Thousand Sons Competitive Status - Spring 2022

Competition, March 31, 2022

A difficult topic to size up - how are Thousand Sons doing competitively?

Competitive Play

We’re coming to the end of the first six months since the Thousand Sons codex was released. Since then we’ve seen a host of major tournaments including the penultimate tournament in singles competition - the Las Vegas Open (LVO). There have been some significant changes along the way, such as losing the ability to “mix” Great Cults and to date, lists are beginning to arrive at an optimal solution for competitively play.

Going back to last fall we saw two solid formulas emerge:

1. Volkite Contemptors (aka Volcons)
2. Mass Scarab Occult Terminators

Even before we saw the nerf to Volkite weaponry (increasing by 10pts each gun), the table was tilting in the way of going all in on Terminators. At LVO, despite a heroic run by Terroxer with his Contemptor-heavy list to nearly make day 3, the majority of the field were heavily invested in Terminators. Since the change to Volkites went into effect we’ve seen that trend increase to where just about every list now is based around 20 Terminators in two big squads of 10.

Maths

With the current meta shifting on us as we speak, the bulk of the past 6 months has really been spent battling the following:

• Drukhari
• Grey Knights
• Custodes
• Admech
• Tyranids (Crusher Stampede)
• Orks

Whats changing now is that we’re adding T’au, Craftworlds, and Harlequins to the mix - with Harlequins sporting a ridiculous 80% Win Rate against non-mirror matches. So, how are Thousand Sons fairing?

…putting it lightly, not good. We’ve seen a constant drop in Win Rates with each new codex being released. While the recent Adepticon results didn’t sport very many results total, it does continue to paint a picture of a continuing trend where Thousand Sons are pushed further and further down the heap.

Current Matchups

Since Thousand Sons have been falling down the pecking order it means more and more matchups are entering the difficult range. While I’m sure everyone has their own opinion of what matchups are more difficult than others, this chart gives you a general idea of where they rank. Keep in mind that this doesn’t reflect where those armies are in your typical “Tier Lists” - its is more about how difficult they are to face from a mono-Thousand Sons perspective.

The Difficult

Let’s start with the boogie men - T’au / Custodes / Crusher Stampede. Why are they so difficult to face? In the cases of T’au and Custodes, they generally excel in areas where Thousand Sons are weak. T’au, for example, have a plethora of high AP and high volume shooting that’s perfect for taking out just about anything. While All is Dust is great against SMS and their host of 1 damage weapons, the AP cuts through it in volume. If you’re facing Borkan it gets worse with their ability to cut through invulnerable saves. Custodes, specifically Emperor’s Chosen, are able to shrug off Thousand Sons one key weapon (Mortal Wounds) and take it to them via bikes and infantry mowing down everything in close combat. Crusher Stampede simply presents an overwhelming amount of tough monsters that Thousand Sons can’t overcome with mortal wounds alone.

Generally speaking, the armies in this category are able to play very aggressive without much worry about a counter punch from Thousand Sons. This makes the margin for error very narrow on the part of the Thousand Sons player. The newcomers to this category are still being shaken out - and despite not listing Craftworlds in any category, the early results from Adepticon put Harlequins solidly in this group. I would not be shocked if Craftworlds find their way here at some point.

The Challenging

Next up are armies that generally will have an advantage against Thousand Sons in most games - assuming all other factors are even. Grey Knights, for example, sport an army-wide +1 to Deny the Witch tests, countering Thousand Sons +1 to Cast. The advantage they have can be different depending on the list, player, and mission. Black Templars are an example where they can counter some of Thousand Sons strengths however, with some practice and game planning can be overcome.

This is how I look at these matchups - every army will need practice to learn how to play against them and these armies take a touch bit more.

The Rest

The rest of the armies generally will be a solid even to good matchup for Thousand Sons. Chaos Daemons, for example, struggle versus Thousand Sons ability to simply get around invulnerable saves. Chaos Space Marines should be getting their 2nd wounds this year (we hope?) and that will certainly bring that matchup more onto par.

In Their Own Words

A solid, average, army...one of the few armies with a chance to put a dent in Harlequins

There are some very narrow competitive windows for the codex to be successful. It will take a player a ton of pregame planning, then flawless execution. So if you want to win with them be prepared to practice more than the other 9th edition books. At first you will suffer some losses but stick with it and find that window to win.

The best chaos has to offer these days but nothing compared to the boogie men

I see Thousand Sons as having an incredibly high skill ceiling, but that ceiling is still low-A or high-B tier competitively, which in the end means it isn't going to feel worthwhile for most people to put in the effort to learn. I'm relatively comfortable with how the army plays at events, but I've been playing it consistently since release (and I've been playing similar armies for years) and I still feel like I'm making strategic mistakes in most of my games. You have to put in a ton of effort to learn to play Thousand Sons well, which makes it very disheartening when you lose to somebody playing their second game with an S-tier army they picked up last week. The upside is that our army wasn't touched in this year's balance changes, which likely means we're seen as being in a good spot--if the over-performing codexes get pulled down a few notches, our situation gets better and better.

Why the Struggle?

So, why are Thousand Sons struggling? Ask 10 people and you’ll likely get 10 different answers. That’s probably because there are a lot of factors and variables that go into why an army may or may not struggle. Not everyone who plays the army experiences all of the shortcomings, especially if they have a limited sample size of games. A lot of the things I point out in this section are going to come from my own experiences over the course of many games going back to the launch of the codex. I’ve spent time, like other competitive players, trying to sort through the options and potential the army has as well as how to go up against certain armies. Some players have had much better success than I have yet, on a broad scale the data seems to back up Justin’s claim above, as most players see mixed to disappointing results at majors.

Options

Let’s start with the most obvious issue facing the army right now - options. Here are how many units Thousand Sons have access to (not including ForgeWorld):

• HQs - 6
• Troops - 3
• Elites - 3
• Fast Attack - 2
• Flyers - 1
• Heavy Support - 7 (Only counting the Predator as a single unit)
• Dedicated Transport - 1
• Lord of War - 1

Total: 24. When a unit becomes unusable in the army (poor rules, meta, etc) it’s a 4.1% reduction in options. Now consider the following units as currently being ineffective:

• Heldrake
• Land Raider
• Predator
• Defiler
• Forefiend
• Maulerfiend
• Vindicator
• Mutalith Vortex Beast
• Helbrute
• Tzaangor Enlightened
• Tzaangor Shaman
• Magnus

That results in a 49.2% reduction in what you have to work with. Put another way, if you’re building a competitive list, you’re only going to be working with 50% of the codex options to construct it. Compared to a similar army, Grey Knights, they have a total of 30 units (with Land Raider variants consolidated). The difference is a 3% reduction when a unit’s rules are “off”. Of those units, only about 11 are not really seen/considered in competitive lists leading to only 33% of the codex not being effective.

The point is that with the more unique/bespoke units available in a codex, you have a proportionally better chance of being able to field competitive lists over a longer period of time and metas. This theory is what explains how Space Marines always seem to have a list (or two) that find their way to the top of any tournament - such as David Fields (Ultramarines) cracking the top 10 at Adepticon recently. Conversely, armies with few options feel the pain of each and every unit when their rules are either a miss or they become obsolete with the meta.

The sheer number of “misses” with Thousand Sons is clearly what is hurting them the most. Overhauls to units, like the Heldrake, have mostly fallen flat. This extends into the Daemon Engines which saw their Ballistic Skill (and point cost) increased. In previous editions, a 5++ (invulnerable) save was something that you could fall back on as a solid defensive stat. In 9th edition, the volume and potency of fire power available to other armies has simply been cranked up beyond what gains were made to Thousand Sons alternatives. Couple this with an underwhelming amount of support for the Daemon Engines and you’re left with a swath of units badly in need of another overhaul - just 6 months after their last one.

Magnus

Speaking of overhauls, perhaps the one that has gone the worst is Magnus. You probably wanted to bring him off the shelf after being relegated there in 8th edition as not much more than a 50/50 play. Hopes for improvements were quickly dashed with his new profile in 9th edition. Sweep attack? Nope. Advance and Charge? Nope. Temporal Surge? Nope.

You are basically spending 3CP (strategic reserves - every game) for the privilege of using your legion’s primarch for 66% of the game in most cases. Of course you can not do this and see how long he lasts in the game (spoiler: he doesn’t). He moves 16” a turn (before advancing) with no way to advance and charge and no way to be temporal surged (warptimed) up the table.

They got 1 thing right with Magnus - the psychic phase.

Point Costs

While we’re on the topic of overprice units, let’s take a look at my favorite comparison of codex power in 9th edition.

You could probably go on with the depths of support these units get from the rest of the army but I think this comparison does justice in summing up just how unfair the differences are between books.

Unfortunately the design team has also completely lost control of the melange of army-wide rules, faction traits, Stratagems, and other bonuses, and seems to assign points costs by throwing darts at a board and then adding or subtracting 10% depending on if Jupiter is in ascendance or not.

It’s tough to explain it any better than that. I also get that a lot of people will point out that Drukhari have numerous undercosting issues on their units, Helions being one of the biggest offenders. While that’s true, why hasn’t it changed? The book has been out longer; contributed to the biggest imbalances of 2021; and has made it through multiple waves of balance changes without even a recognition of these issues.

Meanwhile, the winrate for Drukhari has come down but that is more a product of even stronger codexes being released and pushing them down the stack. As the Goonhammer article I cited above calls out, they are now hovering around the 50% range which is down from the 60% they’ve been hovering at. Correlate this with Thousand Sons win rate and you can see roughly the same 10% drop in overall win rates.

The issues with point costs extend quite a bit further than just Tzaangor Enlightened and Magnus - you have just about every unit in the Heavy Support section significantly out of alignment with equivalent options elsewhere. The Mutalith Vortex Beast received early looks when the codex dropped and still seems to show up in obscurity from time to time. It’s likely the best option of the lot due to it’s ability to pump out mortal wounds but even that is limited by delivery and the restrictions to prevent using the same power more than once.

In fact, when you start breaking down the options here:

• Land Raider
• • Too expensive - is it a tank? transport? paying a premium for both?
  • No loadout options other than 4x Lascannons
  • Not core
• Predator(s)
• • Too expensive
  • Lackluster weapons
  • Not core
• Vindicator
• • Most appropriately priced
  • Lackluster weapons
  • Not core
• Defiler
• • Big/Bulky, difficult to hide one many map layouts
  • Perhaps the most over priced of the options
  • Lackluster shooting options
  • Not core
• Forgefiend / Maulerfiend
• • Too expensive now; wasn't overpriced at first; Better options exist for less elsewhere
  • Lackluster weapons / number of attacks
  • Not Core
• Mutalith Vortex Beast
• • Too expensive for what it does
  • Limited for seemingly arbitrary reasons
  • Oh yea, Not Core

The Early Edition Curse

As more books are released, each codex that already existed gets shoved further and further down the pile. Recent armies come with better unit profiles, packing more rules, more support, and costing less. There’s just no way for armies like Thousand Sons, Space Marines, Blood Angels, and Sisters (to name a few) to compete in the current setting. GamesWorkshop was expected to fixed these kinds of issues by moving to a more frequent points/balance update but so far it just feels like business as usual. The extreme offenders are still extreme offenders and the problems facing armies sitting at the 30% range have bigger, deeper, issues than just points.

For an edition with as much potential as 9th has, it’s a real shame that it remains a “spam the most underpriced unit you can find” game. At this point it simply boils down to quality control (lack of) on the part of their rules writing team. New books should not be getting released with egregious points indifference for models such as the new Voidweavers. I’d be less critical of this if it was a one time thing that ended with Drukhari. Unfortunately, it’s repeated itself with Custodes, Crusher Stampede, T’au, and now Aeldari & Harlequins.

Making the Best of it

I agree wholeheartedly with Justin’s summary of the army quoted earlier - Thousand Sons take a lot of practice to get right. A lot of people trying to pick up and play the army don’t have the patience for that. Some of us are still just trying crawl out of the depression that became 8th edition for Thousand Sons, only to find ourselves in a new one in 9th. While the codex is currently a mess, there’s a silver lining to that fact.

Building the standard Thousand Sons competitive list takes very little effort these days….

• 20-30 Terminators
• A few HQs
• A few squads of Rubric Marines, maybe some Tzaangors
• Maybe a unit of Chaos Spawns with spare points

…and yea, that’s it. The rest is really all in how you play the army. The silver lining to this is that it really focuses you on being successful with how you play and simplifies the game down (much like playing with Knights). Until significant changes happen, we’ll be more and more shoved into these types of builds, maximizing the best units we have to take.

The one anecdote I can offer here is to keep an eye on the Knight codexes. We know they are coming soon and they present a unique challenge to the meta that has historically forces armies into needed heavy/pure AT weaponry. The challenge here is if the existing weaponry remains as prolific and efficient against Knights as it does against the vasts bulk of the meta right now. Primarily, the things that take Magnus out of the game (see: Dark Lances) - if these lose any potency into Knights, it presents a real challenge for armies simply based on numerous Knight opponents can be.

For Thousand Sons, I really like the Leviathan Dreadnought armed with the Cyclonic Melta Lance and Volkites. In the brief spark of Knights we are around the time of the New Orleans Open, this dreadnought consistently punched above it’s weight time and time again. Sure, there were times where the number of shots I rolled were not great. As I played more with it, I realized it was something you could mitigate by keeping a re-roll in your back pocket. The Infernal Master could assist with this using Glimpse of Eternity without having to use CP. It has access to Smokescreen so, you don’t have to monopolize Glamour of Tzeentch. Enough to say that you can actually get quite a lot of mileage out of it against other heavy hitters without having to baby sit it.