If there was any doubt that 2025 was a year of Chaos, Games Workshop squelched that by releasing the fourth book in the Cult Marines quartet, Codex: Thousand Sons. The Thousand Sons spent most of tenth edition as one of the game’s top armies, with a mechanic – Cabal of Sorcerers – that was difficult to balance and often just too good. This led to a number of point tweaks up and down on different units that ultimately left the faction in its current state, being a hair or two shy of mediocre. But a new Codex brings new mechanics, detachments, and units and today we’re diving into the upcoming book to see how it changes things for the servants of the Changer of Ways.
Before we dive in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex.
The Video Version
If you’d like to watch a video version of this Codex Review hosted by our very own Campbell “SRM” McLaughlin, here you go:
Army Overview
The Codex is a mixed bag for the Thousand Sons. Some things have been nerfed, some things have been moved around, and a large number of things have been improved. There have also been a variety of quality-of-life improvements across the board.
We think the following are five standout features of this book:
- Rituals. Cabal points are gone – now you have four rituals you can do with your units that have similar effects to some of the old rituals but are easier to use and for both players to understand.
- No more Cabal Points. This one’s huge – you don’t have to worry about Cabal Points any more. This means that you’re no longer changed to taking only Psyker units in your lists because your army’s ability to function doesn’t depend on having more of them past a certain point.
- Improved Datasheets. This book has strong support for previously underused units like Vehicles, Chaos Spawn, and Tzaangors. Combine that with the loss of Cabal points and you’ve got a recipe for more varied armies.
- Better internal balance. Similarly, while Magnus is still pretty good, there are a lot more options now and you’ll be a lot less reliant on him when you build. Though we still think he’s the most powerful of the Chaos Primarchs.
- Scarab Terminators. Terminators stay winning – they received a glow-up and powerful synergies across the codex, plus a new Detachment that can really make them sing.
Army Rules
Thousand Sons armies have two rules: Cabal of Sorcerers and Pact of Sorcery. There’s a third, phantom trait that we’ll talk about here as well.
Cabal of Sorcerers
This is your replacement for Rituals, and it’s a huge upgrade in terms of fun and flexibility in list-building. On the whole it’s a downgrade in direct power, but reducing your reliance on Cabal effects opens up list building in interesting ways and the effects you get are still very powerful.
Mike P: Here’s how it works: You have four Rituals that your army can do at the start of the Shooting Phase. Each Ritual has a required Warp Charge value. To attempt the ritual, you roll a 2d6 Psychic test. If your Psychic test matches or exceeds the Warp Charge value, then you resolve the Ritual’s effects.
You can then choose to roll a 3rd d6 as part of the Psychic test (called “Channeling the Warp”), and if after that roll you have any doubles or triples, the model’s unit takes D3 mortal wounds. If the model isn’t destroyed, you then combine those rolls to get your final result. If you beat the Warp Charge value you need, you get the effect.
So why channel? Well, each Ritual also has a second, more powerful effect that you can activate if you score a higher roll. For example, the Destiny’s Ruin Ritual gives your army the ability to re-roll 1’s to Hit against a single enemy unit within 24” of the manifesting model. But if you roll a 10+ for your Warp Charge, then you get full re-rolls to Hit instead.
There are various units and rules in different detachments that interact with these Rituals, either giving you bonuses to your test or extending their range. Each model with the Cabal of Sorcerers ability can only attempt one Ritual and each Ritual can only be successfully done (“manifested”) once, unless there is a specific ability that says otherwise. Though note that “successful” rider in there – you can make multiple runs at a ritual if you don’t get it the first time.
The Rituals
There are four rituals. They only affect or work on Thousand Sons models when they act as buffs, meaning they won’t work on Daemons. As a reminder, these still all happen at the start of your Shooting phase, so you’ll need to run through them all right away.
- Destiny’s Ruin (WC 5) – Pick a visible enemy unit within 24” of the manifesting model. Until the end of the phase, Thousand Sons units in your army re-roll hit rolls of 1 against that unit. Added effect (10+) – Re-roll all hit rolls against that target instead. The old Terminator Sorcerer’s ability, now unfettered from that model. Re-rolling all hits is amazing, and this is a great way to focus down a bigger target. This is more or less your version of Oath of Moment.
- Temporal Surge (WC 6) – Pick a friendly Thousand Sons unit not within Engagement Range of an enemy unit and within 24” of and visible to the manifesting model. They can make a Normal Move of up to D6”. That unit is not eligible to charge until the end of the turn. Added Effect (10+) – they can move up to 6” instead. You can use this ahead of other rituals to push a unit forward with another unit, and then use that unit to manifest a ritual, extending your sightlines or range before you fire off Doombolt or Twist of Fate.
- Doombolt (WC 7) – Pick a visible enemy unit within 24” (excluding units with Lone Op outside of 12”). They take D3 mortal wounds. Added Effect (11+) they take D3+3 mortal wounds instead. A bit of a downgrade, but pretty reliable and always good to throw out mortal wounds.
- Twist of Fate (WC 9) – Pick a visible enemy unit within 24”. Until the end of the Shooting phase, when Thousand Sons units shoot that unit, improve their AP by 1. Added Effect (12+), improve their AP by 2. This is a bit worse than it used to be, even post-Dataslate, but when you remember that inferno bolters start at AP-2, it’s not as bad as it looks.
Mike P: From a flavor perspective, this kind of brings back the Psychic Phase for any fans who missed it (which is almost all of us).
Rob: I definitely did not miss it.
Mike P: Rolling dice to determine whether your Psychic powers went off (and using various bonuses to make them reliable) was some of the most fun of playing Thousand Sons in previous editions.
Rob: No it wasn’t. I prefer my abilities to just happen. Perils of the Warp sucked.
Mike P: Either way, this version of Rituals is also way easier for opponents to understand and play against compared to the Index version. No longer do both players have to keep track of Cabal Points to try to figure out what is possible. It’s also nice to not be tied to units that generate Cabal Points in list-building. Thousand Sons are going to look way more varied in the codex than they did in the index. That is a great thing. You’ll want to still bring plenty of Psykers for redundancy, but here is the core concept to keep in mind: An army with four Psykers can do as many successful rituals as one with twelve.
Rob: Okay, on this we agree – this is easier to remember and much more fun to play with than Rituals, which locked you into taking units which could generate or manipulate Cabal Points. And to Mike’s point, you don’t start immediately losing army effectiveness each time you lose a unit; where before you’d want 21ish cabal points and losing 2-3 units would hamstring your ability to do all the rituals you wanted, now you’re losing redundancy more than power.
Pact of Sorcery
Like the other Cult Legions, the Codex for Thousand Sons includes Tzeentch Daemons units, and these come with the SCINTILLATING LEGIONS keyword. You can’t add these to your army unless explicitly stated. This is here for the Changehost of Deceit Detachment.
Other Mechanics: Added AP, Redeploys, Hazardous, and Invulnerable Saves
Rob: These are kind of stealth mechanics. In the same way that Emperor’s Children have +1” movement and Precision on their units, World Eaters got +2” of Movement and +1 Attack, and Death Guard got +1 Toughness and LETHAL HITS, the added mechanic for the Thousand Sons appears to be extra AP. A number of units in the Codex have higher AP values on their basic guns and bolters, leading to things like AP-2 inferno bolters and added AP on Hades Autocannons. It’s an interesting dynamic, and I appreciate how they’ve tried to make the armies distinct from each other mechanically. Extra AP is very good as a bonus to get, and we’ll explore what that means for a lot of units as we dig into the Datasheets.
There are also a lot of redeploy mechanics in here. They all go off before the first-turn roll-off, though so they’re kind of whatever. And several units gain an invulnerable save that otherwise wouldn’t have them, such as Helbrutes and Chaos Spawn.
Finally, similar to the Index, most psychic attacks don’t have a [HAZARDOUS] mode. They just work like normal, because your psykers are masters of the craft.
Detachments
Thousand Sons armies have access to five detachments in the Codex, plus the Hexwarp Thrallband Detachment from the Grotmas releases. We’re not going to go into full detail on these in this article, but we’ve put together a series of Detachment Focus articles covering them in full detail. You can check them out below:
This is the updated – and slightly nerfed – version of the Index Detachment (Cult of Magic). You still get the ability to give your psykers one of three abilities to apply to the whole army, but you only get each of those once per game unless you use a Stratagem. That said, the abilities are better – Devastating Wounds for psychic weapons sticks around, and Sustained/Lethal hits have been replaced with +6” range on Psychic weapons and +1 to wound with psychic weapons. A lot of the same great effects are still here, but some have been moved to other Detachments.
This is your combined Thousand Sons/Daemons Detachment. While your Thousand Sons Psyker units are near Daemons, they get a 4+ invulnerable save against Ranged attacks. While your Daemons are near Thousand Sons Psykers, they get Cabal of Sorcerers. You can take up to 1,000 points of Tzeentch Daemons.
This is the Detachment for the sickos who want to run the mutants – Tzaangors, Chaos Spawn, and Mutalith Vortex Beasts. Every time one of your enemy units attacks a mutant, you can take D3 mortal wounds to give them -1 to their wound rolls, and each time you shoot or fight with a Mutant, you can take D3 mortal wounds to get +1 to wound rolls. Also Tzaangors become BATTLELINE in this Detachment.
Did you miss All is Dust? Me too. This Detachment is all about Scarabs and Rubrics – every time they take a 1-damage attack, they get +1 to their saves. And yes, there is a Stratagem in this Detachment to reduce incoming shooting damage.
This is your Vehicle Detachment – every time a vehicle in your army shoots or fights, it can re-roll one hit roll, wound roll, or damage roll. But if it’s within 6” of a friendly psyker, you can re-roll one of each instead. Also when your vehicles die, they explode on a 5+ if they’re within 6” of a friendly psyker. That seems like more of a mixed bag.
The Grotmas Detachment is still here. It’s still not great, mostly because Rubrics still give you re-rolls to wound. It has a little more play now that Cult of Magic isn’t around to give you Devastating Wounds all the time, but it still feels outclassed by other Detachment options here.
Datasheets
While most datasheets will be largely familiar to players who played the Thousand Sons index, there are so many minor changes that it’s worth giving every datasheet a fresh look.
New Datasheet: Sekhetar Robots
There’s only one new Datasheet here – the Sekhetar Robots, robotic sentinels used to fill out the ranks of the Thousand Sons. These robotic guardians are smaller models than you’d expect them to be, but they’re plenty useful. They’re VEHICLE WALKERS with 8” movement, T6, 4 wounds and a 3+/5++ save (1 OC, Ld 7+).
Loadout-wise, these robots come in two varieties: Shooty, and Fighty. Both types come with hellfyre missile racks (2 shots, S10 AP-2, 3 damage) and heavy Warpflamers (12” D6 flamer shots at S5 AP-2 1 damage). The shooty version come with a S10 meltagun. The fighty version come with a S10 power fist and a D3 shot hand flamer. All of this is just OK, mostly because these guys come loaded with WS and BS 4+, making them pretty unreliable.
What they do bring to the table is their abilities – they come with Infiltrators and Stealth, so they’re immediately worth looking at, and they can use the Fire Overwatch and Heroic Intervention Stratagems for free once per Battle Round. That’s great, and free Overwatch on AP-2 flamers is nothing to scoff at. These robots come in units of 2 or 4, though I don’t think it’s generally going to be worth taking a unit of 4 most of the time. Sadly, they cannot be joined by any characters. But as mentioned, Infiltrators alone makes them worth considering and the sheer number of abilities they have make it worth picking up a unit or two.
Updated Datasheets
As with the Death Guard and World Eaters, almost every single datasheet in Codex: Thousand Sons has changed. The most common change you’re going to see here is +1 AP on inferno bolters and a number of other guns. Solid ammo weapons generally gained an extra point of AP, so Soulreaper Cannons, Hades Autocannons, and Helbrute autocannons all went up to AP-2. We’ll touch on this where it matters in the individual datasheets.
Also, more psychic attacks tend to come with Devastating Wounds built in, which is a nice treat to make other Detachments more viable.
Characters
Characters are still going to be the core of the Thousand Sons army, in part because your army rules and Detachment rules usually depend on having PSYKER units around, and that means having some of these characters. A lot of the abilities you remember on characters from the Index are still here, but moved around and renamed in ways that are confusing and inexplicably terrible.
Magnus the Red
Magnus is back, and while he’s still very good, he’s likely a bit worse than his prior incarnation. His stat line hasn’t changed – it’s still good, and his ranged attacks have improved: Gaze of Magnus now hits at S11, while Tzeentch’s Firestorm hits at S6 and has IGNORES COVER to make it much more deadly.
Magnus’ Crimson King ability has been replaced with Unearthly Power, which does the exact same thing, with the same three abilities. They’re still very solid, and +2” of Movement hits harder when Rubrics move 6” base instead of 5”. Impossible Form now no longer works on PSYCHIC attacks, just to make those more of a pain in the ass for no particular reason.
The big boss here is his Lord of the Planet of the Sorcerers (Aura). Giving +1 to hit and wound for psychic attacks within 6” was absolutely massive, and also crucial for getting Magnus to 2+ to hit and wound against key targets, even through modifiers. Magnus instead can attempt two Rituals per turn instead of one and he gets +2 to his tests. This is a very solid replacement, and makes Magnus very much still worth consideration as one of the army’s best units. Being able to guarantee that AP-2 Twist of Fate or D3+3 wound Doombolt is huge, and Magnus also has the wounds to just eat a double or two if you need.
What this leaves us with is a Magnus who is still very, very good – fast, good at fighting, great at shooting, and with abilities that make the entire army better – but not quite the must-take he used to be. We suspect he’ll still show up in plenty of lists, but it’ll depend heavily on his points cost.
Ahriman
Surprise! Ahriman is now only available on Disc. He’s OC 2 now, which is cool, and his ranged weapons have improved tremendously. That old one-shot Psychic Stalk? Gone. Now he’s got Transmogrifying blast, a psychic attack that does D6+1 Blast shots at S6 Ap-1, D3 damage, giving you much more reliable output. He gives you +1 to your Ritual tests, which is another great benefit, and his Rubric Lord ability (+1 to wound) has been replaced with a redeploy for up to three units, and allows you to put those units into Strategic Reserves.
Infernal Master
The Infernal Master is one of the few truly unchanged Datasheets in the book. Everything about your favorite character is back, including the insane psychic attack, which is now called Fires of the Abyss (the former name of the attack on Sorcerers) and not Screamer Invocation for some reason. It still has the only Hazardous mode for psychic attacks in the book. They still give their unit [SUSTAINED HITS 1] and have a once-per-turn auto 6 for a hit, wound, or save for the model.
Sorcerer
Regular Sorcerers changed substantially in this book, losing their “18” Lone Op” ability for their unit. They still give their unit [LETHAL HITS] but now they get a once per battle ability called Twisted Sorceries, which can be used in the Shooting or Fight phase to improve the Strength and Attacks characteristics of his psychic attacks by 3. This works well with his Psychic Attack, now called Pandaemonic Delusion. It’s 24” range with 6 shots, S5 AP-1, 1 damage, with SUSTAINED HITS 3. It lost pistol, but became a bit more reliable in terms of shot count (Though 6 is generally worse than 2D6). With the once per game add-on, it’s quite a bit more impressive. And you can give the model a Khopesh without having to give up anything else, giving a solid, AP-2, 2 damage option for fighting – and you should take it every time.
Exalted Sorcerer
Exalted Sorcerers are back pretty much unchanged. They give their unit a 4+ invulnerable save, can bring back dead models, and they have Astral Blast, a solid psychic attack. Like Sorcerers, you can add a Khopesh onto them without losing anything.
Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch
The Exalted Sorcerer on Disc lost 2” of Movement to bring him in line with other Disc units, but kept the same great psychic attack. The old Sorcerer ability has now been shunted to these guys, and so when you attach them to a unit, that unit can’t be targeted with ranged attacks outside of 18”. They’ve retained the ability to slow enemy INFANTRY units, giving them -2” to move and -2 to Charge rolls to a unit they’ve hit in the Shooting phase with Arcane Fire.
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch
Daemon Princes got some very slick glow-ups in the new Codex releases and it’s worth looking at what they get here. The foot Daemon Prince is faster than before – 9” movement – has AP-2 on his Infernal Cannon and six shots instead of 3 – and comes with a new Psychic Attack. Infernal Blessing has 24” range and fires off 9 shots at BS 2+, S4 AP-1, 1 damage with IGNORES COVER and SUSTAINED HITS 1. That’s not amazing, but it’s not nothing, either. Comparatively, Daemon Princes in the Thousand Sons have fewer sweep attacks now – 12 instead of 14 – but they come with AP-1 and both the strike and the sweep have [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] built in.
That’s a solid set of upgrades but now let’s talk abilities. Like other foot DPs, the Thousand Sons variety has Lone Operative while he’s within 3” of a friendly Thousand Sons Infantry unit, and similar to before, he gives friendly units within 6” the Stealth ability. What’s new here is Spirit Snare – Each time a friendly psyker with Cabal of Sorcerers dies within 9” of your Daemon Prince, they can get +1 to their ritual tests for the rest of the battle, to a max of +2. This is pretty neat, since getting bonuses to rituals is just great to have, but not insanely good or anything. In all, these guys are fine but probably lose out when it comes to making lists against the winged version.
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with Wings
The Winged version of the Daemon Prince comes with 13” Movement and FLY, the Deep Strike rule, and the same melee and ranged weapons as the foot Daemon Prince. What’s different here are his abilities. Hunter of Souls gives him the ability to re-roll hit and wound rolls fo 1 against enemy CHARACTER units, or all hit and wound rolls against PSYKER CHARACTERS. And then each time he kills a character he regains D3 wounds, or 3 if it was a Psyker. This is nifty, and re-rolling 1s is pretty great when you hit on 2s. His other ability is Aetherstride – When you set him up with Deep Strike, you can do an Aetherstride. If you do, he can beset up anywhere more than 6” away from enemy units, and for the rest fo the turn, his Dark Blessing gains [SUSTAINED HITS D3] and he can’t charge. This is pretty neat – I don’t think his shooting is quite good enough to warrant using this to drop him for shooting, but it’s great for bringing him in with Rapid Ingress to set up for a next turn charge or a Heroic Intervention.
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour
The Sorcerer in Terminator Armour has changed a bit from the Index. His Coruscating Flames attack has been inexplicably renamed to Gaze of Hate but otherwise hasn’t changed at all. He still gives his unit [LETHAL HITS], and his new Marked by Fate ability has changed (for the worse, mostly) – after you finish shooting with his unit, you can mark a unit hit by a psychic weapon in his unit, and until the end of the phase, attacks against that unit are +1 to hit. This means his own unit will never benefit from Marked by Fate, and makes him a much less necessary addition to the Scarab Terminator unit, but you can still get your re-rolls from a Ritual now. That said, splitting fire with Scarabs comes up pretty often – you can throw your missiles into a different target, then use this to tag that target with +1 to hit, an ability that combos well with re-rolling 1s to hit from your Destiny’s Ruin ritual.
Tzaangor Shaman
The Tzaangor Shaman has changed substantially from his prior incarnation. He’s gained the MUTANT keyword – useful for the Warpmeld Pact Detachment – and he’s gained +1 to his OC and invulnerable saves (moving to a 5+). He still has the same psychic attack, though in another instance of “Why did they do this,” his Mutating Orbs attack has been renamed to Baleful Devolution. His abilities have also changed – He still has Bestial Prophet to give his unit +1 to hit, but now he has Sacrificial Blessing, which lets him kill a single bodyguard model in his attached unit every time they shoot or fight, and if you do, the Shaman gets +D3 to the Attacks and Strength of his psychic weapons. Going to S11-12 with Baleful Devolution and D6+D3 attacks is interesting. This character combos well with the Warpmeld Pac Detachment ability give you +1 to wound on a unit, but losing 2D3 models before you fight can be pretty rough. This is ostensibly an OK reason to run units of 20 Tzaangors, but you have to weigh the lives of 3 Tzaangors against better attacks from the Shaman.
Battleline
Thousand Sons now have a single Battleline unit: Rubrics. Though you can make Tzaangors Battleline if you take the Warpmeld Pact Detachment.
Rubric Marines
Rubrics are back and better than they were before, if you can believe it. They’ve kept their Bringers of Change rule, giving them re-rolls to wound of 1 on ranged attacks or full re-rolls against targets on objectives you don’t control. But now they have some notable improvements. Specifically:
- 6” Movement characteristic. A 20% improvement.
- 3 Wounds on the Aspiring Sorcerer
- Inferno Boltguns and Soulreaper Cannons are now AP-2
- Warpsmite was renamed to Malefic Curse for some reason, and now does three attacks instead of two.
As an additional change that’s more a side grade, the Icon of Flame gives non-character models in the unit [IGNORES COVER] on their ranged weapons. This all combines to make Rubrics that are better and – with the points we have – cheaper than they were before, and now inferno boltguns are a real option you’d consider. You still have to roll to hit but throwing out 20 AP-2 shots with ignores cover isn’t bad at all, particularly when you’re re-rolling wounds. The extra wound on the Aspiring Sorcerer is just gravy, adding more durability to the unit.
The only downside here? Malefic Curse doesn’t have [PISTOL], meaning you can’t fire it and your Warpflame pistol. That’s a bit of a blow, but the extra attack makes that largely something you wont’ mind.
Units
Scarab Occult Terminators
Like Rubrics, Scarabs are also better. Significantly so, in fact. Let’s run through their changes:
- The Terminator Sorcerer now has 4 wounds
- His Warpsmite has been replaced with Malefic Curse, though the attacks count didn’t change – it’s still 3. Like with Rubrics, the attack no longer has [PISTOL], but here that’s an upgrade, since it means you can fire it and the model’s inferno combi-bolter.
- Inferno Combi-bolters and Soulreaper cannons are AP-2, substantially improving their output.
- As long as the unit has any psykers, incoming attacks get -1 to wound. This is another massive improvement, since it no longer dares about the strength of the incoming attack. This means that anything S4 or below is wounding you a 6+, and you’ll never be wounded on a 2+. It’s a huge increase in durability for the unit.
The Terminator Sorcerer is still a value add to this unit, though a bit less necessary now that you get Re-rolls to hit from a Ritual and can’t use his +1 to hit bonus during his unit’s activation. That said,
Chaos Predator Destructor
The Predator Destructor is mostly what you’d expect in this book, though its OC has dropped to 3 (from 4), and its inferno weapons are now AP-2 – this includes its Inferno Heavy Bolters. The big change here is the ability – you no longer get +1 AP against Infantry but instead have the Ensorcelled Destruction ability, which has more of a cascading effect – if it targets a non-MONSTER, non-VEHICLE unit that was hit by a Psychic attack this phase (including Doombolt), then you get +1 Strength and +1 AP. That’s a little more of a hoop to jump through but very relevant, and going to S10 on the Autocannon is legitimately great.
Chaos Predator Annihilator
The Lascannon version of the predator has a similar setup, where shooting a MONSTER or VEHICLE that has been hit by a Psychic attack will let you re-roll hit rolls and damage rolls. That’s pretty great as well, and really helps you get the most out of those three lascannon shots.
Helbrute
The Thousand Sons Helbrute – as seen in Space Marine 2! – gets a glow-up, going to 8” movement and retaining its 5+ invulnerable save. Like the other cult variants, it gets +2 melee attacks when it has two melee weapons. But its other ability is Terrifying Assault, which forces enemy units hit by its attacks in the Shooting or Fight phase to take a Battle-shock test, with -1 if the enemy unit is within 9” of a Thousand Sons Psyker unit. Otherwise, the things to look at are his ranged weapons – Heavy Flamers on this Helbrute are AP-2 and the same is true for the Twin Heavy Bolter.
Chaos Rhino
Rhinos have been getting substantial glow-ups in each cult Codex and the Thousand Sons one is no exception. It’s Combi-weapons are now AP-2 and it lost regenerating wounds in favor of Sorcererous Support – In your shooting phase you can pick an enemy unit hit by this Rhino and until the end of the phase, when models that disembarked this turn make Psychic Attacks against that target, they get +1 to hit/wound. This is a bit narrow in scope, but there’s plenty of value here for units with attached characters to really take advantage. It’s fine for your unit champions but also great for things like Astral Blast, Pandaemonic Delusion (and this is when you want to drop that once per game buff), Fires of the Abyss, or Transmogrifying Blast, where you can use it to punch up with S6 attacks into tougher targets. If you’re running Rubricae Phalanx, this is when you want to use Infernal Fusillade to make your inferno bolters S5 and Psychic, so you can get +1 to hit/wound with them.
Chaos Vindicator
The Vindicator here is nothing special. You get AP-2 bolters and the Siege Shield ability, and for some reason it costs the same as it does in other armies.
Chaos Land Raider
Similarly, the Thousand Sons Land Raider is nothing special, save its AP-2 add-on weapons. That’s at least noteworthy for giving it AP-2 heavy bolters.
Forgefiend
With the Forgefiend we’re finally getting somewhere. The profile here is the same as before, and Blazing Salvoes is back to let you suppress enemy units. But now Hadens Autocannons are AP-2 and that’s a huge improvement. Add in the ability to combine this with +1 to hit from the Terminator Sorcerer or re-rolls and added AP from Rituals and you have a model suddenly much more capable of putting out some real damage. And his ectoplasma cannons are still plenty deadly as well. At 140 points the Forgefiend is an insane value.
Maulerfiend
The Maulerfiend doesn’t benefit from the same improvement in AP, and is only notable here because of his ability to Heroically Intervene for 0 CP and do so even if you’ve already used the Stratagem. He gets re-rolls on his charge rolls against units already within Engagement Range of a Psyker unit in your army, and those combine to make him more of a protector and counter-charge unit than one ranging out to cause problems. At 130 points that’s pretty cheap for the value he provides, but his problem will still be walls and terrain.
Defiler
Another big glow-up target in the recent books, the Thousand Sons Defiler comes with an extra little Feel No Pain 6+ tacked on and extra AP on his Reaper Autocannon, inferno weapons, and twin heavy flamer. And he can walk through terrain that’s less than 4” tall. His big draw here is Destroyer of Futures – He can hit on Overwatch on a 5+, or a 4+ if your target is within 9” of one of your PSYKER units. WIth the Defiler Cannon that makes the Defiler a pretty nasty overwatch threat – enough to cause an opponent to think twice before trying to close the gap on your psyker units.
Heldrake
The Thousand Sons Heldrake has some pretty solid abilities. AP-2 on his baleflamer and autocannon, which are great. And when you end a normal move you can strip cover from a single enemy unit you moved over. That’s also awesome, and great for him flying over something and then turning around and shooting it.
…but at 215 points that’s too high a price to pay. At 180 I’d probably take one.
Chaos Spawn
The Thousand Sons Chaos Spawn is fine. It’s not the insanely good option you see in the other three books, but it has its charms – specifically, they regain 3 lost wounds in the Command phase, and they only cost 65 points. That’s their primary value, but you can do better.
Tzaangors
This may be the biggest glow-up in the book. Tzaangors can now come in units of 20, gained Scouts 6” and have the ability to lave the battlefield, going back into Strategic Reserves, if they’re more than 6” away from any enemy units at the end of your opponent’s turn. They’re the ideal backfield objective holders for the army with Cultists out, and the ability to pick up and leave late game is huge.
Tzaangor Enlightened
Tzaangor Enlightened Datasheets have been split into melee and ranged formats. The Melee variety have a 4+ tank shock ability and 2-damage melee weapons which are pretty nifty. They’re dirt cheap, to the point where taking 6 feels like a steal.
Tzaangor Enlightened with Fatecaster Greatbows
The shooty Enlightened saw their bows bumped up to AP-2, making them substantially better, and they kept their D6” reactive move. They’re also dirt cheap, and the better version of the two units because of their ability to do damage at range.
Mutalith Vortext Beast
The Terror of Tenth Edition Returns! At a new lower points cost. The MVB has a real claim to being MVP of this book. He now gives all friendly psykers within 6” +1 to their Channel Attempts, and he keeps his mortal wounds aura and triple mode ranged attack, though the beam did drop to AP3.
The Daemons
Like with the other Cult Legions, the Thousand Sons Codex has datasheets for Daemons of Tzeentch. Your options here are: Kairos Fateweaver, the Lord of Change, Flamers, Screamers, Pink Horrors, and Blue Horrors (with Brimstone Horrors mixed in as other Horrors split).
Mike P: The differences are mostly minor between the datasheets here and the datasheets in the latest Daemons index update, but there are a few worth talking about.
Screamers and Flamers both are LD8, instead of LD7 in Daemons. This is an odd choice for a random nerf, but one that won’t have a big impact.
The biggest change is all three varieties of Horrors going down 1 OC. Pink Horrors are OC1, and Blue Horrors/Brimstone Horrors are OC0. This feels like a very harsh nerf. Horrors of all types do effectively 0 damage and aren’t fast, so being durable once they are on objectives is effectively the only upside they have. Making it hard for Pink Horrors to contest objectives and impossible for Blues/Brims to contest objectives is a very odd choice. Being OC0 makes Blue Horrors especially hard to justify bringing because they can’t even do actions like Locus or Recover Assets.
Lords of Change and Kairos are unchanged from their Daemon datasheets.
How They Will Play
If these are the points that the army releases with, they’re going to be very, very good. There are some downsides here – the army is pretty elite, lacking the kind of cheap action units you want to see in its core units, but it can make up for that with Chaos Spawn and Tzaangors, both of which are relatively cheap and pretty solid. You’re also going to struggle with heavier armor – similar to the Index version of the army, your main tools for handling big threats with a high toughness are going to be mortal wounds from Doombolt and your psychic attacks, missiles form your hellfyre missile racks, and big shots from Magnus. That’s not a ton, and I won’t be shocked if knights become an even tougher matchup for Thousand Sons. Of course, this can all be mitigated by taking more Mutalith Vortex Beasts and vehicles like the lascannon predator.
How they play is going to depend heavily on your Detachment – running Warpmeld? Lots of Tzaangors and triple Mutalith Vortex Beasts are the order of the day. Rubricae Phalanx? You’ll want Scarab Occult Terminators. What won’t change is you Rituals – you’ll want to have proper coverage with them most turns and that means having at least four living Psykers to perform Rituals with. When you’re doing these note that you’re likely to fail a few tests and fall short; if you’re planning to push your luck, be prepared to lose a model or two. That can hurt, especially on five-model units of Rubrics who really don’t like to lose even a single flamer.
The Rituals themselves are interesting – they’re really more about focusing down big targets, with the versatility to kill two or three in a single round, depending on what you have to throw at them and how tough they are. Destiny’s Ruin is the easiest of the bunch to pull off and more or less gives you access to your own personal shooting phase Oath of Moment. Twist of Fate likewise can really supercharge your AP-1 and AP-2 output.
For the more traditional or combined arms detachments, a lot of this will seem familiar. Infernal Masters aren’t quite as nasty as they used to be, since they won’t have Devastating Wounds on all the time. And Magnus isn’t quite the must-take he used to be without that +1 to hit/wound aura, but the points we were given have him coming in substantially cheaper, to the point where he’s very playable. That said, you’re absolutely going to miss his +1 to wound when you’re taking on those big threats.
Example Army Lists
If you’re looking for sample army lists, you can find them in our Detachment Focus articles – see above.
Final Thoughts
We think Thousand Sons are going to be good. Very good. Our test games have seen them playing a game that’s borderline non-interactive, and they aren’t slowed by the loss of more powerful Ritual effects from the Index. If anything, they’re just as good now that they can reliably get all four every turn and one of those is basically Oath of Moment, the entire army rule for Space Marines. The drop in reliance on Cabal Points also opens things up for you to run tons of other units, and you can easily get by a couple of units of Rubrics and a few characters, filling up the rest with Mutalith Vortex Beasts, vehicles, and Tzaangors, making the army much more versatile. Pretty much all the Detachments here have play and if you’re a Thousand Sons player, this book is pretty much everything you want.
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