Old School once again with another peice of the CSM army units and tactics: Troops article here. This post will focus on the Thousand Sons' rubrics and their aspiring sorcerors! As always, feel free to comment!
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"The Soulless" Thousand Sons My first true Chaos love were the Rubrics and truthfully, I still have a softspot for the 1K Sons! The sons excel at killing everyone's favorite armour, power armour.
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Simple Construction Building a Thousand son squad is fairly straight forward because all rubrics are the same. The question then becomes "How many". I prefer to take them in squads of 9 (including the sorc) mostly due to fluff, but also for the number of dead Marines I can create.
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The Sorceror Commands Every TSons squad is led by an aspiring sorceror who costs a whopping 60 points before giving him a power. What powers do I recommend? There are three that really stand out to me: Doombolt, Wind of Chaos and Bolt of Change.
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Bolt of change will give your squad the only means of anti-tank you can take in the squad, but for 25 points, a responsible commander should have another means of anti-tank tucked into the army somewhere, making this the least attractive option.
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Next is Wind of Chaos, which is very expensive, but can also do very well against elite armoured troops AND answers the horde dilema pretty well in close quarters. The only down side is the cost for me.
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I usually run with Doombolt because it gets me a couple more shots at 24" and compliments the Sons at Rapid Fire range as well. The low cast of DB also makes it attractive so you can add those points back into the army elsewhere.
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Other powers like Warptime and Gift of Chaos have their uses, but really aren't in my recommendations. A really dicey and fun (AND expensive) thing to do would be to use gift of Chaos with your sorcs and when you are out troop hunting, attempt to turn the enemy's powerfist/claw guy into a spawn, instantly locking his squad in assault with it (you better be lucky, but it could be funny and can save you from getting assaulted.) Warptime is a choice if you think (or for some reason) want your Sorc in CC. Remember that while he is hitting more, he also will not use his force weapon power due to him already taking his test for WT!
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Rolling Deep! Another important thing to remember is that if you are hunting Marines, then you will need to run 2 squads side by side. This is because a full squad in rapid fire range will hit an average of 12 times, causing about 6 wounds, killing six marines in the open. If they are cover, which they usually are these days, you will want that extra squads present to help keep the number of dead high and the assault potential low.
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What about rhinos? Rhinos add so much to the ability of TSons that they are mandatory! This also will allow slow and purposeful to be used to your advantage, allowing them to take troops in the open at 24 inches after disembarking. The first time this happens to an enemy, he will restrict his movements a little more and alter his plan (a chance for him to make mistakes and for you to implement your plan to the fullest). I recommend Extra armour or even Daenomic Possession for the Sons' rhinos as it is very important that they get to shoot the enemy.
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Lastly, I would like to add that Thousand Sons will always struggle against the A5 and A6 hordes (lots of bodies and they care not for AP3, they die to bolters too) because those armies tend to have a high volume of damage output either in the form of shooting or assault, while you will have a much lower volume of shooting and assault (no cc weapons) to deal with their numbers. This leads to a higher chance of failed saves and also to allocating wounds on sorcs. On the other side, you have a good chance (50/50) of surviving deadlier ordnance. Overall, the rest of your army will have to be very good at providing the mutual support needed to keep the Sons effective, I recommend other dedicated assault units nearby in case they get bogged down in CC and to help them push from target to target OR, revolving all your firing ability around the direction of where you rubrics are heading, though your enemy will most times make that very difficult.
