It's not a secret that we have the most beloved army here - it's Chaos Space Marines. And now, a couple of months after the release, it's time to find out how is it going with one of the most interesting legions - the Thousand Sons.
Perhaps a blog would be worth calling "Is there a life without Magnus?" So far, he still remains the main reason to play this army - the rise in price in no way made him less popular. We are much more interested in other units.
This was feared at the stage of release, and this is confirmed now - the main problem of the Thousand Sons army is the fact that there is practically nothing to use in it. Like this. Normal rubrics and terminators, in fact, perform the same function. Moreover, unexpectedly, 10 rubrics have the same number of wounds, the same firepower, and cost almost like 5 terminators. The difference in save does not play a special role, because the terminators are likely to get shot by something with high armor-piercing. Given the fairly popular tactics to enter via deepstrike for the stratagem/artifact, they even begin to perform the same function on the battlefield - destroying the screen.
They succeed in this quite easily. But when they face more durable targets. they cannot offer anything. Do not take seriously the missiles on the terminators. Moreover, they quickly die, getting under serious fire. "All is dust» rule saves against the weakest shooting, but if the enemy focuses them, he will quickly sweep away your costly units. In this regard, the rubrics look even more interesting - they at least force the enemy to target one wound models with high damage shooting. Definitely, an increase of the invulnerable save by 1 for both groups would lead to a significant increase in efficiency. In this case, it would not break the game at all - even with magic, they would get a maximum of 3 ++. The Wolves now have it everywhere, and the balance has not yet broken.
And what other Space Marines are there? We came here to play a legion ... And, in general, there’s none of them. The variety of sorcerers, in practice, boils down to Ahriman and one Exalted (though better, a Demon prince), and a Sorcerer in TDA to cast warptime on the units that have left entered the game via deepstrike. And they are too expensive. That’s all Space Marines in this codex. And it’s time for beastmen.
Tzaangors are good in any combinations. They are cheap, they can now be delivered by deepstrike, hit twice, can be improved with magic and shaman abilities. The option on the disc with bows is generally perfect - there is no other mobile shooting in this codex at all. And then there is an interesting question - do you really need Space Marines in this army? Practically, you can completely do without them. The units effectively destroyed by rubrics can be equally effectively destroyed by Tzaangors, at a much lower price.
In general, this is how a sports roster for the Thousand Sons looks like - Magnus, Tzaangors, and allies. The Death Guard, for example. But, in fact, this criticism does not mean that this codex is not interesting to play in the fan games. A huge variety of magic still makes the game more fun. Although, most spells, of course, are not used. The ability to use deepstrike also adds flexibility. Therefore, the main problem of this codex is not a small number of tactics, but a small number of units.
GW was frankly too lazy to finish this army. In the seventh edition, they still were not a separate codex and could be more interesting due to the formations and their features. For a full-fledged codex, they now have few tools. Look at the Death Guard. A ton of characters, different options for units, and even the basic troops can be taken both in shooting and in close combat modes. For example, they could create a squad of rubrics with heavy weapons? Or terminators, with a wider variety of options for melee? Special patterns of tanks, and much more. There are so many ideas that I want to write a fandex myself. Or, hope that in the next version of this codex GW will somehow expand this army of Tzaangors…