New to Thousand Sons

[Mordas]

Hey all!

 

You may have seen me in other sections of B&C, but during this lockdown, I started building my first Rubric marines squad. Which was meant to be only for Killteam games but now the plastic addiction has taken ahold and they will now be the start of my 8th Army.

 

But I am running out of space so would like to keep this one around 1250 - 1500 points, which suits my local gaming club friendly games and for the games against a few friends that play 40k.

 

So at the moment, I have 2 squads of Rubric Marines, Ahriman, Exalted Sorcerers, 1 squad of Scarab Occult Terminators and a Daemon Prince. I also have an unpainted Hellbrute from my Black Legion army that could get moved over. I have regular games against BT player who takes a lot of armour and Drukhari venom army.

 

With this in mind does anyone have any recommendations for options for the rest of my list? I was thinking about getting some predators for heavy support and dealing with any armour and some Tzaangors for troops. But I haven't got a copy of the Ritual of the Damned yet so not sure if there are certain units that I should lean towards?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice and I look forward to showing you all progress of this army as it comes together!

 

[Archaeinox]

Hi! Thanks for providing some info about what sort of games you can expect to play in (ie: friendly). It will help me give some better feedback since most of my experience is from casual play.

 

The predators are in a weird spot. You could bring three of them and just annihilate someone with a couple Start Collecting! boxes as an army. However, when pitted up against your friends you might not have the same outcome. This is due to the fact that regardless of what happens, the pair (you should pair our armor choices up together) of predators would likely be shutdown and I don't mean from shooting. In addition to being tied to your deployment zone, all it takes is a lone Rhino or Venom to clip one (or both) predators and there goes your anti armor. 

The helbrute is probably a good cheap start for some AT that can at least walk around and not be tied to your deployment zone, and easily screened by rubrics.

 

The 3 exalted sorcerers could be made into 3 cheap sorcerers in a Supreme Command Detachment. I'd get a 3rd troops choice and tbh I think it's personal preference which of the three but... Ritual of the Damned rewards players who take Rubric Marines, for sure. 

 

Although I'm not a fan of their look, a pair of maulerfiends would serve you very well against the opponents in the setting you describe. I highly recommend considering those... I find myself moving away from Predators and more towards walker-type anti tank. 

[WarriorFish]

Welcome to the Sons, I think many an army started as just a Kill Team :lol: Others can provide more detail but it looks like you have a good start to me, AT in particular long ranged is a gap for Sons so as long as you remedy that you have more freedom with the rest of your list :)

 

What colours are you painting them up in, got and pictures to share?

[Prot]

So if I understand you correctly you're one troop short of a Battalion. 

 

If you want something different from Rubrics, there's two choices here: 10 cheap Cultists. Or  a BLOB of cultists (Thousand Sons don't have the same restriction on Cultists that CSM do. However, you can use their strat in a game when you use your CSM as part of an army to bring Thousand Sons Cultists back from the dead. Cheeky, I know!)

 

That's the cheap option. The option I currently use is Tzaangors. I never get mileage out of them but that's me. A lot of people love them. I only use about 18-20 and deep strike them nearly every game to harass my opponent's gunlines. It also forces them to deploy differently.

 

Moving on to your shooty problem.

 

Since I'm sure you'll learn that short of getting a Knight, or Forgeworld, our Psychic phase is where our best vehicle damage comes from. 

 

So in no particular order the units that 'finish' off what the Psychic phase started are:

- Helbrute: Las/missile (very cheap)

- Decimator: Butcher Cannons (semi-cheap) (I have Soul Burners on mine but I ordered it literally the day they went up a ton of points.)

- Contemptor with Two twin lascannons. (I have been using this more, but it's a bullet magnet; even though it is a victim of RNG quite often, the top range of the damage curve is quite high.

- Skorpius: (Note that's 3 units in this list already from Forgeworld which is telling you something). This is expensive to put on the table but it does fill a massive void for Thousand Sons. Indirect fire is hard to come by for Chaos, but Marines are so good, it's almost nice just to have this as an auto Primaris killer, and potentially take care of some Thunderfire Cannons. 

- Leviathan. The Chaos one, I've found, is not as good as the Loyalist one (shocker!) But it's still a beast and hard to take down. 

- Deredeo. If you can get past the look of this science fiction washing machine, it is exceptionally potent. Expensive, but it will be a priority for your opponent...especially with all the fly in the game right now.

 

In the area of, "If you can get these cheap:"

- Predators. We still have that Strategem that gets you an advantage with three of them. But I just have had very, very little success with this unit.

- Vindicators. Although I've been singing their praises since the last point reduction, I still don't own 3 of them, but 2 is good (three gets you the mortal wound shell) They are cheaper, D6 shots now, and T8.

- More Helbrutes: It's not too hard to convert these since that old plastic one from the box set is all over ebay. I like Helbrutes more now because we can use Duplicity to slingshot them across the board. I think even the vanilla Multi melta/Fist is a cheap scary unit for your opponent.

 

I think the 'Daemonic Engines' are all very bad. That was how GW planned to sell the Disco lord since he automagically makes them mediocre. Still we don't get him, so this makes (in my personal opinion) Daemon Engines a less than stellar choice for what you want to use them for.

 

I gotta go, but that's a fair amount to chew on plus the other great advice you've been given. Good luck, and welcome!

[Mordas]

Here is the WIP so far:

https://imgur.com/35n3HMS

https://imgur.com/2jKybxu

 

 

Must admit that's a bit of conflicting advice I will have to ponder. I normally warn my opponents about my poor rolling ability and they never believe me until they see it for themselves (20 shots, 3+ to hit, I got 2/20). My last game with my murder clowns I failed a 6" charge with a re-roll, so I need all the help I can get (or new dice) to get any damage through!

 

With the Rubrics, is it best to run a squad of 10? I have 2 boxes now, I have gone 8 inferno bolters and a soulreaper canon for both squads. The warpflamers seem okay to me but the short range just doesnt seem worth it.

[Prot]

Looking really good so far.

 

Rubrics are all over the place. I think if you're playing pure Thousand Sons you can't go wrong with any size, It's just the size dictates the role. So for example a 5 man squad in cover in your back lines sitting on an objective can be a real pain to shift, but it's not a big enough squad to be aggressive with.

[WarriorFish]

Great work so far, the colours are very striking the army is going to really pop on the table top! Keep the updates coming :tu:

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Personally I have removed all SRC from my Rubrics. I'd rather have points for other things.

[Mordas]

Small bit of progress from the weekend:

 

https://imgur.com/eGmQJcI

[Prot]

Wow. You're flying through those Rubrics. They look fantastic.

[Mordas]

Thanks guys, not much else to do at the moment sadly so the TS getting alot of my attention :D

[Prot]

Good ol' Thousand Sons. Keeping people busy during a crisis. lol

 

Do what you can, and what you like for the hobby. Personally I find some of the Thousand Sons line very, very tedious (all that fine metal work on the armour for instance). I don't think I have an army that takes as many 'steps' to finish a model. But inherently I think it's still one of the best looking lines in the game. I just wish we had more to choose from. :)

[Xenith]

Good ol' Thousand Sons. Keeping people busy during a crisis. lol

 

Do what you can, and what you like for the hobby. Personally I find some of the Thousand Sons line very, very tedious (all that fine metal work on the armour for instance). I don't think I have an army that takes as many 'steps' to finish a model. But inherently I think it's still one of the best looking lines in the game. I just wish we had more to choose from.

 

Indeed, the 3rd ed metals are where I realised I needed the TV on or something to get through a unit, and I think my first painting burnout. You're doing gtrat to crank these out so fast Mordas!

[Archaeinox]

Always nice to see someone soldier through all those rubrics. I 100% understand this pain and unless we get a significant change, I won't be painting anymore.

 

Have you thought about what cult(s) you are using?

[Mordas]

Always nice to see someone soldier through all those rubrics. I 100% understand this pain and unless we get a significant change, I won't be painting anymore.

 

Have you thought about what cult(s) you are using?

Just got my Ritual book, at first glance the cult of Magic or Time look pretty fun to go with. But I am yet to get my new army on the table so open to suggestions :D

[Archaeinox]

General consensus is that Magic is the best if you want to toss all the fireballs and whatnot. I've had Cult of Time scarab occult since the book came out and Sunday was the first time they returned d3 lost models for rolling over a 9 on the Time Flux test. Probably not something to fish for, but it was cool to watch happen. I'll probably keep including a Time detachment.

 

Your other choices would probably depend on what sort of games you play. For example if you are heavily invested in tournaments, I don't see Cult of Mutation doing a lot over the course of a few games but it scales pretty well for small casual games. Just a vague example

Edited May 6, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Manat]

Good ol' Thousand Sons. Keeping people busy during a crisis. lol

 

Do what you can, and what you like for the hobby. Personally I find some of the Thousand Sons line very, very tedious (all that fine metal work on the armour for instance). I don't think I have an army that takes as many 'steps' to finish a model. But inherently I think it's still one of the best looking lines in the game. I just wish we had more to choose from.

thousand sons really needed a second wave of models after wrath of Magnus. that would bring them on par with death guard in terms of unit count.

[byrd9999]

Rubric Marines were the first unit I ever painted in Warhammer, and I spent hours on them. I still remember the hour I spent on a single head, going back and forth over the yellow and blue stripes and nuln oil in the recess because I "went over the lines".

 

Very fiddly, but everything I've painted since seems a piece of cake! Death Guard were a joy to paint because I could be sloppy and not care and it still looked cool and thematic.

 

Rubrics are still the best looking unit GW has put out, and if they increased the model range I'd buy it all up.

[Mordas]

So progress stalled slightly (work and family issues really get in the ways at times).

 

But my terminators have arrived and so has someone else (guess who). Also apologies my normal painting table is being used for WFH so will try to get some better pictures soon!

 

https://imgur.com/QvgXDWt

 

P.S Does anyone know why I can't post images in here yet?

[byrd9999]

Your TS look great, thanks for sharing :) 

[Mordas]

Managed to get a bit more work done on Magnus tonight:

 

 

still, a few more layers of dry brushing to go on the wings and then I can start working on the detailed parts. :D

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Looking solid Mordas! Love the shade of red and loving the wings!

[WarriorFish]

The red is great, especially the transition parts he's already looking good and is far from done!

[Prot]

Very nice. A great solid red foundation there to work from. He's coming along nicely. :tu:

[Mordas]

not much progress to show at the moment sorry chaps, its got a bit hot over here and my paints dry before I get it slapped onto the models!

 

Just been checking Battlescribe for options for my 3 Hellbrutes, it is saying I cannot take a Missile Launcher? is this right? the codex says I can and I haven't seen any FAQ to say otherwise? and Battlescribe is normally quite good at getting any errors sorted quickly.