2k TS at local event

[Archaeinox]

This post will be edited soon and added to, sorry for blurry pics or lack of context!!! Stay tuned.

 

Hi, 

 

I played a 2k event recently. Had about 15 folks I think. I just finished a very long summer semester and turned my Masters Research in and I intended to write a huge analysis. Instead, I'll provide some pictures of significant events during the 3 games I played. Each picture will be accompanied by some context and each picture is a potential lesson for those of us interested in mono-faction Thousand Sons lists. I wasn't happy with the placement/types of terrain on the tables for the event BUT there's a lot of positives- They were set up and top down pictures were taken which included numeral keys for each piece of terrain on the table, and the traits for that piece. That way, everyone knows where each piece should be and what traits each piece has, especially in the case of custom terrain. That set a precedent that most tournament goers will now expect from now on and I know creating those reference sheets for like 10 tables was a lot of work. I hope to see it in the future, even if I wish there were more obscuring pieces on each table.

 

 

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My 6 main goals:

 

1. Bring a fully-painted list. 

2. A single detachment, to see if there is a benefit to maxing out our CP.

3. Very few characters, to counter Eliminators and character-based Secondaries

4. Lots of Rubrics

5. A unit of 10 Scarabs so we can finally get a solid argument for/against them after 3 back-to-back games.

6. See if Duplicitous Tactician is as good as we think, with the flat roll-off to see who gets the first turn.

 

 

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+What was at the event+

Night Lords

Iron Warriors 

Death Guard

Magnus/Morty/Exalted Greater Daemons weird Chaos soup

Necrons w/ Wraith and C'tan spam, and a Tesseract Vault

Tau'nar list with super huge robot

Tau'nar list with super huge robot, but red

Custodes bike spam

Custodes infantry spam

A pretty balanced Ultramarines primaris list with a single repulsor and guilliman

Black Legon Daemon Engine spam with Abbaddon

Sisters with 3 exorcists

Orks with grot cannon spam

Blood Angels (seems like an 8th edition port, for the most part- some vehicles, infiltrators, sanguinary guard, inceptors, etc)

Dark Angels Deathwing/Ravenwing

Primaris McHellblaster

Thousand Sons - Me

 

+The List+

TS Battalion (<Cult of Duplicity>): 

Exalted Sorc - Warlord, Duplicitous Tactician, Dark Matter Crystal, Infernal Gaze, Temporal Manipulation

Ahriman on Disc - Death Hex, Prescience, Glamour of Tzeentch

10 Scarabs - Hellfyre Missile Rack x2, Weaver of Fates

Hellforged Contemptor - TwinLas & Claw

Hellforged Contemptor - TwinLas & Claw

10 Rubrics - Weaver of Fates
10 Rubrics - Weaver of Fates

10 Rubrics - Weaver of Fates

6 Rubrics - Weaver of Fates

Predator - TwinLas, Lascannons

Predator - TwinLas, Lascannons

 

 

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Game 1: Night Lords (57 TS, 40 NL)

Secondaries: Engage on All Fronts, Grind Them Down, Raze

I had the first turn and there's not much terrain to hide in for the NL player. Basically the opening move I did was shift the scarabs from my right flank to the far left no-man's land objective. I deployed them because I could have redeployed if he had the first turn but I got lucky and left them put. In hindsight, I could have saved the Dark Matter Crystal and taken advantage of the redeploy and then just walk up (although it would require spending 1 CP to swap Death Hex out for Warp Time in order to make them move far enough to be in an appropriate spot on that objective once they start taking casualties/getting swarmed. The lesson: Do not rush to use Dark Matter Crystal in turn 1 if you can do it another way. 

 

Berserkers will kill terminators. I knew I'd fail a few saves, but I underestimated just exactly how many attacks they could put on even with Glamour up on the Scarabs for -1 to hit. Do not make this mistake! I split my fire too much and instead of just destroying the Rhino, I was a numbskull and let it stand with 1 or 2 wounds.

 

Butcher cannons hurt. He was splitting fire and clipping multiple units of Rubrics on different sides of the table. If you let the butcher cannons shoot for a while, good Night Lords players will keep units near you, debuffing your Leadership further and making you fail the morale test. Losing 1 doesnt suck- its the attrition that hurts! Use caution running 10man units because when you take the attrition test at 4 models, they'll run on 1s and 2s and we all know Thousand Sons players roll a lot of 1s and 2s. Anyways, kill butcher cannon contemptors quickly as a botched morale test and attrition doesn't care about All is Dust.

 

Sorcerous Facade from Cult of Duplicity is pretty much required if you want to get Engage on All Fronts. It also lets you get that critical rapid fire off if you need it. I tried to get the Raze secondary in his deployment zone but couldn't get close enough and got delayed. Firestorm would have helped get rid of characters I couldn't shoot because even a lord with a basic Chainaxe ate a few rubrics up in melee. What a waste. I'll spend more effort killing characters next event.

 

Scarabs eventually fought their way out of combat with the Berserkers (a huge 6 mortal wound Smite from Ahriman in my deployment zone helped clear them). Using Warp Time again, I made sure they moved up after they were no longer in combat. I tried to stand on the opponent's 2nd objective to Raze it, but I made a huge mistake. I used the Scarabs to cast Weaver of Fates on themselves. Since I stopped manifesting powers with Ahriman, I couldn't go back to him. It might seem like a small change from 8th edition, but in this instance, it contributed to the death of the Scarabs from a lord with a Daemon Weapon who rolled a bunch of 2s (they would have missed if Ahriman had cast Glamour.... Do not make this mistake in your games.

 

Ahriman buried in rubrics is a really nice threat, but by this time I had eliminated most of the long range threats including both Xiphons. The only problem with taking 10 Scarabs is that they hog all the buffs. I think I'd be able to run slightly less Rubric Marines if I took something big like Magnus or the Exalted Lord of Change in another detachment since those would soak up fire. If you run 10 Scarabs with lots of Rubrics, keep this in mind. I blame the table for me losing so many Rubrics. I couldn't hide. So, that won't always be an issue. 

 

Some more fun shots.

 

 

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+Game 2: Iron Warriors (50 TS, 45 IW)

 

 

 

 

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+Game 3: Death Guard (75 TS, 60ish DG)

 

 

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+Post-event takeaways+

 

1. During each game, I never used Smite more than 3 or 4 times. 

 

2. With having to set spells during list construction, I thought Death Hex would be important in case I came upon an army with Invuls. Next time, just swap to it. Starting with Warp Time is much more valuable, if given the choice between the two. Even if your opponent has an invul you want to strip, you might not be in range for it, so it'd be a wasted spell slot whereas Warp Time needs to be used each turn, surely...

 

3. Similar to the Death Hex thing, don't even bother taking Temporal Manipulation at the start.

 

4. Giving Weaver of Fates to every Scarab and Rubric unit is still nice. It simplifies book-keeping and with Engage on All Fronts (good for Duplicity detachments), you'll essentially have full board coverage in case you need +1 invul on a unit that's way off somewhere.

 

5. Action objectives like Raze suck. Unless you are absolutely crushing your opponent in that mission, don't take this objective. That action is done at the start of your movement phase and I forgot. I thought it was at the end, so didn't score it.

 

6. I still like the Twin Lascannon & close combat weapon contemptor. It fills a gap that I desperately need and is very versatile. I'm not sure what I think about the 5++ but for me, it hasn't been that it has an invul but rather that it just straight hits on 2+ in melee. That's huge if you do something like charge a demon prince, a vehicle, or a MSU chaos space marine squad. I had anticipated changing these weapons for something else after the event, but I want to keep this loadout. Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

7. Although I missed having a Magic detachment, I was very happy I started the game with 12 CP. I needed every single one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Naryn]

Good luck, looks like a solid list!

[Prot]

Yea it looks really good. 

 

Somewhat unexpected as far as the limited HQ's. I never even made a list that only has 2. I think this might be viewed as unorthodox, but perhaps a great idea. I know I've played a lot of 9th ed already and am still surprised how much hot water you can get your HQ's into quite easily.

 

I don't know if I would use that many Rubrics, AND 10 SoT's. But then I see you have a plethora of Lascannons, and I think you've got the balance just right.

 

Call me crazy, but if I were running this list, I'd use two Defilers in exchange for the Pred's, but it is very dependent on terrain at your shop. I know we are playing with very heavy terrain tables.

 

The list looks super solid. The board control is great, and the Primary is key. I think you could do really well, and I expect you to see lots of NuMarines where that AP-2 is going to come in handy.

 

Good luck Arch!

[WarriorFish]

Good luck, looking forward to hearing how it goes :tu:

[Brom MKIV]

Dig the list and the 10 occult terminators but I do agree on the defilers. I feel like loyalists are meta game and will not be running much mech. The defilers would be more middle ground and much more durable. I'm on that plan myself.

 

Either way cool list and good luck.

[Archaeinox]

Ok folks I added some of my pics. I don't know why they are so small. I tested them in other places. Anyways, there's some context to the pictures I've posted but I'm tired so will edit more later. Check back soon and feel free to ask any questions. Just wanted to update asap with something. I wish I could remember the particulars of the secondaries but in general, I was unable to accomplish the 3rd one in every game because I get a little flustered in crowded places and lose my ability to concentrate fully due to the noise. As such, I sort of just pick something to "settle" so as to not inconvenience my opponent with my indecisiveness.

 

I always get better scores in pickup games where I can sit down and relax and enjoy talking things out with my opponent to really stretch what we can achieve. It's no secret that I am more of a casual player but I wanted to provide some folks with some sort of report on how we "are" in 9th.

 

Thanks!

Edited August 10, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Naryn]

Looks good! Thanks for sharing your analysis, this was really interesting to read. Out of curiosity, how do you feel the Predators held up in these games? Would you consider trading them out for something else?

[Archaeinox]

The predators either outright smoked a target (Xiphon, or a Contemptor, etc) or did like 1 damage (plagueburst crawler, Contemptors, maybe a rhino). Only a couple hits, maybe a wound, and 6 damage in one instance. They seemed fair for the points cost, considering that, but now I am of the impression that everyone is correct in telling me to just take something else.

 

Lord of Change would have been more resilient, taken fire from the Rubrics, and would have filled the gap left by removing the Devastating Sorcery Magic patrol I usually take as of late. I think Dup/Magic or Dup/Exalted Chicken will be what I take next weekend to see if I miss the [super random] lascannons.

 

I forced myself to take the predators to this event as 1. they are painted and 2. they are painted lol

 

Magnus would have been too much for the casual NL player and mayyyybe just right vs. the IW player but of course I didn't have the model until yesterday when I got him in a trade.. so here we go!

Edited August 10, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Prot]

Great read Arch. Sounds like you did really well and had fun. 
 

I will say those tables seem woefully under equipped with terrain. Very little obscurement. I’m happy you didn’t face those Taunar lists. Nasty stuff. 
 

I think you’re right about the Rubrics. All of mine are 5 men big. But I thought some people were very happy with 10 man squads. I also pretty much use 1 defensive spell with my Rubrics and usually play 10 SoT like you.  But I do use Magnus, so as you suggest the heat is usually a little less on the SoTs. 
 

really interesting observations about the contemptors and the Preds. I know I said I’d go Defilers, but it’s hard to ignore your success. 
 

Nice pics too :Tu:

[Ulfast]

@Archaeinox Great report and very intersting analys. I will indeed make some changes to my list and specially what spells to take on rubrics.

 

@Prot, what those your standard list look like?

[byrd9999]

Archie, thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed and thoughtful report.

 

It's great to see how you get on.

[Skerr]

Thanks Arch!

[Mordas]

Where did you get those tokens from for the powers? just noticed them in your pictures and they look good!

[Archaeinox]

I think a friend uses this, but he applies a plastic dome afterwards: 

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/507240/making-circular-tokens-and-counters-arch-punch#

 

Ill check

[Prot]

Arch I appreciate you back filling some info and the pics are great.

 

I like how you used your SoT... and even kept them in proper cohesion. I notice tons of people still don't really adhere to the rule or if they do it's just barely, and the loss of one model would cause more losses once the Coherency check comes into play.

 

I love those icons. I have to make some. It's just a no brainer if you can find the stuff to do it.

 

I find it so ironic, and slightly disappointing that you only seemed to face Chaos players! 

 

I'm looking forward to your changes and things you'd do differently.