Detachment Focus: Changehost of Deceit

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Changehost of Deceit from the Thousand Sons.

Like the other three cult legions – Death Guard, Emperor’s Children, and World Eaters – the Thousand Sons have a Daemon allies Detachment of their own, allowing them to mix in Daemons of Tzeentch. These are a mixed bag, often requiring you to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get a benefit that usually amounts to “the army rule your units would otherwise get normally.” That makes it an uphill battle for them to matter competitively.

Detachment Overview

The big question with these Daemon Detachments is always, “How good are the datasheets for the Daemons I can bring?” and there are some decent options in Thousand Sons. Unfortunately, removing OC from Pink and Blue Horrors torpedoes their value in the Detachment, leaving you with very few good options. Daemons here mostly serve to give a 4+ invulnerable save to Rubrics and Tzaangors, and there are better ways to spend your time and points.

The Video Version

If you’d like to watch a video version of this Detachment Focus, we’ve got you covered here:

Detachment Rule: Infernal Pacts

This one works similarly to the Daemon-focused Detachments in the other cult legions. To start, up to half of your army’s points can be spent on SCINTILLATING LEGIONS daemon units taken from this codex – 1,000 points in a Strike Force game. Then, those units hand out a bonus to all THOUSAND SONS units within 6”, and get a bonus themselves in turn. Thousand Sons Psyker units pick up a 4+ invulnerable save against ranged weapons, which is a solid win for your Rubrics and characters who would otherwise have a 5+. Meanwhile, your Scintillating Legions Psykers pick up your army rule as long as they’re within 6” of a Thousand Sons unit from your army.

This is… only OK. Having the ability to cast rituals form Daemon Psykers in your army is decent, and gives them some extra value… but they can’t actually benefit from the rituals themselves. That is, Destiny’s Ruin, Temporal Surge, and Twist of Fate all specify that they only work on or with Thousand Sons units, and so can be cast by Daemons but they can’t benefit from them. This really takes the wind out of the Detachment’s sails and leaves you wondering why you’d take them. That’s exacerbated by the fact that 4+ invulnerable saves are not hard to come by for these units – Rubrics get a 4++ from an Exalted Sorcerer, and Tzaangors can get 4++ saves in the Warpmeld Pact Detachment.

Enhancements

These aren’t great. The redeploy here is fine, and bonuses to channeling for Rituals are always handy, but these don’t really make you want to build around them.

• Nethershriek Mind-Eater – A Thousand Sons or Lord of Change model can point at an enemy unit within 12” and force it to take a Battle-shock test. If they fail, they’ll suffer 3 mortal wounds.
• Diabolic Savant – One THOUSAND SONS INFANTRY model from your army can add 1 to Psychic tests every time they Channel the Warp so long as they’re within 6” of one of your daemon units.
• Duplicitous Malediction – A three-unit redeploy that you can slap onto a Lord of Change or the Thousand Sons character of your choice. It only works on Thousand Sons units, though, so you can’t redeploy any daemons. And if you really want to get wild, bring Ahriman along and redeploy six Thousand Sons units of your choice before the game gets started.
• Tome of True Names – Once per battle, your Thousand Sons Infantry model can get a 2+ invulnerable save for a phase. Having an unkillable Terminator Sorcerer seems pretty cool, even if he doesn’t have a unit hanging out with him.

Stratagems

These Stratagems are also nothing to write home about. There are some interesting effects here but it doesn’t ever really come together into something you’d really want to build around.

• Sulphurous Veil (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Choose a unit from your army–Thousand Sons or Scintillating Legions–and it’s -1 to be hit for the rest of the phase. A nice defensive boost to have on hand and it’s great that it works on either half of the army.
• Deceptive Glamour (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Another defensive stratagem, this one sacrifices your daemons to protect your Thousand Sons. Choose a Thousand Sons unit from your army at the start of the fight phase, and they’re untargetable so long as one of your Scintillating Legions units is an eligible target. Note that this happens before an enemy unit piles in, so they can position carefully to ensure their models can only attack your unit. The value here is using something like Pink Horrors to soak damage for Rubrics.
• Ethereal Phantasm (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – A reactive move for your daemons. When an enemy unit ends its move within 9”, your Scintillating Legions unit will move d6”, or a full 6” if it’s within 6” of any Thousand Sons units. This is good, and it’s great that it works on the greater daemons.
• Fractal Disjunction (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – When one of your Scintillating Legions units is targeted in the opponent’s Shooting phase, this Stratagem prevents it from being targeted unless the attacker is within 18”. It doesn’t work on Monsters, so Kairos will have to tank that Gladiator Lancer shot the hard way, but if you’re looking for a way to keep a unit of Horrors around, you could do worse.
• Chronosorcerous Bleed (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s charge phase, right after they declare a charge. Subtract 2” from the charge roll of an enemy unit who declared a charge against a Thousand Sons Psyker unit or a Scintillating Legions unit. Keep this in mind when your opponent Deep Strikes a melee threat and force them to put up an 11 to make it.
• Glimmershift Portal (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used at the end of your opponent’s Fight phase. Pick two non-Monster Scintillating Legions units (or a single Lord of Change) that’s more than 3” away from the enemy, then put them into Strategic Reserves. A solid utility trick that will help you exert pressure over the whole board.

Playing This Detachment

Whenever you build these Daemon-allied armies, what you’re really looking for is the best way to get the most value out of adding efficient datasheets to the already good ones you’ve got. Because your Daemons can’t benefit from Rituals, Flamers don’t offer a ton of value – they’re just worse than Rubrics in most respects. Where you’re really going to get value here is from Kairos, who gives you extra CP and an indirect fire attack, but the problem is that you don’t have any killer Stratagems to spend that CP on. The other potential value add here is horrors, but they’ve been nerfed substantially with pinks going to 1 OC and Horrors going to 0. It makes them only useful as a large screen unit that can give multiple units a 4+ invulnerable save and there are other, more reliable ways to do that in the Thousand Sons.

if I were building around this, I’d look at 2-3 units of Pink Horrors and Kairos as my Daemon support, then fill the rest with Thousand Sons. Screamers might work here as they’re just good, reliable units. But it’s difficult to see the upside Thousand Sons get from adding daemons.

Strengths

• More Datasheets. You can bring Daemons, and that gives you more options.
• Kairos. Kairos is legitimately great, and offers something Thousand Sons just don’t have access to otherwise – additional CP and CP denial. The shame about getting additional CP here is that the Stratagems aren’t very good.
• Durability buff. A 4++ isn’t amazing when you’ve already got a 5++ but it’s far from nothing.

Weaknesses

• Bad synergy. Not being able to benefit from Rituals really limits what Daemons can bring to the table. If they’re just there to project a 4+ invulnerable save for your Rubrics, you don’t need that many of them.
• Bad Enhancements. The enhancements on offer here just aren’t great, though the Tome of True Names is pretty funny on a Terminator Sorcerer.
• Mediocre Stratagems. The things your army can do here just aren’t that exciting, in part because they’re very restrictive in terms of which units can use them.

A Sample List

As mentioned, here’s my attempt to turn this into something workable. I’m going for a monster mash.

Sample List - Click to Expand

The idea here is to stat check your opponent by throwing six big threats down on the table at once. Magnus makes the Mutaliths faster and throws out his own solid shooting. He’s your key Ritual guy here, though he’s backed up by three units of Enlightened with Shamans who can cast. There’s a unit of utility screamers for uppy/downy shenanigans, and a Sorcerer in Terminator Armour who can help drop +1 to hit on targets for the Vortex Beasts to take advantage of. 

Final Thoughts

We’ve now seen four different daemon Detachments for the cult legions and they were all pretty lackluster, with the Changehost failing to break that mould. That’s a shame, because Tzeentch daemons have some cool things to offer but it never quite comes together here. The Detachment rule is lame, the Enhancements unexciting and the Stratagems preeetttty mid. There are better Detachments to spend your time on. 

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