I was at my GW yesterday and one guy used a 1000 Sons and they massacred almost half the enemy army, the guy using them even said that they were a cheese fest. Seriously I'm kinda sacred of this army especially the the gift of Chaos.

I'm guessing you mean the new thousand sons from the uncoming CSM codex?

Yeah, they seem pretty damn broken to me, they didn't get any nerfs but some huge buffs...AP3 bolters are ****ing insane.

old list or new?

the old list was nasty... the slow and purposeful got better, and though they were high points, they were 2 wound models. you could take nasty nasty possessed, who counted as chosen and were also sorcerers (4 rending attacks on the charge, with move-and-shoot heavy bolters with no psychic test). your daemons are weak, unskilled, and random, but they have two wounds. Termies with an extra wound. and the Chaos Lord is always a recipe for disaster.

the new list is something else entirely. gone are the extra wounds, but now they are great marine-killers with AP3 bolters -- rapidfiring should kill about 6 from a squad in one turn. and getting a 4+ invuln helps too, or a 5+ for your havocs and raptors (which you can take now!). it's not as useful on terminators with their amazing save (but it does become a 2+/4+I ) and they can't all have doombolt or bolt of change, and the daemons are generically meh, but they're also not necessary.

either way, they will be a force to be reckoned with. i'm trying to figure out my paintscheme even now.

I just want to say that I think the new list is broken, The guy with the 1,000 sons gifted a chaplain with gift of chaos turning into a spawn, trust me the the marine player almost cried

... but you could always do that... with any chaos.

In the new codex you get no saves of any kind, and its 6 inch range

expanded range from 2" to 6" is minimal, but adds to the power's effectiveness. still, when you think that you used to only get one additional no-modifier attack (the "throw a rock") unless you were in direct base-to-base in the old edition, the adding range makes sense.

the actual important roll is a toughness test, easy to pass with just about any decent character. an average guardsman passes 50% of the time.

and yes, you used to be able to take an invuln save. not every character had one. now, they've been handing them to characters like beers to the irish side of my family, so the power has to keep up.

you still have to take the psychic test, easy as it is, which is one lost advantage from the old TS.

i don't think it's broken. it just keeps up.

My problem with it is for armies like eldar who find there autarch suddenly spawned and pay alot for a tooled up general.

simple solution, one that's been quite popular with some great players i've known:

don't buy a tooled-up general. he dies, you lose the points. then you whine about the lost general that you never got to lose, when you put a huge target on his head.

how many basic marines with bolters can you buy for the amount you'd pay to add a second HQ? how many shots, wounds, kills average per round does that come out to be? sure, having the mega-killer on your side with a ton of special rules or wargear is great, but you spend points for each one. and if the model dies, it dies a lot easier than that aforementioned more effective squad of marines.

on another forum in entered into an argument with someone who said the new chaos codex was amazing/horrible because you could no longer tool up an amazing combat-monster of a daemon prince with the gifts and wargear. my response was like a lot dealing with chaos -- i referenced my havocs. i always love it when people take those, because it's more points they will lose when it becomes target priority and dies.

sure, the new spell -- which any chaos sorcerer can take -- is nasty. but it should be. it costs comparable to a lascannon and requires a psychic test AND a toughness test instead of the Invuln (if you actually had an invuln in the first place).

I agree with munin, nobody is forcing you to buy tooled up generals.

Yeah, the new chaos codex is going to make those tooled up lords more risky. Frankly, I'd be more upset if the new codex didn't do anything to change peoples strategies and builds.

Besides lets look at the armies...

Tau: Nothing worth using that spell on

Tyranids: Toughness test needing a 6 to kill? Good luck with that

Eldar: Granted, its bad, but we have runes of witnessing for enemy psychic powers, and autarchs can be fast enough to avoid the 6" radiuds

Dark eldar: Goodbye archon. Then again, who plays dark eldar anymore? They suck regardless of whats on the board

Marines: Tooled up lords here, but still you need to roll a 5+ to kill them

I know there are more armies but its 1 am and I'm tired. You get the idea; its a good ability against some armies but near useless against others. Which pretty much disqaulifies it from the cheesy/overpowered crowd.

All right I think I just kinda looked at the power and got scared, you know New army Phobia

yeah i think the new army phobia thing is true... I have the same thoughts for HE in fantasy, everything i've heard of them sounds stupid and ridiculous. But the new TS are very different and much more balanced.

When you consider a thousand son the main points are: they are about the same cost, so no big change here, but they now only have one wound. they have a 4++ save which makes them twice as resilient against instant death, and just as easy to kill as before using AP3 or lower weapons, but the BIGGEST change to TS is that they die like normal marines to 'normal' fire (stuff that doesnt break through their armour).

So twice as resilient than before to instant death and AP3 weapons, but half as resilient to 'normal' fire. I think thats quite balanced considering their points remain the same, and the being half as resilient to 'normal' really is a big issue.

their damage output has gone up a fair bit but again their survivability has gone down a lot as a veteran TS player who has yet to test the new list believe me when i say they are balanced in this incarnation.

wow that was long winded... and dont worry about gift of chaos its very unreliable now that only a single guy per unit can take it, i think that your friend tooled up chaplain friend should be more worried about powerfists and the like.

Cheers guy

Legato

Yeah...4 power fist attacks have a better chance of auto-killing an enemy HQ (aside from the archon) or atleast wounding it than this psychic power, and only 4" less range :lol:

The thing was the chap wasn't tooled up he just had a jumpack and got spawned and took out the assault squad with a melta guns poised to take out the DP ( Well he held then up long enough for the DP to charge them and kill em).

hmmm but as far as effectiveness goes its just not going to be used that much i wouldnt think. its a massive 30pts, for a very dodgy power, and there are so many better powers out there. it used to be marginally effective when used in mass by tzeentch chosen, but it was just sooooo damn expensive... wasn't used much before, won't be used much now.

sounds to me like he got (very) unlucky, his assault squad shoulda bashed that spawn in 1 round of combat :o . what happened???


Cheers guys

Legato

see, the chaos wind whatever power is fun, and the spawny-enemy is cool, but really, i just like doombolt. it's a move-and-shoot heavy bolter for lowest points. effective, solid, and cheap.

except its no longer a heavy bolter.... S4 AP3 assault3 range 18".

I think its a slight improvement and still the same cost!


Cheers guys

Legato

when you look at the whole change, though, it's not all too unrealistic. the necessity to take a psychic power for the sorcerers only boosts their high cost, the nerfing of the chaos lord and daemon prince (and, indeed, separating them out to be two separate things... you now can no longer have a daemon prince without daemonic stature with something like lightning claws or the like), the lack of firepower from alternate sources to compensate for the lack in the core troops -- no more Flamer packs, no more sorcerer possessed or terminators -- it makes a whole lot of sense to beef it just a bit.

About the change one guy at my gw. He had about 4000 pts of thousand sons in the old rules, In the new rules he has to buy acouple rinos and he is still under 1000. He was so pissed.

i don't see how that could be, unless he was daemon-heavy.

the base TS marine squad at sacred # is 254 points (60 sorcerer, with Doombolt as cheapest power = 70, + 8*23). a rhino with extra armor is 50 points. terminators go for about the same. possessed (one of our guys had these great disc-riding sorcerer possessed, all had doombolt or bolt of change, MAXED out unit at 9 was mad expensive) got a lot cheaper, but you could only have three groups of them. lords got a bit cheaper too, but that's all good -- it means more good stuff that you can now give a mark to that fits in the army.

without buying any new stuff, only repainting a couple models, and assembling the defiler i bought for V's sisters of slaanesh, i'd have 1500 points just lying around. that i can now use Raptors, Bikers (a use for the extra screamers i had, do riders of a different sort), havocs, and some other stuff, i can bring it to 2500 quickly. and there's a lot more on he table. i'm ecstatic.