OK, work starts this week on my new TS list.

Few questions have come out of the list building.

I'm looking to have a significant daemon pool with this force, therefore Thralls will be necessary to get sufficient daemons onto the board when I need them.
- I presume the preference is to use counters of some sort for easy account keeping? I'm thinking 1-2 models on a 5c piece as a counter.
- Thrall upgrade says up to 3 for each Lord, Exempla, Templi, Preceptor, Greater Spire or Warp Palace, therefore, as the Greater Spires come in 1-3, could I potentially take 9 thralls with this formation? It might be risky but dropping 11D3 points in a summoning phase is one hell of a warp rift cool concept though might be broken with respect to in game effect.

I notice the Dreadnought is still missing from the Army list but is in the units list of 5.1
- I'm going to assume we can add 1-3 to any Scarab Occult, Rubric Fellowship and Thousand Sons Warcoven formations (although for two of these it will result in loosing the ability to telepot) for 50pts each?
- I'm also going to use these (same stats as the latest BL army):
A: 3+, CC: 4+, FF: 4+
Twin AC 45cm AP4+/AT5+
Power Fist aslt weapon EA +1 MW
Notes: Fearless, Walker

The TS Adepts are supposed to be a unit of sorcerers?
- how are people physically making these units as that's a lot of sorcerers models?

Also, any ideas for building the Neophytes physically and as a list option?
- IG or chaos cultists might work for models, i'm picturing a ragtag mix of cultists, psykers and the occasional beastman?
- Do people upgrade with them with Transports, icon & pact etc to make them summoning unit OR leave them as is for the extra activation? They just seem rubbish but I guess that's the idea.


Keen to hear thoughts on the above.
Regards
Geoff

I think I prefer that only the formation gets the 1D3 ... but I'm open to people's thoughts.

There's probably some DRM miniatures that would fit as Neophytes. They're hooded etc. Or just use Cultists.

Good news Dobbsy, Cal and I are 2 turns through a SW vs TS 4k battle, I've recorded the blow by blow activations so I should be able to deliver a batrep shortly.

In the mean time, I have some more questions:

Looking at the trial BL list, is there any intent to follow the latest summoning changes and costs for daemons in the daemon pool?

Secondly, it would seem the cult list miss out when it comes to Greater Daemons, the other lists can effectively have up to 4 GDs in play at any one time whilst the cult lists are limited to a single GD. Surely those cult/god specific lists such as Thousand sons, Death Guard, Emp Children etc should be able to have either a max of 4 or even an unlimited number of GDs in play to not only give them an even footing, when compared against BL for example, but also represent their closer affiliation with their chosen god?

GW's (sometimes rubbish?) fluff certainly has instances of multiple GDs of the same power present during a fight.

With Thralls or their equivalents you can easily generate sufficient points to get the GDs out but with cult forces your forced to spam the minor daemons.

Cheers

Yep the intent is to follow the other lists it's just that the current list has not been updated with the current BL/Cult list designs. Partly because I was hoping to get feedback from players on the TS as is, partly because I haven't had the time to update and lastly because the list is sort of set for the 2012 compendium at present so once that gets updated the TS list will make those adjustments.

Regarding the GD numbers, it's something that should be discussed with Steve54 before we meddle with the designs. It might be that the smaller numbers are a list balance design.

G'day again.

I had a quick 3k game against standard marines this week. After the last game I took a more daemon and flyer orientated force to try and improve the ability to strike units deep in the oponents half.

List:

Scarab Occult
Rubric + 3 Dreadnoughts, pact, thrall
Rubric + landraiders, pact, thrall x 3
Silver towers x 4
Predators x 4
Firelord
Firelord
Doomwings
Daemon pool (2x GD, 8x LD)

The fliers were great on turn one as SM force had 1x hunter and 1x Tbolts which failed to cap. A gamble by one firelord took out the hunter and forced the whirlwinds to move in turn 2. Once the thunderbolts came on though they started to take BM and casualties. I think all 3 failed to activate in turn 3 when i needed them most.

2x GDs was a mistake as I didn't get enough summoning points to bring them on until turn3 however, Flamers are awesome in a firefight. I think I'll take some beasts instead of the second GD just to pick help against counter charging and ensuring contact is made.

Rubric + dreads was a very effective garrison force and was in assaults every turn against various SM detachments. Its firepower + good saves had it generally wining convincingly.

Silver towers were only good for 1 turn then lost 2 units and failed to rally all game, same with predators.

Did you find the 8-only activations a problem at all?

What would you recommend re their lack of ability to "deep strike?"

Do you find the Silver Towers a "glass cannon?" i.e. Hits hard, dies easy? Could they do with a slightly larger formation size?

Thanks Ort!

It was a good game

I should have taken a second hunter, I've got too used to playing people without much aircraft recently. We were playing 120cm apart on a large table, which threw me, as I'm used to getting in range and manuvering behind the enemy to crossfire quicker.

The Thousand Sons were tough but I hurt the weaker, non fearless formation and though I took a lot of damage and struggled against the tough TS infantry formations ultimately starting with 12 formations allowed me to grab objectives late and win. The final charge of the 4 Imperial Fists scouts taking out the Lord of Change in CC with a lucky critical was a nice way to end too

I'll have to have a read over the TS list at some point when I have time, I'm not overly familiar with it.

Dobbsy,

8 activations was ok, but it would have been even less if not for the cheaper flyers. I find the list has alot of units that easily become expensive.

The Rubric i find generally need mobility, then you'll generally want a pact, icon & thrall to make use of the daemons to buff their assaults. Very quickly those unit become 400-600pts however I find that if I skimp on upgrades they are easy to ignore or bypass.

The flyers were awesome at giving some reach into the opponents half, I think 1- 2 flyer formations will become the norm for me, especially if titans are out.

The silver towers and their bigger brothers do seem to be a "glass cannon" and I'm yet to exploit their true power I think. I know how I want to use them but the last couple of games they failed to deliver due to poor decision making on my behalf & poor rally attempts. Also, Cal is aware of their damage potential and I'm sure they rank high on his kill list.

I haven't tried the warp palace in this latest round of play testing but the greater spire also has had a run and suffers from being fragile. Especially if you need to close with it. Given its weapon load-out isn't set in stone, it might be worthwhile looking changing this unit to a long range sniper type unit, rather than one that often needs to close within 45cm where it quickly dies. On the other hand it could be tougher, maybe give it void shields or something similar?

Anyhow it was good to play GlynG and see TS in action against something different than Cal's usually armour heavy marine builds. More activations would probably help against Glyn's style of play than against Cal's.

As for you final question about unit size, both the predators and towers do have access to larger formations but its always come down to a cost issue. I kept them small this time to boost activations and in the end it caused them to break quickly.

Despite my "Theory Hammer" thoughts above, this list really struggled with getting those GDs into play, the fact that the thrall is the only augment summoning unit and is also a 1 shot often left me short of points to get the GD into play. As discussed elsewhere, I'd really like to see the cult specific lists be allowed to have more than one GD on the board at once but I can't see it happening with the TS due to the difficulty in getting enough points.

I think we'll be able to get another game in later this month.

Hope the feedback is proving useful, anything you want looked at?

Here's the tentative updated list 5.(2) - not yet set in stone.

If anyone interested would like to peruse and point out any errors they may see that would be great, cheers!

So far the changes are mainly around the naming/consolidating of character types (for less confusion) and the merging of the Defiler and Deceiver into one unit type.

Hi Dobbsy.

Is there a typo on the unit entry for Flamers in the v5.2 file? You have them listed as Armour 5+, CC 5+, FF 6+ with no special rules (making them significantly worse than Horrors) - all other versions of the Flamers seem to have FF4+ and EA(+1), making them the "shooty" lesser daemons.

Morsla, those stats came with the list when I picked up the "stewardship."

TBH, I haven't had a lot of time of late for Epic due to the family addition and haven't done much with adjustment of the 1K Sons.

What would you propose as stats?

Congratulations on the family addition! I completely understand the lack of time issue...

I'll have a closer look through the list over the next month, as I've just picked up a bunch of Tzeentch-related Epic figures. I just need to figure out how to convert some Egyptian helmets for the rubric marines and I'll get started on a new army as soon as I finish my Eldar

Flamers are listed as Armour 5+, CC 5+, FF 4+ with a Small Arms +1 EA in both of the Approved Chaos lists, as well as in the 2014 compendium version of the Thousand Sons (v5.1), so it looks like an accidental change. Horrors are the all-rounder lesser daemons (Armour 4+, CC 4+, FF 3+ but no extra attack), so the 5+/5+/4+EA stats seem fine for the more specialised Flamers.

Sounds highly likely! I will amend the 5.2 when I post it.

I've seen helmet tops from Disc riders stuck on standard codex marines work well. It means you need a heck of a lot of disc riders though.

Will be keen to have a few games with you though with my Space Wolves.

Mate the other thing to confirm is the inclusion of the dreadnought, it's been in and out through the versions, I'm keen to keep it in because they're easy models to get a hold of, and all SM and CSM typically have access to then but they were gone from the compendium IIRC.

As for play testing, I'll be away a lot until end of august so I can't help much before then sorry.

I'm not sure why they've come and gone. I can't really see a reason not to include the Dreadnoughts.