Warhammer 40K: New Tricks for the Thousand Sons
Adam here to let you know what looks extra spicy in the brand new Codex Thousand Sons.
It has been a couple of weeks since the release of both the Grey Knight and Thousand Sons codexes. It appears we are still not seeing too many of them but I believe that it will pick up soon as people finish building and painting their new models. I have been building a Thousand Sons army and have played a few test games already and enjoy it a lot. There are already a few items, spells and warlord traits that I am constantly using in my games. Now they may not be the most competitive items but the reaction opponents have to these items is sometimes worth it. So without further adieu, here are a few of the items from the Thousand Sons codex that I think you might enjoy.
Dilettante
Legion Command is a new detachment ability that allows you to give additional rules to some of your HQ units and aspiring sorcerers. This is similar to what the Space Marines have in their codex. The Thousand Sons codex has a lot of useful relics and you want almost all of them. You do have a stratagem that allows you to get up to two more relics, so along with the free one, you have three relics to give out. Dilettante gets around the restriction in that you pay 35 points for the ability to give your Exalted Sorcerer a relic without paying for a command point.
Now there is some question if it would cost the points plus the command point but there is nothing to indicate that you need to pay an additional command point. In any case, this ability allows you to give a second relic to the Exalted Sorcerer, if it already has one, as long as it is a different one than it already has. This is really useful as you can give them a relic that is one use only and still have a relic that you can use throughout the game, like this next one.
Egleighen’s Orrery
I think this relic is one you are going to see in every army. Basically at the start of the command phase, the model with this relic chooses an enemy unit it can see and gains an aura that allows CORE units to ignore and shooting or melee modifiers, including those that affect the characteristics, wound roll modifiers, and any damage reduction modifiers. This is especially good against those pesky Contemptors with volkite everyone is bringing as you would ignore their -1 damage ability.
This is also handy against armies that might have an army-wide -1 to hit, although it can only be used on one unit at a time, or models that change your ballistic skill to 6+, like an assassin we all know that hates psykers. Unlimited range is really useful also, but the only issue is that the Thousand Sons do not have too many units that shoot farther than 24″. Still worth taking though.
Warpweave Mantle
I have to admit, it is hard for me to pass up a chance to get my opponent off-kilter, even if I know it’s not the best choice. A good example of this is the relic Warpweave Mantle. The relic allows you to add 1 when you cast a psychic power, if you are wounded, but that is not why it is great. The relic’s greatness comes from its other ability.
When your opponent declares a charge against the bearer and an unmodified 9+ is rolled, they automatically fail the charge. It doesn’t matter how far the model is from yours, if a 9 or better is rolled, before modifiers, it fails. I had a game where my opponent rolled 4 charges and only made 2 of them even though he was only four inches away. The look on his face was totally worth it, even though my model died in the end. Even with that, I think it is useful, especially if your opponent deep strikes near the model and need a 9 or better to make the charge. Sure, if they have a modifier they could still make it but the odds are made worse because of the restriction on what he needs to roll. This is another relic I think I will always take.
~That’s all for this week. Let me know what you think, and what relics or warlord traits you like there are a lot of good ones, in the comments section below.
