport my Dreadnought could not hurt. - Custodes destroy the Transport, the IHB squad fails to do anything again. - The Stalker team which has literally done nothing (lack of soft targets, out ranged) decides they mush break from the building to get to mid table... they die a horrrendous death trying to get there. The Cyclone Termie fails his first save of the game (needed invuln from Hammer head), and the squad melts with him. - The game goes to T6 and I concede. Ironically I have 2 Custodes with the single Chaplain, 4 members of the IHB squad, and the Rhino JUST repaired itself... and then gets destroyed. Amazingly enough I manage 12 points to his 13. End Game Thoughts: - I tried hard to make it a game. I was thoroughly demoralized at the mass loss of troops and how much my army struggled against armour. Also having so few saves against Eldar and Tau gets pretty old, pretty fast. Add in Admech/Grav and it's enough to make someone go to Daemons or something where you're better off running around the battlefield with a loin cloth for protection. - This is the continuation of some heavy experimentation. Obviously this is not my idea of an optimized list but after some consideration I've made some final decisions on some units: - BSSF as a stand alone Detachment is terrible. - Watch Company is 'good', but too tax heavy - Dreadnoughts are still terrible in mildly competitive meta's, but even more so when it's nearly the only armour your opponent has to focus all his melta/plas/las/Stealth Cadre at. - Infernus Heavy Bolter. I'm not going to bother debating this any further. In my mind ,this is the worst weapon in the codex at a melta cheaper than a Frag. I won't say I'll never, ever field them again, because there's always a chance my wife will drive over all my Frag Cannon models and I'll have to proxy IHB's as Frag. Custodes save the day!