In this article series we’re taking a look at the leader options available to each faction, looking at what units they pair with, and talking about the combos available to those units as well as tips for running them solo. In today’s article, we’re talking about the Thousand Sons.

You can find our Competitive Faction Focus article on the Thousand Sons here.

Changelog

• Update (Latest): 2025-08-02 for the 10th edition Codex
• Update: 2024-07-12 for the June 2024 Balance Update
• Update: 2024-04-30 for the Q2 2024 Points Update
• Update: 2023-09-15 for the Q3 2023 Balance Dataslate
• Published: 2023-08-29

The Thousand Sons have a small number of datasheets, but the units they have access to are very potent – few of them are bad, and pretty much every unit in the army has a role in some build or another. In particular, the army relies on its characters and leader options to add power to its baseline units and take advantage of rules that key off psychic attacks. Making good use of these leaders is key to building a good Thousand Sons army and winning games with it on the table.

Let’s start by looking at the options and where they can be added:

Right off the bat we can see how competitive the Rubric Marine spot is – that’s going to be the major factor for many of our character options, but as we’ll see there’s also plenty of reason to take some of these characters solo. The Codex added a new wrinkle to this matrix, allowing the two marine characters on discs of Tzeentch – Ahriman and the Exalted Sorcerer – to join units of Tzaangor Enlightened – and that has big implications for how you use those units in games.

Additionally, Magnus the Red and the Daemon Princes cannot lead units, so we’ll be excluding them from this analysis. They’re still pretty valuable, and if you’re running Thousand Sons with a Grand Coven you’re probably running Magnus anyways.

Ahriman

The Codex did away with the option to put Ahriman on foot, so now there’s just one option for him – on his disc, at a fixed cost. Ahriman’s rules have changed from the index and he’s a far cry from the must-take he used to be when tenth edition first released. Ahriman’s key ability here is Arch-Sorcerer of Tzeentch, which gives him +1 to his Psychic tests for rituals, and he’s one of only two models (the other being Magnus) that gets a flat bonus to casts. That’s pretty handy, and does a lot to shift ritual math upward in your favor, but isn’t so big a bonus on its own that you’ll want to take him.

Ahriman’s Scryer of Fates ability lets you redeploy up to three Thousand Sons units after deployment has finished, and allows you to put them back into reserves if need be. This is before the first turn roll-off, severely limiting its effectiveness. It’s still OK, but if you want to make the most use of it, it’ll be in a Rubricae Phalanx Detachment, where you can use it to deploy aggressively with an 11-model brick of Terminators and character, then redeploy them back, even putting them into Deep Strike Reserves afterward. That said, this isn’t so powerful a trick it’s necessarily worth bringing Ahriman over.

His abilities aside, Ahriman does have a beefed-up profile from his Index incarnation, sporting 6 wounds and OC 2 thanks to his disc. His black staff still does a flat 3 damage in melee, and his psychic attack has been dramatically improved – it’s no longer a one-shot bad lascannon, but now does D6+1 shots at 18″, hitting at S6, AP-1 for D3 damage with [BLAST]. Note that it is one of the few psychic attacks that does not have [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] built in, and so will benefit from the Grand Coven Detachment ability. Oddly, Ahriman does not have the GRENADES keyword, blunting his effectiveness as a solo asset.

As a leader, Ahriman can join Rubrics or Tzaangor Enlightened. And that’s where we come to the reason he’s not a must-take any more: He no longer does anything for the units he’s attached to. If you’re attaching a unit to Ahriman, it’s purely to give him ablative wounds or protection, and unfortunately there are better, cheaper options who give you an extra caster, better psychic attack, and more useful abilities when you attach them to a unit. If you do take Ahriman, put him with a Rubric unit to get the most out of his psychic attack.

Exalted Sorcerer

The Exalted Sorcerer never got much love in the Index days, and that hasn’t changed with the Codex. That’s primarily because his core abilities – Arcane Shield gives his unit a 4+ invulnerable save and Rebind Rubricae lets you resurrect dead models in your Command phase on a 2+ (I have only ever rolled a 1 on this and taken mortal wounds) – more or less require you to take him with a unit of ten Rubrics, and that’s just not something you want to do with the army.

As for damage output, the Exalted Sorcerer comes with the standard Force Weapon, though he notably has 5 attacks which hit on 2+, making him a bit better at fighting than most of your other characters. The psychic attack on the Exalted Sorcerer is Astral Blast, an 18″ attack with D6 shots at S6 AP-2, D3 damage with BLAST and DEVASTATING WOUNDS, and that’s pretty solid, but struggles to keep up with the Torrent weapons on the Disc Exalted and Infernal Master or the six-shot output of the Sorcerer. You can give Exalted Sorcerers a Khopesh at no charge to give them the option of 4 attacks at S5, AP-2, 2 damage (slightly better into Marine-shaped targets), and you may as well.

Exalted Sorcerers are a weird unit. You really only want them with ten-model units of Rubrics, but you can make the case for a single one in a Grand Coven detachment, where only EXALTED SORCERER models can take the Incandeum Enhancement (note you can also give the enhancement to an Exalted Sorcerer on Disc). They have a solid shooting attack and OK melee output but generally you don’t need defensive abilities on your Rubric units; you need to be able to delete enemy units fast enough to prevent them from retaliating.

Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch

Talk about a glow-up. This guy was already so good in the Index he had to be nerfed, and the Codex just made him even better. The Exalted Sorcerer gains 10″ Movement, an extra wound and 1 OC from hopping on a Disc of Tzeentch, and he gains the ability to join units of Tzaangor Enlightened. That’s huge, because he makes his unit untargetable by ranged attacks from more than 18″ away, effectively protecting his unit from the kinds of long-ranged attacks that excel at destroying Tzaangor Enlightened and Rubrics.

The current strategy is to take an Exalted Sorcerer on Disc for your Tzaangor Enlightened units with fatecaster greatbows – having 30″ range on the bows means they can snipe key targets with impunity, picking off tougher targets with support from other, closer units able to drop Rituals to debuff that unit and being impervious to clapback in the following turn. Even the mighty Bloat-Drone with Heavy Blight Launcher can only move 10″ per turn, with a potenial advance-and-shoot range of 16″, so if you stay 34″ away from one you’re untouchable. This also protects you from mortars and other indirect fire.

On top of this, the Exalted Sorcerer on Disc has a solid melee profile and a TORRENT weapon in Arcane Fire, which does D6 shots at S6 AP-2, D3 damage with IGNORES COVER. That’s very solid, and good enough to make him worth consideration in a unit of Rubrics as well (if you do this, the play is usually to give a Tzaangor Shaman to your third unit of Enlightened). On top of that, his Binding Tendrils ability lets you pick one INFANTRY unit hit by his Arcane Fire attack in the Shooting phase and they get -2″ movement and -2 to their charge rolls until your next turn. That’s not as powerful as it used to be, but it’s still pretty good, and great for preventing long bomb charges from units you don’t want to be in combat with, like that cheeky unit that just rapid ingressed 9″ away and has designs to charge next turn.

Like Exalted Sorcerers, the Disc versions can get a free Khopesh, so remember to take it.

Infernal Master

The terror of the index is back, and still almost as good. The Infernal Master is identical to his Index incarnation, sporting a 4-wound body with a force weapon (4 attacks, hitting on 3+), and he still gives his unit [SUSTAINED HITS 1], which is mostly only useful on the Soulreaper Cannon and Aspiring Sorcerer models. Though it’s worth noting that the ability is on all the time, and so will apply to your melee attacks as well – something that can come in handy when you need to fight your way out of combat.

Where the Infernal Master really shines is his psychic attack – Fires of the Abyss has two modes, both of them TORRENT attacks. In the base mode it does 2D3 hits at S6 AP-2, 1 damage, and in the upgraded HAZARDOUS mode it does 2D6 instead, both at 18″ range. The classic terror form of this is to upgrade it with the Eldritch Vortex of E’taph Enhancement in the Grand Coven detachment to make it S7 and 2 damage, turning it into a real menace, and to then further supplement that with the detachments [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] ability to upgrade your psychic attacks. When you pair that with the re-rolls to wound from the unit of Rubrics he’s joined and his Glimpse of Eternity ability to turn one hit, wound, or save per turn into a 6, he suddenly becomes an absolute nightmare, capable of wiping whole units and even bigger threats off an objective by himself in a single turn.

Even without the upgrade, Infernal Masters are among the army’s best units and they come pretty cheap for what you get. They’re typically going to be your other go-to character option, particularly in a Grand Coven Detachment. You can pair them with either warpflamer or bolter Rubrics – Sustained Hits on the bolters is nice, but having a full unit of dangerous Torrent weapons to threaten overwatch is better. Most competitive lists take at least one Infernal Master, and two is pretty common.

Sorcerer

The baby version of an Exalted, Sorcerers come with 4 wounds and a force weapon (4 attacks hitting on 3+), and can be given a Khopesh for free so make sure you take that option to have a slightly better option going into marines. Sorcerers give their unit [LETHAL HITS] and as with the Infernal Master, this ability isn’t limited to ranged weapons, so keep it in mind when you’re fighting in melee.

Where Sorcerers really shine is with their ranged attack: Pandaemonic Delusion has range 24″ (the longest of your leader psychic attack options), and throws out 6 attacks, hitting on 3+ at S5, AP-1, for 1 damage with [SUSTAINED HITS 3]. That means that on average it’ll hit 7 times on 6 attacks (4 in Overwatch), and the Twisted Sorceries ability gives you a once per game ability to improve its Strength and Attacks by 3 for a single phase, suddenly turning it into 9 shots at S8. This makes it another solid target for the Eldritch Vortex Enhancement in Grand Coven or Arcane Might/Empyric Onslaught upgrades in Hexwarp Thrallband. This is also a psychic attack without Devastating Wounds, and so this guy really wants to be in the Grand Coven Detachment to get that benefit.

Sorcerers can’t take warpflame pistols any more but make great add-ons to a unit of five Rubrics.

Sorcerer in Terminator Armour

The only character you can attack to a unit of Scarab Occult Terminators, the Sorcerer in Terminator Armour comes with 5 wounds, a force weapon, and an inferno combi-bolter you can swap for a combi-weapon; it can no longer take a khopesh. He comes with Deep Strike and gives the unit he’s leading the [LETHAL HITS] ability and as with other characters, this one notably applies all the time and not just in melee, making it very important for getting the most out of your Scarab Occult Terminators. His Gaze of Hate psychic attack throws out 3 shots at S4 AP-3, 2 damage with ANTI-MONSTER and ANTI-VEHICLE 4+ and DEVASTATING WOUNDS, making it a powerful way to drop some extra damage on big targets.

The big change to the Terminator Sorcerer with the Codex was to his Marked by Fate ability – now you pick a unit hit by one of his unit’s psychic attacks in the Shooting phase and for the rest of the phase friendly Thousand Sons units get +1 to hit against that target. This is a lot less great, given he can’t help his own unit, and you’re typically pairing this guy with a big unit of Terminators. That said, having multiples to spot for each other can be helpful, and you’re going to have to figure that process out if you run a Rubricae Phalanx Detachment.

Terminator Sorcerers are more or less must-includes if you have Terminators, and tend to not make the cut in any other list. You could consider a single one as a deep striking character/action unit, but Tzaangors can do that job cheaper.

Tzaangor Shaman

Finally that brings us to the Tzaangor of the group. The Shaman can pair with either variety of Tzaangor though he’s arguably more useful paired with Enlightened or running solo. The shaman gives his unit +1 to their hit rolls whether in melee or ranged and comes with the convoluted Sacrificial Blessing ability: Each time his unit shoots or fights in the Shooting or Fight phase, he can destroy one of the models in his unit and in exchange, add D3 to the Attacks and Strength characteristics of his psychic weapons for the rest of the phase.

That makes a little more sense when you look at his ranged attack: Baleful Devolution is an 18″ psychic attack with [BLAST] and [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] with S9(!) but AP 0 and 1 damage. That AP 0 bit is brutal but remember that you can pair it with Twist of Fate to get it up to AP-2. Tragically, there isn’t really a good way to get this guy re-rolling his wound rolls, but it makes a lot more sense why you might sacrifice a goat every time you shoot with him given it can take him to S10+ and add another D3 shots.

Tzaangor Shamans don’t protect their units like Exalted Sorcerers do but that +1 to hit makes them pretty solid leading a unit of Enlightened, who otherwise hit on 4+ and can be pretty disappointing without re-rolls to hit. Because they’re so cheap and they retain the INFANTRY keyword (Enlightened do not have this), they’re probably the army’s best option for solo characters to run around and do actions.

Final Thoughts

Getting the most out of your Thousand Sons means making effective use of your characters – picking the right units for the job, depending on your Detachment and unit. Right now Grand Coven dominates the competitive discussion for Thousand Sons and the Leaders seeing the most play are Exalted Sorcerers on Disc and Infernal Masters, though Tzaangor Shamans, Sorcerers, and Exalted Sorcerers all see sporadic play. Regardless of which characters you pick, keep their abilities in mind – it’s easy to forget about Lethal Hits/Sustained Hits 1 in the middle of a game when it could have really helped you.

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