It's quiet...... too quiet.

[Montoya]

So this forum has been really quiet since August.   Thought I would start a post to get things going again. 

 

I have played a few games of 9th (but none with my TS yet).    Am now thinking ahead to next steps.   Have any of you played some games recently, and i'm interested in what you've found.

 

I played my Blood Angels, and found a Rhino with 10 tactical marines to be a solid choice for objective grabbing.  I'm assuming a similar strategy for TS would also be beneficial, so interested in what others have found there.

 

[WarriorFish]

I was thinking this earlier today, but I don't have anything new to report I have yet to play 9th and I am currently working on other projects - the detail of the Sons models is fantastic, but that does make them quite time and effort consuming for me to paint so I need breaks between them.

 

I have been trying to keep up with affairs and how 9th is panning out, it seems that most agree that it's a heavily objectives edition so whatever you can do to reduce your opponent's ability to score while maximising your own will pay off. Sons can do good killing at mid range, so the former is possible if not ideal lacking in longer range for the most part. The latter is somewhere Sons have some tricks however with mobility, however I think Sons have long been about positioning and the like.

 

I'll get back to them in time (this third box of Rubrics will be a milestone), but it does feel like a lot of armies are waiting for a codex update to get some treats and bonuses which is likely why many are waiting to see...

[Tichinde]

I've been mostly painting. Hoping to get some small "learn to play 9th" games soon though.

[Mordas]

So I have had two games with my Sons now.

 

First up against Necrons, forgot about the deceiver and had a few Necrons deploy in my back lines. But with the AP on the bolters just tore through the warriors. I managed to kill 44 in a single turn. 10 terminators helped there, the game was a bit of a walk over and I felt a little bad at how bad things where for my opponent.

 

2nd time my friend brought his Drukhari against my same list. Boy I totally forgot how fast they are! He got the first turn and had all but my deployment objective straight away. I was well and truely boxed in! even running the cult of duplicity I found that I wasnt getting enough primary points, the secondaries where easy in this game for me. Also Talos hurt the scarab occult terminators in melee and nothing I could do to free them up. By the time I had cleared alot of his units there just wasnt enough time to get the primary points I needed. Drukhari 69 - Thousand Sons 64. A close and well fought game, if I had gone first I think I could have secured a few more primaries or stopped him scoring them!

 

I am enjoying the Sons so far but feel that I may need an extra rhino to get some speed into the army.

[The Yncarne]

I was blown out in the two games I played with mine. They went back in storage.

[Are Verlo]

I am working on a thousand sons list at the moment. 

Trying do design a list more or less based on going second. Field tests are showing that finding the right secondaries are hard. My Slaanesh daemons have 3 secondaries they really do well, but the 1KS struggle to find good secondaries.

 

Depending on covid -19 status I hope to do some tests at a few 1 day/3 game tournaments. Other than that I have nothing special to report.

[Prot]

I’ve done alright with my TS, but I’ve put them away until some things get cleaned up for them. My other armies are functioning a little better and as much as I love the thousand sons, it’s a tough army to posit. As WF said, I need breaks from them. 

[Ulfast]

I have played four games, won one and lost three. I think your idea about a unit of rubric in a rhino is a good one, I have used it and it´s hard for your opponent to kill them. I also tried in the game I won, to put 20 rubrics with a strat on a forward objective and my opponent could never get me off it in the whole game. So that´s positive, we can hold objectives very good.

 

The negative thing I found out is that we have not so much else to do. We have a hard time to put out damage, both in pshycic, range and close combat. So in the long run my armies (at least) just slowly gets grind down and have a hard time to put out opponents. Together with a lack of fast units it´s hard to stop them from reaching there goals. Also, to give 15vp to opponents from the start is step to catch up from (because of abhor the witch).

 

You can and will win games but it seems right now we are lacking some things that other armies have. Mostly, flexibility. I hope Gw will adress that when the come to make our 9:ed codex. I will anyway play the army as it´s very beautiful and looks awsome on the table but right now I´m wondering if my ad meach army is not more fun?

[Annatar Giftbringer]

What about warpflamers? Will the increased range make them more attractive?

[WarriorFish]

Yes, 12" warp flamers would make a big difference especially coming in from a reserve style move. A few flamers in a squad could go quite far there but I'm leery of possible point increases to go with it. We'll see as always, I'm mostly thinking about Scarab Occult Terminators as benefiting most from better range on flamers as it'll let their arrival much more impact :)

[Torbenos]

I'm still working up my sorcerers for a 1,5k tournament after the new codices hit. Hoping to have them all table ready for then.

 

x2 Exalted Sorcerers
x1 Terminator Sorcerer
 

x10 Cultists
x10 Cultists
x10 Rubric
x10 Rubric
x10 Rubric

 

x10 Terminators

 

Started on the terminator blob a little while back finally! Love the sculpts.

 

 

Very infantry heavy, obviously. And I'm sure I might end up lacking anti-tank firepower but I really wanted to get actual rubrics to be the main theme of the army. I've a las-predetor and two to three rhinos waiting in the wings for the future 2k one following. Any advice from you more experienced folk?
 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Torbenos

[Sorceress]

one thing of possible interest, the way the dreadnought upgrade is written in the new space marine codex its possible all codex marines will be getting psyker dreadnoughts, which could bode well for us getting them.

[WarriorFish]

Now I want to work on my Sons again... :P

 

I think the Dread thing was a Crusade reference to allow BA characters to use their Librarian Dread option or something similar, so it might not be relevant. Not that it could be either way as Marines aren't Sons, and Sons could easily get one whatever is happening elsewhere. A psychic Dread has long been desired for the army so we all live in hope, it depends how much GW does for future codex releases.

 

I think everyone agrees that the Sons roster needs a bit more fleshing out, and this is surely number one on most people's lists! :)

[Xenith]

Ah, kind of sad to see the Sons underperforming again. I don't mind a weak army, but a crippled one is no fun. Looks like the focus might be on my nids in 9th, I still want to get a TS kill team painted up though. A unit of warpflamer rubrics also seem great fun when they get boosted to 12". Dark matter crystal and the new cult teleport power will be ace with those. 

[Archaeinox]

I'm pretty much over it until I see a new codex, with the exception of friends begging me to play narrative or something. Lately I have had "success" with Thousand Sons against players with bad lists who make bad choices, OR when I roll hot and manifest nearly every power. Let's be honest, when that happens, neither player has fun.

 

I've played a lot of 9th games with Thousand Sons, more than many people I know. It was pretty demoralizing to watch 2 space marine primaris players tie for 3rd in an event when they had never attended one before and had only been playing for a couple months if that.

 

Your mileage may vary, of course, but with the uncertainty of what will happen with improved weapons (points going up surely?!) and our codex being so far away, I dunno. Losing steam.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Archaeinox

[byrd9999]

I have a question that some more experienced players might be able to answer, though it's not necessarily limited to T-Sons.

 

I'm fairly new to playing Warhammer. I started just before 8th edition came out. T-Sons are my first and only army because I love the lore and the models. It seems that T-Sons were lacking a lot at the start of 8th edition, and I remember each faction not doing well until their Codex came out (Index vs Codex armies). T-Sons codex came out around Jan 2019, and that made them more competitive. I had approx. 50% win ratio.

 

They remained competitive (for me) until the second-wave of Codex updates came out, i.e. the big buffs the Primaries marines received in August 2019, and I never won another game.

 

So, out of 3 years of 8th edition, the T-Sons were well balanced for 6 months of it.

 

My question is: is this normal for Warhammer? To have an army that's not much fun to actually play for the majority of the time, and players are waiting for rules to change and something new to buy to make that army competitive again?

This might be a noob question, but it's a little disheartening. From what I've read, the rules team claim they are constantly trying to refine 40k into the best possible format. But it seems to me (now with some experience), that they shove a spanner into the works, then try to rebalance everything on the fly, only to do it all again once the cycle is complete.

Edited September 23, 2020 by byrd9999

[Archaeinox]

This particular instance of what you're seeing is not normal BUT it is expected based upon the index period you already mention where no one is really sure of how things are going to go down. We're all about to get upgraded weapons, but we don't know if it will be accompanied by a cost increase. More uncertainty!

 

Cycles come and go and each time has been different for sure. The "best" period of the TSons was tail end of 7th edition with Wrath of Magnus, then it was swiftly stripped away and gutted with 8th edition. I wonder why they did it at all. 

 

The Death Guard codex released before the end of this year will show us how they will treat

 

1. Daemon Primarchs

 

2. Cult infantry ie Rubrics and Plague Marines

 

3. Chaos sub-faction sub-factions ie cults/plague companies.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Special Officer Doofy]

I have a question that some more experienced players might be able to answer, though it's not necessarily limited to T-Sons.

 

I'm fairly new to playing Warhammer. I started just before 8th edition came out. T-Sons are my first and only army because I love the lore and the models. It seems that T-Sons were lacking a lot at the start of 8th edition, and I remember each faction not doing well until their Codex came out (Index vs Codex armies). T-Sons codex came out around Jan 2019, and that made them more competitive. I had approx. 50% win ratio.

 

They remained competitive (for me) until the second-wave of Codex updates came out, i.e. the big buffs the Primaries marines received in August 2019, and I never won another game.

 

So, out of 3 years of 8th edition, the T-Sons were well balanced for 6 months of it.

 

My question is: is this normal for Warhammer? To have an army that's not much fun to actually play for the majority of the time, and players are waiting for rules to change and something new to buy to make that army competitive again?

 

This might be a noob question, but it's a little disheartening. From what I've read, the rules team claim they are constantly trying to refine 40k into the best possible format. But it seems to me (now with some experience), that they shove a spanner into the works, then try to rebalance everything on the fly, only to do it all again once the cycle is complete.

[Opinion] It's fairly normal for Warhammer, yes. They are a for profit company, and profits come before balance. Making Primaris units strong and giving space marines by far the best rules was a way to push new models, like it or not. Codex creep always has been and always will be a thing. Time wise, it would be no different to spend the same amount of time making each codex and dropping them all at once versus trickling them out over a few years (I've also befriended my FLGS owner who says the whole storage impact of a bunch of codexes at once for the retailers is not an issue at all, just an excuse of GW's). But that would hurt sales. Having codexes of varying power and long staggered releases promotes people collecting multiple factions (more $$). Think of it this way, a video game like a MMO with multiple classes or factions doesn't just update one class every few months and then the next on a long drawn out cycle taking multiple years, they typically do it all at once because it creates the best balance that way.

 

But I wouldn't let codex creep keep you from enjoying the game. My advice for anyone newer to 40k is collect an army(s) you like because of how it looks and the lore, not their current power, cause that part changes. It's okay to take a break from playing from time to time, as you mentioned after the space marine codex and supplements dropped they became the best by far, the balance was so bad I quit playing for a bit, but kept up with the hobby by building and painting new models. Thousand Sons look sweet, have cool lore, and have one of the most interesting Primarchs (I loved his story on how/why he turned, trying to warn the emperor but was kind of pooped on in return). Things might be bad now, but just like DG and regular chaos marines, having marines go to 2W and termies to 3W will be very nice, but waiting months for a codex to get those updates while marines had 2 new codexes and supplements along the way, not nice.

[byrd9999]

Thanks for the responses.

 

I'll always be involved in the hobby in some way, reading BL or painting, and although playing comes third for me out of those three things, I do enjoy it .

 

I just don't like being in a situation where in 9th edition, I'll might 6 months of a relatively level playing field before T-Sons aren't competitive any more.

 

Just for context, I play to have fun, rather than to win, and I'd rather lose a close game than win by a lot. But by far the worst is losing by a lot, and after the 8.5 updates started coming in in 8th edition, I always lost by a lot.

[Archaeinox]

Yeah lately I just remove models and feel that my knowledge of the game means nothing because of the faction I chose.

 

My last event was spent doing just that, and the lists people used were not particularly "WAAC" or anything. I did very little offensive damage that mattered, and there was significant incoming damage that can't even be mitigated with faction rules. It's getting annoying.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Archaeinox

[jay170788]

I have played 3 games of 9th so far, brief synopsis:-

 

- 1.5k game against Ultramarines with the six thousand re-rolls bubble heavy on gravis armour. My opponent had never played KSons before and I think the AP-2 on the bolters scared him a little to be honest so he played super cagey and allowed my Tzaangor deep-strike strat, DMC and Duplicity to jump me around the board securing Engage on All Front and a solid lead on primary that he could never claw back due to his positioning.

 

- 2k points against the same opponent. He has double eradicators, double aggressors, double inceptors amongst other really fun stuff to watch re-rolling. So following our discussions after the last game he played a lot more aggressively this time and took the midfield early. There is just no way we can put out enough psychic powers, firepower or melee to shift enough to then be able to weather the storm that follows. I was tabled after turn 3 essentially and lost heavily on points, just no way of taking them off that midfield once they get there.

 

-2k points against death guard. This went about as well as it could've really. He was running a daemon engine castle giving them bonus saves and BS. I took Magnus so dropped doombolt on him. I then succeeded on casting it every time with only once requiring a re-roll. Then with his very slow already castle reduced to a base movement 3" I was laughing. I managed to pick off his outlier units that attempted to hit out for primaries and engage. I ended up winning 88-13 managing to deny him any primaries at all.

 

Overall we are in a fairly good place but I feel we just don't have enough to compete against the strong space marine builds out there. If anyone else has some input or help then it'd be greatly appreciated as right now it feels like we are relying on some major mistakes from our opponents to stand a chance.

[WarriorFish]

Though we don't seem to hear it much these days, the term "codex creep" exists for a reason. Currently I think the game can be broadly speaking separated into two distinct groups - the new, and the rest. Marines being so popular exacerbates this but the fundamental point is the same. Getting love from GW is usually a sign of going up the metaphorical tiers and nothing can surpass the current focus on them (to think we thought it was bad enough pre-8th..!).

 

This is why I find having more than one army beneficial, as aside from the hobby variety it also means you can move to greener pastures should the gaze of GW be away for too long. That and always collecting armies you love - for you'll like them whatever and good rules can come and go Otherwise when you're in a situation like there where waiting for GW to give some attention with a new codex (and hopefully more) can feel like a long time indeed

[Prot]

I have played 3 games of 9th so far, brief synopsis:-

 

- 1.5k game against Ultramarines with the six thousand re-rolls bubble heavy on gravis armour. My opponent had never played KSons before and I think the AP-2 on the bolters scared him a little to be honest so he played super cagey and allowed my Tzaangor deep-strike strat, DMC and Duplicity to jump me around the board securing Engage on All Front and a solid lead on primary that he could never claw back due to his positioning.

 

- 2k points against the same opponent. He has double eradicators, double aggressors, double inceptors amongst other really fun stuff to watch re-rolling. So following our discussions after the last game he played a lot more aggressively this time and took the midfield early. There is just no way we can put out enough psychic powers, firepower or melee to shift enough to then be able to weather the storm that follows. I was tabled after turn 3 essentially and lost heavily on points, just no way of taking them off that midfield once they get there.

 

-2k points against death guard. This went about as well as it could've really. He was running a daemon engine castle giving them bonus saves and BS. I took Magnus so dropped doombolt on him. I then succeeded on casting it every time with only once requiring a re-roll. Then with his very slow already castle reduced to a base movement 3" I was laughing. I managed to pick off his outlier units that attempted to hit out for primaries and engage. I ended up winning 88-13 managing to deny him any primaries at all.

 

Overall we are in a fairly good place but I feel we just don't have enough to compete against the strong space marine builds out there. If anyone else has some input or help then it'd be greatly appreciated as right now it feels like we are relying on some major mistakes from our opponents to stand a chance.

 

 

Thanks for your input Jay. It's hard to find people playing games in current conditions and add in the fact there's the Thousand Sons' issues which lead to even less real world playtesting/gaming. So I'm glad you could share your games with us.

 

When I played my 9th ed games with Thousand Sons, I found it essential to supplement the shooting. Shooting is still exceptional, and I've experienced first hand the decline of the psychic phase (for several mechanical and functional reasons).

 

What I miss most is the relative -ease- of incorporating Chaos Knights. That truly did make playing a somewhat one dimensional army a lot more interesting, and functional. For now the vast array of Dreadnoughts fills that for role for me.

[The Yncarne]

I skipped having a marine army in 2-4th editions, but succumbed in 5th because marines were the only ones being regularly updated. 

 

For my Sons in 9th edition, jay170788's experience is similar to my own. My Sons don't have enough firepower to remove opponents off an objective, and they rely on movement or psychic movement shenanigans to cap an objective before being blown off it the next turn. Essentially, my games became just moving to open objectives and removing those models the next turn. A good player won't leave any objectives open.

[Archaeinox]

I will say this: For those of us who played a "Thousand Sons" themed using Codex: Chaos Space Marines in 5th edition, what we have now is leagues better. Those were dark times and if you didn't have twin Slaanesh princes as your HQs, your were probably just straight losing every game.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Archaeinox