Thoughts on 10th Edition Thousand Sons
Its been 2 months of 10th Edition and there’s a question starting to rise - are Thousand Sons too good?
The Reboot
The dust has settled, we’ve got some results from big tournaments, and it’s time to draw some conclusions before we get a balance update this week. I had the pleasure of attending two majors this summer with the exact same list. While I had two very different results, I did find the army to be incredibly fun and powerful. Perhaps I’m in the minority when I say that GW has done a great job removing the psychic phase without gutting the Thousand Sons. On the other hand, maybe they played it a bit safe and gave Thousand Sons some stronger-than-expected rules to help players cope with the change.
In either case, the results have been very good. Through July and August of 2023, Thousand Sons have managed to achieve a 51% overall win rate (Credit: Goonhammer 40k Stats). If your goal was 50%, this is well within a 5% margin of error - meaning Thousand Sons are sitting in a pretty good spot.
Lessons From a Thousand Sons Player
While I consider myself an average player, I’ve taken quite a bit of time to practice and improve with Thousand Sons in 10th edition. With that I am happy to share some of my lessons learned over the past few months as a way to help others improve.
Sequencing Cabal Rituals is Important
This biggest thing I see other Thousand Sons players get wrong most frequently is that Cabal Rituals are used at the Start of the Phase. This means once you move to shooting with your first unit, you have moved past the start of the phase and subsequently cannot use any rituals anymore that phase. Importantly is when you are defending and decide to use Echoes from the Warp to negate two failed saves. You must declare the unit that can use the stratagem a second time or for free before targets are ever declared. I think this makes it much more difficult for Thousand Sons players to plan out their phase.
Terminators Cannot Shoot Indirect
As much as we’d like it to be the case, only Psyker models in the unit gain the Indirect ability from Warpsight and the regular Terminator models in the unit do not have the Psyker keyword.
You Can Move After Arriving From Reserves
Contrary to 8th and 9th edition, you can use Warp Surge after arriving from reserves, presenting some interesting tactical possibilities.
Facing Imperial Knights
The key to this match up is not to lose Magnus. Save him for as late in the game as you can unless an opportunity presents itself. Once he goes down, the other knights will have a 5+++ instead of the 6+++ and that will make a big impact on the game. Try to focus down any big knights you can first, leaving the RFBC and Gatling guns for last - you can use cover vs them.
Facing Custodes
You must focus down one unit at a time and always go for Trajan’s unit first. Use Twist of Fate with Sustained hits and dump everything you can into that unit until its gone. Then move onto the next unit; ignore the tanks.
Facing Chaos Space Marines
Be aware of the MOP and save the stratagem to get a 4+++ to psychic attacks. Watch out for Forgefiends - they will do a lot of damage to whatever they want with the re-rolls and exploding shots.
Early Game Cultists
I’ve found a single 10-man Cultist unit to be exceptionally good at early game strategies. Primarily taking the middle and scoring secondaries when you draw them turn 1 or 2 can be critical. I’ve also found that you can use your cultists to effectively move block other units when you hide just on the other side of the wall.
Thousand Sons in the Meta
A fun way of thinking about the 40k meta is to consider it very similar to an ecosystem. Similar to nature, you have a symbiotic relationship between all armies present in the game. Remove one and all of a sudden you start to get armies that are unopposed and take over the game.
Who’s holding Thousand Sons in-check?
| Faction | vs Tsons | vs Field |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial Knights | 61% | 56% |
| Genestealer Cults | 61% | 53% |
| Adeptus Custodes | 58% | 57% |
| Orks | 57% | 51% |
| Aeldari | 57% | 60% |
With the exception of Orks, the list reads as a who’s who of the early meta in 10th edition.
- Imperial Knights can be a swingy game vs Thousand Sons - if they manage to kill Magnus, all of their knights suddenly gain a 5+++, which makes a huge dent in the damage taken. On top of that, you’re wound everything on 5s ad 6s so, it’s a a bit of stat-check for us.
- Genestealer Cults are a problem for everyone - with their units coming back automatically, they hundreds of points of “free” additional units in their army. GSC also have a very low floor and high ceiling as it not an easy army to pick up and play.
- Custodes have an army-wide 4++/4+++ vs all of Thousand Sons psychic attacks. Contrary to GSC, Custodes have amazing stats and tend to “cover up” tactical mistakes made by players.
- Aeldar have the same tricks as Thousand Sons but slightly better options available
Generally speaking, all of these armies do very well into the rest of the meta. We know there are likely some changes coming to both Aeldari and GSC - these armies have dominated the top 10s at tournaments. We’ve also seen some lists emerge, such as Vik Vijay/Kit Hana Smith’s list, that can take the fight to GSC and give us a shot at winning.
- Ahriman on Disc of Tzeentch
- Magnus the Red
- Exalted Sorcerer
- Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch
- Infernal Master
- Infernal Master: Umbralefic Crystal
- Infernal Master: Arcane Vortex
- Thousand Sons Sorcerer: Lord of Forbidden Lore
- Rubric Marines: 4x Warpflamer, Icon of Flame
- (4x) Rubric Marines: 3x Warpflamer, 1x Soulreaper Cannon, Icon of Flame
- Mutalith Vortex Beast
- (2x) Rhinos: Havoc launcher, Inferno combi-bolter, Inferno combi-weapon
- Flamers of Tzeentch (3)
With their high win rates and overwhelming representation in the top 10s at tournaments I expect both GSC and Aeldari to take pretty big hits to their overall strength. Both are likely to remain strong armies vs the rest of the field but the edge should be blunted enough to make it a fighting chance for everyone else.
Who are Thousand Sons holding in-check?
| Faction | vs Tsons | vs Field |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Angels | 27% | 44% |
| Chaos Daemons | 33% | 49% |
| 33% | 39% | |
| 36% | 38% | |
| 36% | 33% | |
| Deathwatch | 38% | 43% |
| Tyranids | 40% | 48% |
| 41% | 40% | |
| 42% | 42% | |
| 42% | 43% | |
| 42% | 44% | |
| World Eaters | 42% | 50% |
| 43% | 43% | |
| 45% | 43% |
Above I’ve taken all of the armies that have a 45% or less win rate into Thousand Sons and compared that with their win rate against the rest of the field. Specifically, if an army does well against the field but struggles against Thousand Sons, these armies are said to be “held back” by Thousand Sons. Conversely, if the win rate against Thousand Sons is within 1-2% of their win rage against the field, it cannot be said that Thousand Sons are holding them back. It’s important to point out that this also doesn’t mean these armies don’t have a difficult matchup into Thousand Sons.
What caused Thousand Sons to hold these armies back?
I think it comes down to two things:
- Mortal Wounds from Devastating Wounds
- Taking away armor saves (Twist of Fate)
All of the armies highlighted in blue above are susceptible to these strategies as they either have little to no protection to mortal wounds or suffer from not having any invulnerable saves.
Will there be nerfs to Thousand Sons?
Probably. Despite the data above, Thousand Sons still play very strongly into the rest of the field - boasting a win rate over 55% against all of ones in the list above. Beyond this, the sentiment from players is generally that Thousand Sons need nerfs. What doesn’t help is that the vast majority of armies in that table make up an overwhelming proportion of the field.
What is likely to change?
GW has been clear that these balance updates are not intended to introduce profile/rule changes unless there is an exceptional situations demanding it. I don’t think there are any with Thousand Sons that will warrant it - we’re a far cry from the pre-10th edition cries for nerfs to Aeldari fate dice (which we received). What this means is I don’t think we’ll see any change to the army rules, detachment rule, or stratagems for Thousand Sons. However, what they could do is apply game-wide restrictions that indirectly apply.
Echoes from the Warp
A change floating around the internet that would affect this is that abilities that allow you to use a stratagem twice would be restricted to once per turn. This would put a damper on how durable Magnus is, reducing his ability to negate saves 4 times in a turn to just twice - where this can be done in both the shooting and fight phase today. Ultimately, I don’t think this would be a huge hit as right now the main threat is shooting. Retaining this would ensure Magnus can weather the most potent of shooting volleys from the likes of Wraithknights and Knights alike.
Doombolt
The are two things I think are possible here:
Reducing the overall damage of Doombolt from D3/3+D6/6+D3 to something like D3/D6/3+D6. Being able to toss these out twice per turn, despite the cost, is extremely strong. 10 mortal wounds can be tough for any target to deal with turn 1, since we can use a Mutalith Vortex Beats to dish these out at 36”.
FAQ’ing Doombolt so that it cannot target Lone Operatives or get around units with similar rules. With the amount of damage capable by Doombolt, even if nerfed, you still have the potential of picking up core models/characters such as Primarchs or assassins that are intended to be protected from such threats.
Possible Points Changes
Generally speaking, I think there are likely to be point increases designed to increase the cost of Thousand Sons lists by 25-75 points depending on how much of a nerf needs to be applied.
Magnus - he’s in every list and if you want to take the edge off Thousand Sons he’s the easiest way to apply a direct point nerf. I would expect somewhere around 20 points to the upside here
Infernal Master - a standout unit and a strong supplier of important Cabal Points. I don’t expect a lot here, maybe 10pts to bring them up closer to the cost of a Sorcerer.
Rubric Marines - at 95pts the unit is a bargain right now. I don’t expect a huge nerf here but maybe a good 5-10pts for the unit as a small change.
Vindicator - I expect this to get a point reduction across the board in all armies. It is comically overpriced.
Defiler - Another unit that is comically overpriced, needing a steep discount to get it playable.
Daemon Engines (Heldrake, Maulerfiend, Forgefiend) - don’t get the Thousand Sons variants of these confused with other army’s like Chaos Space Marines - we don’t have any of the support mechanics to make these function as strong as those. Some point reductions could improve their playtime.