Hello, Dear Reader, and welcome back to my ongoing blog series where I talk about my path through another year of Warhammer 40k. Last time I talked about taking my Thousand Sons to another RTT. That went alright, but I was happy to finally be able to jettison Magnus from my list in favor of something with more Terminators. As I write this today, I’m frantically working toward having that army complete for the Dallas Open this weekend – and my plan is to take the same list to Seattle in two weeks.

Over the past three weeks I’ve played four practice games and put in a ton of hobby work on my army, making last-minute changes and decisions about what I want to play. A ton of this was heavily influenced by the April Balance Dataslate and I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t briefly consider going back to Death Guard and running Blightlords again. But I’m committed to doing this stupid Thousand Sons army, so here we are.

Hobby

I’ve got a ton of hobby work ahead of me. Originally I had only planned on painting 15 Scarab Occult Terminators but it became clear I’d need more so I picked up another box of them after the Ettin event. Of course, now that the April Dataslate brought Amour of Contempt into the picture, I’m wondering if 20 is enough or if I need to be looking at 30. And the answer to that is “I’m not going to paint another 10 scarabs, please no.” I’ll probably look at adding more Rubrics instead.

If you read my Faction Focus: Thousand Sons this week, you probably know that I’m taking a Leviathan and a Heldrake to Dallas. The Leviathan is a marines/mortal wounds play – having a 3-damage gun that can push out AP3/4 shots and additional mortals with Volkite feels like a good add – and the Heldrake is for dealing with Harpies, in case I run up against Tyranids. Of course, these both add a significant amount of hobby time to my process, so I’m racing to finish them by Thursday evening, when I’m riding up to Dallas with Erik.

The Leviathan

The Leviathan is a bit of a hobby project, owing to the fact that he needs some conversion work to more closely match the 40k Thousand Sons aesthetic. As with any Forge World model, the process starts with a scrub of soapy water, then letting the parts sit for 24 hours in said water, then another scrub and rinse.

Once that’s over, it’s time to start converting this stupid thing. I’ve got some extra vehicle bits left around, plus plenty of unused scarab occult terminator parts, so I’m going to use those to Tzeentch this bad boy up. I’m also using some greenstuff on here to add a kind of burning brow to him, same as other terminators, and the blades help complete the look.

 

Once I start assembling him I realize I need more trim, so I add some with Greenstuff to one of the front plates and use some plasticard for additional trim details. It’s a little chunkier than I’d like but it works overall. Then I’m off to painting in the usual manner. My Thousand Sons scheme starts with Kantor Blue, Blended up to Caledor Sky. The stripes on the front are just freehand.

 

I’ve also decided to magnetize this idiot. I put large magnets on each arm to hold the guns – this will come in handy later when I want to swap them out. I do zero drilling with these so they sit a little lower than is standard thanks to the double magnets being wider than the socket they’re replacing, but the effect looks fine. doing a magnet in the torso-to-legs join is about ease of transport, and I don’t need a huge magnet here, just one that will keep the top on the bottom while he’s standing upright. You can’t pick him up by his top half but he’s not gonna fall off any time soon.

Now all that’s left is to finish this guy. This goes pretty quick.

As-is, he’s about 90% done. I have a lot of little detail work and touch-up work to do, but it’s just not going to get done before Dallas – that’s a project for next week and Seattle. As-is, he’s more than good enough for tabletop standard and it’s unlikely people will notice any unpainted details or small errors at this point.

The Heldrake

Now for this flying idiot turkey. I have painted five Heldrakes in my life and hated every one. This one goes together in about an hour and a half.

Midway through the process, one of our Patrons – Rocco – asked me about the process of magnetizing a Heldrake. You pretty much have to magnetize these idiots, on account of their wings make them impossible to travel with otherwise. Fortunately, the process is pretty simple. You assemble the arm, then cut off the dome on top, shave down the surface, cover the hole with green stuff, and put a big magnet on there. Then you shove a lump of green stuff into the socket and put a big magnet in there.

This is a pretty quick process and makes things much easier, plus it requires no drilling.

Once the Heldrake magnets are done I prime the jerk black and it’s time to paint. This isn’t as bad as you’d think – the body is Kantor Blue blended up to Caledor Sky, then the trim is Retributor Armor with Agrax wash. The skin bits are Bugman’s Glow washed with Agrax and then painted again with Bugman’s Glow for highlighting. The final result is about 80% done – there’s plenty of edge work and touching up still to do – but I’m more than happy with it in terms of getting it to a tabletop standard.

I also finish off my Scarab Occult Terminators. Well, they’ve also got a little work to do – like painting the shoulder icons – but they’re good enough for now.

 

Practice Games

The biggest thing I can do here is practice. I’m not possessed of the superhuman ability to internalize 40k games that say, Richard Siegler has, so I need to practice and play a shitload of games if I want to stand any chance at a .500 record at Dallas.

There isn’t a ton to say about the nuance in these games and there’s a lot to cover, while I’m quickly running out of time to get everything painted for Dallas before I leave tonight. The list I brought didn’t change that much; the core of it was 20 scarabs, which I decided to split into 3 units – 10/5/5, plus three units of Rubrics, 3 characters, a Leviathan, and the Heldrake. The Leviathan is here to give me a little more play against marines, while the Heldrake is insurance against Harpies, and can act as a mortal wounds sponge against new Tyranids as well, using Biomechanical Mutation to shrug off more wounds. The Chaos Spawn are here for the same reason, to run ahead and act as screens for Smites and other mortal wound sources.

I play around initially with the Cult of Magic, thinking I might need more mortal wounds output but ultimately that just doesn’t feel good and I go back to the Cult of Time. I suspect I really want to go Cult of Duplicity instead, but I’ll stick with this for now. I also played with Ahriman on and off his Disc, opting for a third Chaos Spawn, but ultimately the loss of mobility on Ahriman felt too restricting, especially when I was giving him Twist of Fate. I’m not in love with the final list, but it’s what I’ve tested and at this point I just need to bring something I have some familiarity with.

My List for Dallas

 

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Chaos – Thousand Sons) [103 PL, 10CP, 14 Cabal Points, 1,996pts] ++

• Configuration [12CP] +

Cults of the Legion: Cult of Time

• Stratagems [-1CP] +

Sorcerous Arcana [-1CP]: Additional Relics [-1CP]

• HQ [20 PL, 8 Cabal Points, 370pts] +

Ahriman [9 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 180pts]: 11. Tzeentch’s Firestorm, 12. Twist of Fate, 21. Presage, Disc of Tzeentch [1 PL, 20pts]

Exalted Sorcerer [6 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 100pts]: 13. Doombolt, 23. Baleful Devolution, Athenaean Scrolls, Immaterial Echo, Inferno Bolt Pistol, Warlord

Infernal Master [5 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 90pts]: 12. Glamour of Tzeentch, 3. Capering Imps, 6. Malefic Maelstrom, Umbralefic Crystal

• Troops [18 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 315pts] +

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 105pts]
. Aspiring Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 21pts]: 22. Weaver of Fates, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun [84pts]: 4x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 105pts]
. Aspiring Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 21pts]: 21. Temporal Manipulation, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun [84pts]: 4x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 105pts]
. Aspiring Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 21pts]: 31. Empyric Guidance, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun [84pts]: 4x Inferno boltgun

• Elites [54 PL, -1CP, 3 Cabal Points, 1,100pts] +

Chaos Leviathan Dreadnought [13 PL, -1CP, 225pts]: 2x Grav-flux bombard, Hellforged hunter-killer missile [5pts]
. Two twin volkite calivers

Scarab Occult Terminators [21 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 445pts]: 2x Hellfyre missile rack [20pts]
. Scarab Occult Sorcerer [1 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 55pts]: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno combi-bolter, Rites of Coalescence [1 PL, 15pts]
. 7x Terminator [280pts]: 7x Inferno combi-bolter, 7x Prosperine khopesh
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]

Scarab Occult Terminators [10 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 215pts]: Hellfyre missile rack [10pts]
. Scarab Occult Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 40pts]: 11. Gaze of Hate, Inferno combi-bolter
. 3x Terminator [120pts]: 3x Inferno combi-bolter, 3x Prosperine khopesh
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]

Scarab Occult Terminators [10 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 215pts]: Hellfyre missile rack [10pts]
. Scarab Occult Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 40pts]: 12. Twist of Fate, Inferno combi-bolter
. 3x Terminator [120pts]: 3x Inferno combi-bolter, 3x Prosperine khopesh
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]

• Fast Attack [2 PL, 46pts] +

Chaos Spawn [1 PL, 23pts]: Chaos Spawn [1 PL, 23pts]

Chaos Spawn [1 PL, 23pts]: Chaos Spawn [1 PL, 23pts]

• Flyer [9 PL, 165pts] +

Heldrake [9 PL, 165pts]: Hades autocannon

++++

The Terminators hold objectives and use their boosted resilience from Armour of Contempt to weather nasty storms of fire while healing up and bringing back dead models with Time Flux and Warped Regeneration. Meanwhile the Leviathan can take out tougher targets and the Heldrake can do what it does best: Annoy the shit out of people.

Game 1: vs. Dan’s Drukhari

The first game was the last one I played before the new Dataslate. Dan’s still running his multiple Ravagers list, which isn’t great for me, but this is the last time I’ll have to worry about AP3 guns. At least, as much as I did.

Dan's List - click to expand

Dan’s Thoughts:

Hello again, reader!

After the last time I played Rob’s Thousand Sons in that nail-biter at the RTT, I felt a little disappointed in the Talos I brought. I wanted them to be good TTL targets, in case I couldn’t lock down a good third secondary, but most games I played that day they ended up dying. So this list here eschews survivability to go for the extra punch of the three Dark Technomancer Cronos that can be a TTL target in a pinch. Aside from that, I also put Drazhar in with Hatred Eternal, since I find a Hatred Eternal Archon doesn’t get the job done nearly as well as he does. Plus, Drazhar buffs incubi, and Incubi are cool as hell.

For this game, I do have pretty good secondary options with Abhor on the table, good objectives for Banners, and a strong setup for Herd. The problem is the terrain is terrible, there’s nowhere to hide my very fragile raider chasis vehicles. I have to burn a bunch of pre-game CP to hide the Ravagers and one Raider which I’m not thrilled about, but otherwise the shooting Rob can bring to bear is going to tear them apart. It’s a big gamble, time to see if it pays off.

The Mission: Tide of Conviction

The big thing I’m trying to do is mimic some of the Dallas Open layouts I’ve seen in their player pack. I take Bring it Down, Mutate Landscape, and To the Last, and that was too bold a move.

Anyways, this test doesn’t go so well – the terrain is awful for me when it comes to trying to hide. I end up going second, which makes things worse. I get the drop on Dan early by playing aggressive with 5 Scarabs and taking out his Hellions – hidden in the ruin in the upper right there – but he retaliates by sending Drazhar, the Archon, and 10 Incubi down my right flank, basically tearing through two Terminator Squads. His Ravagers make short work of my Forgefiends and it’s over by T3. Not a great start!

Dan’s Thoughts

Fun fact: When I make a charge with Drazhar when he has access to full rerolls, I hear Devil May Cry music. Loud and clear, science can’t explain it.

This game went very well for me. I had good rolls when I needed them, but ultimately Rob’s aggression played right into my hand. Those Scarab Occults hit hard, but Drazhar hits harder with that fight last setup with the Archon there. From there, I was in a comfortable position to get aggressive and push up the table as Rob ran out of steam and sealed the win for me.

Usually, Rob’s the one who delivers a decisive ass-kicking against me. It’s a little weird to be on the other side, but I’ll take it!

Thank you again for having me over for a game and asking for my thoughts for this article. I hope the brownie cookies I tried to make while I was there eventually came out alright.

Rob: They turned out OK.

 

Game 2: vs. Erik’s Harlequins

Game 2 and I’m testing against my other old rival, Erik. He’s shifted from Craftworlds + Harlequins to straight Harlequins this time for his Dallas list, and this is the first game we’re playing post-dataslate. Literally the dataslate came out one day prior.

Erik's List - click to expand

Erik’s had to make some quick adjustments but he’s still running 5 Voidweavers and those are a pain in the ass. My hope is that I can close some distance and take them out with mortals. At this point I’m still playing with a Forgefiend, and I swap out the second Forgefiend for a Mutalith.

The Mission: Data-Scry Salvage

I take Wrath of Magnus, Engage on All Fronts, and Psychic Interrogation, the last of which was likely a mistake.

This one’s not bad for me because I can use Risen Rubricae to put a unit of Rubrics in the lower-right corner, locking in control on 1-2 objectives early and scoring some extra points, while hopefully distracting some units that would otherwise plow into my Scarabs.  That’s about the only thing that goes right for me – I need things to go my way more often than not to beat Harlequins and it just doesn’t happen. Erik spikes some early saves and to add insult to injury, ends up denying all of my Psychic Interrogations, rolling an 11 and a 12 to deny the first two after I roll a 10 and 11, respectively. It doesn’t completely change the game but it does remind me that taking Interrogation is a mistake for me – I just don’t have characters who really want to do it and having it get denied sucks.

The big challenge comes on the top left, where I’m just completely unable to kill any of Erik’s Troupes for two turns despite putting 3 Chaos Spawn and a Daemon Prince into them. That costs me too many points and Erik holds me to 4 on primary all game. It’s just a brutal game and while I think I could have played less aggressively in the middle there’s not a ton you can do when your opponent refuses to fail 4++ saves. Erik wins, 85-46.

Armour of Contempt helped here, but I need to rethink the list, particularly with regard to how I handle other AoC armies. Also, not having Cult of Time just feels like a mistake, so I’m going back to that.

Erik’s Thoughts:

So I have been painting elves for a few months and had just finished the clowns in time to be able to play them and not feel like a complete asshole. This list was an updated take on light and my plan was, as the clown’s plan always is, to pick around the edges and try to use the armies immense speed to put pressure wherever the giant bricks on terminators weren’t. This went basically ok though armor of contempt really made those dusty boys very tough to shift with shuriken fire. In the end I had one lucky group of troupes on my far right that kept rob to 4s instead of 8s and some lucky denies that kept him off psychic interrogation twice. That ended up making the score further apart than the game felt. I think against armor of contempt clowns should probably shift Dark I also think that the void weaver is still a necessary part of Clown lists as it is the only heavy shooting you have access to and a deadly performance is was easier to score if you at least have the option to kill 2 things in shooting to score it.

 

Game 3: vs. Steve’s Tyranids

Steve’s another local I’ve played against before but haven’t played in a while – not since he dumpstered my Deathwatch in a Crusade game late last year. He’s running Tyranids and looking to rebuild his list with the new Codex, and is testing a concept Erik came up with in our local Discord. For this game I’m using the list mentioned above – this is basically my Dallas list, only with Ahriman on foot and Ardent Automata on one 5-model unit of Scarabs.

Steve's List - Click to Expand

Steve’s list packs a lot of beef, with 5 Carnifexes and the tools to protect them. I’m particularly worried about the Maleceptor – I need to stop it from sending mortal wounds right at me, but that’s what my chaos spawn in the current list are for.

The Mission: The Scouring

I’m taking Stranglehold, Bring it Down, and Wrath of Magnus. Wrath should be easy to score because I can just pick off 3-5 hormagaunts each turn and put myself out of reach on the model kill math. Steve takes Stranglehold, Deploy Scramblers, and Warp Ritual, which is a mistake – once he gets to the middle, I’m going to deny the crap out of that.

My big concern here is keeping the scarabs back long enough to counter-punch the big bugs and avoid taking a bunch of mortals – I can use the 3D6 deny strat to prevent that. I open by pushing both Chaos Spawn to the middle to do just that, also helping me score Stranglehold. I’ll end up denying the Maleceptor’s casts anyways, keeping the Spawn alive another turn. Meanwhile the Heldrake gets off a T1 charge at the bottom of the table. In retrospect, I should have sent him at the Maleceptor and put him in the middle.

 

This game goes more my way. Steve doesn’t make it easy, though – his bugs are tough as nails, especially with the T1 Synaptic Imperative from the Neurotrhope. They can also activate a 5+++ against mortal wounds and that’ll make things tough for me on turn 3. Ultimately however I’m able to hold the middle most turns using obsec terminators while a Hive Tyrant and Malecept can’t wipe them off the table, despite being able to shrug off a huge number of attacks themselves. As a result, I end up maxing primary and winning, 87-65.

Also, while we’re here – Steve’s Tyranids are gorgeous.

Steve’s Thoughts

This game amounted to quite a few “firsts”. It was my first time with the new codex. My first time playing the Nachmund missions. My first time playing Thousand Sons in at least 3-4 editions. My first time playing a tournament mission of any time in about a year. All that to say: anyone who has complaints about my list, my secondary choices, or my tactical play should take it up with management, because I’m totally on board with you! Even during the game I was looking through Strategems and finding ones I should’ve used earlier. Both Rob and I had conversations about Warp Ritual being a poor choice of secondary; I vastly underestimated his psychic output, and in hindsight, I also feel my psykers were better used getting off Smite and other powers as opposed to sitting back babysitting objectives and performing Psychic Actions.

As for the list itself, overall I like the concept. It was “borrowed” from a concept suggested by another local player. Since he normally plays various versions of pointy ears, I didn’t feel bad nicking it from him. The drop in Synapse range from 12″ to 6″ does impact my play, and made me much more conscious of my positioning. Getting comfortable with that, and learning how best to maintain the Synaptic Links while also getting my Synapse creatures in range to be useful will take some doing. As much as I love (and want to field) Hormagaunts – they first got me into Tyranids back in 2005, I’m not sold on them. The one large squad is hard to hide and gives bolters something to shoot at. Warriors are slower, but are more survivable and will likely do much more damage. I do think smaller units to race out and grab objectives are worthwhile. Carnifexes are tough, especially when buffed with the Zoanthrope invulnerable Synaptic Imperative or the Malaceptor’s 5+++ vs. mortal wounds. But I have to remember they’re only ~125 points, and so there does come a point where them dying isn’t the worst thing so long as they’re soaking enough attention from other units. As much as Rob will likely decry my good 5+++ rolls, and his poor psychic tests, I think he still managed to get the rolls he needed. He basically shut down my psychic damage output. I believe I did a grand total of 6 or 7 mortal wounds to his army during the game with all my various smites and such due to his Deny the Witch rolls and my own poor rolling. The Maleceptor only killed one 23-point Spawn and a couple Terminators with one of those happening because the Maleceptor exploded. Anyway, I could say a lot more, but this is a solid army, and I think a solid overall list concept. Now I just need to get some games in and make enough refinements to be worthy of a top-tier codex.

 

Game 4: vs. Greg Narro’s Craftworlds Eldar

One more game. Greg’s playing in the narrative at the Dallas Open, but he was game to play something more competitive, bringing an updated version of his Craftworlds army. I had a little bit of help this game from my son, who was absolutely fascinated by Greg’s beautifully painted Eldar, in particular his magnetized Falcons and Wave Serpents.

I don’t have Greg’s list super-handy, but here’s what I recall him bringing:

Greg's List - Click to expand

Greg’s running a variety of aspect warriors, which is something I’ve seen recently in other lists, though he lacks the shining spears for that extra mobile punch. This is generally a bad mission/layout for him as it’s very difficult to hide his midtable objective holders and neither of us can forward deploy.

The Mission: Abandoned Sanctuaries

My secondaries here are Wrath of Magnus, Stranglehold, and Warp Ritual. I don’t love these picks, but they kind of work out. Wrath of Magnus needs me to be closer to the opponent than I am and this particular mission and terrain layout aren’t great for it unless i want to suicide a Rubrics unit across the table with the Umbralefic Crystal t1. It’s an option but I hold off.

I get the first turn and start of strong by charging my Heldrake across the table into a Vyper and Wave Serpent, where it proceeds to do nothing. It does however survive the return fire and the Wraithblade attacks with two wounds, and so the next turn heals back up to 3, converts to jet mode, and zips away. The Heldrake was profoundly annoying in this game, and that’s always a good time when it happens.

The majority of the game is spent fighting over the middle, where I make quick work of the guardians and Wraithlord but have a harder time dealing with the aspect warriors – the Banshees and fire dragons basically mulch my 10-model Scarab squad, but I’m able to come back in with a 5-man squad and two units of rubrics and shoot the lot of them off the table.

I’m able to screen Greg out and stop him from getting RND in two quarters and I get all three of his To the Last targets. I only score 7 on Warp Ritual and 9 on Wrath of Magnus, but I max Stranglehold and Primary while keeping him on 4 most turns, giving me an 86-41 win.

 

Next Time: The Dallas Open

Whew, that was a lot to cover. I’m basically ready for the event now, and frantically packing things up and prepping to ride up to Dallas tonight with Erik. My personal goal is to to 4-4 at the event. Yes, I should be looking at 5-3 but I suspect if I set my expectations at 4-4 it’ll put me in a better headspace when I lose games than if I’m hoping for 5-3. I’m not as gracious a loser as I’d like to be yet – though I’m still working on it – and the last game of a long day can put me on tilt if I’m not careful. So I’m shooting for 4-4 and hopefully just running into some of the cool people I know there. I’ll do a post tomorrow about all the GH peeps who are at the event, and then look for my recap next week.

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