10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: Thousand Sons

With the release of 10th edition now firmly behind us and more than a month of competitive games in the books it’s time to start taking a deeper look at each of the game’s factions. In this series we’ll talk about each faction, what they have to offer, how they play, and talk about a few list concepts to consider.

In this article we’re looking at the Sons of Magnus, the Thousand Sons.

Why Should You Play This Faction?

Since the release of their codex in 9th edition the Thousand Sons have been one of the more competitive factions of the Chaos Space Marine variety and they’ve come out of the gates swinging in 10th, emerging as one of the game’s more powerful armies. As an army the Thousand Sons offer a massive and versatile toolbox of abilities and options and while the number of units you have to choose from is small, almost all of them have value. On top of that, there are a large number of ways to assemble those units into something that is competitively viable on the table.

There hasn’t really been a more fun time to take Thousand Sons for a spin, and if you’ve always wanted to play real games with Magnus or a Mutalith Vortex Beast, now is your time.

Five Things You Need to Know

1. Cabbalistic Rituals are the backbone of your strategy: Cabbalistic Rituals give you four of the most powerful abilities in the game to play with – double moving, free Stratagem use, putting out a buttload of mortal wounds, and turning off enemy saves. These are powerful effects that hand you tools to deal with a variety of targets and you’re going to build and play around their use each turn.
2. Mobility is key: Between the ability to double-move units with Temporal Surge and the Umbralefic Crystal, the Thousand Sons have some powerful movement tech to play with. Whether you’re double-timing a Mutalith across the table to pick up an Ambush Token or dropping an Infernal Master in your opponent’s backfield to do an action and score Behind Enemy lines with the Crystal, there are some real options here that let you adapt to the opponent and play unpredictably. That’s really good to have, because your Rubrics are fairly slow, moving on 5”. That said, you’ve got other options as well – Enlightened and Chaos Spawn both have solid movement.
3. Magnus is Back, Baby: Magnus is one of the single most powerful units in the game and a tremendous asset for Thousand Sons lists as both an option for damage output and as a force multiplier. In addition to the damage, melee threat and movement, Big Red can also boost the movement of nearby units and help some some of your movement challenges.
4. Don’t get stuck in combat: Units like Scarab Occult Terminators aren’t necessarily bad in combat but you generally want to be shooting and in 10th edition it’s even harder to blast your way out of combat with psychic attacks. Your units generally want to avoid being stuck in melee combat, so don’t get tagged unless you have to.
5. Warpflamers are fantastic board control tools: Warpflamers are one of the most potent board control weapons in the game. A unit of 10 models with Warpflamers (well, 9 plus a pistol on the champion) can throw out some incredible hurt and the ability to Overwatch twice in a turn with a ritual means you can punish the crap out of opponents who want to get close and avoid getting stuck in combat.

What Are the Must-Have Units to Start This Faction?

Ten Warpflamer Rubrics, Ahriman, and Magnus the Red. These are pretty much the three units that show up in every list, and Ahriman’s going to travel with the Warpflamers so he can lend them +1 to wound. His ability to give you a free Ritual once per game is incredibly useful as well, and he can be a key part of early alpha strikes. Magnus is just a powerful force multiplier and his damage output – both ranged and in melee – is tremendous. Keep him from getting shot off the board turn 1 and you’ll have a great time.

From there you’ll want to figure out whether you want a 10-model unit of Scarab Occult Terminators, how many Rubrics you’re going to want, and what you want your support package to look like in terms of both characters and vehicles/monsters.

Rubrics are one option for the backbone of your army. It’s perfectly reasonable to take 4 or more units of these, and both warpflamer and bolter rubrics have their uses. Warpflamer Rubrics are great for board control and short-range skirmishing, while bolter Rubrics give you more range and in a pinch can sub in for terminators when you need a target for Ensorcelled Infusion to do its work. Bolter Rubrics also act as a better bodyguard for an Infernal Master, though you can easily get by just not attaching your master(s) to a unit at all. While somewhat durable, Rubrics tend to need a little protection when going up against the likes of Desolators and you’ll typically want at least one rhino to transport them in, if only to protect Ahriman. They’re also just fine with an Exalted Sorcerer to give them a 4+ invulnerable save and bring models back, and taking three units with Exalteds can give you some maddening levels of durability and regeneration-based mobility. 

You probably want 2-4 squads of Rubrics on hand for different build options, and I’m going to level with you: That’s a lot of gold trim and it sucks to paint it. I currently run 1×10 warpflamers, 2×10 bolters, and 1×5 warpflamers, but I’m working on painting 5 more warpflamer rubrics.

Scarab Occult Terminators are a very tough unit thanks to both their defensive profile and the Implacable Guardians ability, which gives incoming attacks -1 to wound if they have Strength higher than the unit’s Toughness.Their primary value however is in their damage output – their combi-bolters can give them an insane amount of shots, and when you combine that with Ensorcelled Infusion to make them S5 and Psychic, they can suddenly benefit from both Magnus’ aura and the Devastating Sorcery Stratagem. Throwing out 36 S5 Psychic Bolter shots which hit on 2s, re-rolling 1s with SUSTAINED HITS 1 and get +1 to wound, re-rolling everything at a target that has had its save removed with Twist of Fate is a good way to take down almost any target in the game. If you’re taking Scarabs, it’s partly to hold the middle of the table and partly to work in concert with Magnus to tear down bigger targets.

You can potentially run a second set of Scarabs but at that point I think you’re putting too much into one basket, or just shortchanging the rest of your army. You can’t really afford 20 scarabs and Magnus, and a unit of 5 scarabs doesn’t have the punch to be worth it, and you can get more out of your vehicle/monster options instead.

On the character side you’ll want at least one Infernal Master – he’s an incredibly useful character and you can run him either bland or in his “powered up” mode with the Arcane Vortex Enhancement. Doing this makes his focused Screamer Invocation S7, AP-2, 2 damage and turns it into a real nightmare weapon when you are running DEVASTATING WOUNDS on your psychic attacks and re-rolling all wound rolls thanks to the attached Rubric Squad’s Bringers of Change ability (don’t forget you can turn one wound result into a 6 result with the Glimpse of Eternity ability). Infernal Masters are also fun solo operatives, able to use Glimpse and Destined by Fate to tank some damage while sitting in your opponent’s backfield doing actions and being annoying. 

You could end the conversation here if you wanted to – Thousand Sons are perfectly capable of running a good army just using Magnus and marines. And there’s room for Tzaangors – the base unit are good for filling out a final slot cheaply, while Enlightened and Chaos Spawn can give you fast moving objective control. But where’s the fun in just taking little guys? The army has a number of large units you can add to your list as well, and most of them are worth consideration.

Let’s start with the Mutalith Vortex Beast, an interesting also-ran introduced to the faction in 8th edition. The Mutalith offers a fairly tough monster profile with T10 and 13 wounds and a 5+ Feel No Pain, but on a fast body – 10” movement and the ability to double move with Temporal Surge from a nearby Psyker. The Mutalith is also decent in melee and great for boosting Rituals – rituals done within 6” of the Mutalith double their range, allowing you to pop off 36” Doombolts and Twists of Fate. The Mutalith is very, very good and a lot of top competitive lists are running two of them. You generally want two if you take them at all because it gives you more redudancy and reliability if you go second against an enemy who can take them off the table t1.

While the Mutalith is the unit you’re most likely to consider, there’s also a place for Helbrutes and Forgefiends. The former can act as a melee counter-threat and win you back Cabal Points, scoring you 1 for each Ritual performed within 9”, while the latter has some decent shot volume and the ability to make your opponent’s elite threats a bit less accurate.

How Does This Faction Secure Objectives?

Typically with Rubrics, though if you’re running Tzaangors/Enlightened/Chaos Spawn you’ll use those to move quickly around the sides of the table and capture objectives early. The Scarabs are your “hold the middle” unit and will help deliver alpha strikes with support from Magnus. The Umbralefic Crystal is a big piece of this puzzle, and goes in every Thousand Sons list. Whether you put it on a lone character or embed it in a unit, it allows you to be anywhere you need to be once per game, and that will often either be in place to secure or complete an objective, or to take an enemy off one. 

Your biggest concern when doing this will be staying out of combat, but that’s where Warpflamers come in, punishing your opponent for having the audacity to come within 12” of you. Scarabs are also OK at brawling, and Magnus can handle himself just fine and shoot out as a monster.

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Hordes?

Hordes are easy to handle when you have warpflamers, and inferno bolters aren’t too shabby for the job, either. You’ve got great volumes of S4 AP-1 shooting to work with before you start adding in buffs on top of it. 

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Tanks and Monsters?

This is a tougher one – the Thousand Sons have very few anti-tank weapons, only one of which are is their Infantry, and most of their guns and psychic attacks top out at 24” range, meaning that larger targets like Wraithknights can usually sit back in their deployment zone and take shots at you over ruins while you’re unable to respond without walking into a nasty killzone. Mutaliths can help extend the range on your rituals to hit that distance, while the Warp Sight Stratagem can add 9” to your psychic attacks, and combos with Ensorcelled Infusion. 

Often the playbook will be one of two options for taking down big threats:

• Double Doombolt to weaken, finish off with Magnus/Infernal Master+whatever. This is for targets with a great invulnerable save that are very susceptible to mortal wounds. You put your army into DEVASTATING WOUNDS mode, pull a pair of Cabal Psykers within 18” of the target, and fire off two doombolts, one normally and one via the Lord of Forbidden Lore Enhancement. That’ll give you an average of 10 mortal wounds, and you push through the rest either with Magnus or the Infernal Master looking for 6s and whatever other fire support you can get. 

• Twist of Fate to remove the save, massive amounts of firepower to kill. This is for targets which don’t have an invulnerable save or otherwise have a 4+ feel no pain against your mortal wounds. You put your army into SUSTAINED HITS 1 mode for psychic attacks and use Twist of Fate to take away their armour save (against Custodes this puts them on their 4+ invuln, which is as good as you’re going to get). Then you just go to town on the target with high volumes of firepower. If you’ve got Scarabs or bolter Rubrics this is where you use Ensorcelled Infusion and usually Echoes of the Warp to fire off Devastating Sorcery to make their combi-bolters PSYCHIC and Strength 5. If you have Magnus around, this gives you +1 to hit and wound with them, plus full re-rolls on both, and every 6 you roll to hit gives you another hit. Commit enough and there aren’t many targets you can’t take down this way. Your biggest challenge will be getting your targets into 18″ range for your effects – Wraithknights can just Phantasm away and stay out of your range.

What Combos Should You Build Around?

There are a few specific things to consider but I’ve already talked about the major tricks.

Ahriman’s Rubrics

• 10 Rubrics – 9x Warpflamer, 1 Icon of Flame, 1 Aspiring Sorcerer with Warpflame Pistol
• Ahriman

This one’s pretty straightforward – Ahriman gives his unit +1 to wound, making Warpflamers even more deadly and letting them punch up a big against tougher targets. You’ll often want to put this unit in a Rhino to protect them early on. Note: Always take the Warpflame pistol on the Aspiring Sorcerer.

The Scarab Brick

• 10 Scarab occult Terminators – 8 Inferno Combi-Bolters, 2 Hellfyre Missile Racks, 2 Soulreaper Cannons, Champion with combi-bolter and staff
• Sorcerer in Terminator Armour with combi-bolter and staff

Also straightforward, though not mentioned up there is Magnus to buff the unit when it’s doing Ensorcelled Infusion. The Terminator Sorcerer gives the unit LETHAL HITS and lets you pick a target for the whole army to re-roll 1s to hit against, giving you a rare buff for Magnus. You can go bolter or sword on the champion; his psychic power is [PISTOL] but there will often be times when it’s better to take four bolter shots than use his Warpsmite. I like to give the Terminator Sorcerer the Umbralefic Crystal to give the Terminators late-game mobility and to let them teleport out of combat, but there are probably better uses for it.

The Infernal Master

• An Infernal Master and Arcane Vortex
• 10 Rubrics – 9x Inferno bolter, Icon of Flame, Soulreaper Cannon, 1 Aspiring Sorcerer with Warpflame Pistol

What a great little combo: The Infernal Master gives his unit SUSTAINED HITS 1 and in return they give him the ability to re-roll 1s to wound, or all wounds if he’s shooting an enemy unit on an objective you don’t control. That gives you the great ability to fish for 6s easily on his 2D6 Torrent Psychic attack which hits at S7 AP-2 D2 when upgraded with the Arcane Vortex Enhancement. Throw in Devastating Sorcery and his ability to automatically generate a 6 off one of his results and you have some solid damage output to work with.

The Changeling

• The Changeling
• Maybe some Flamers, idk

You 100% do not have to take Daemons in your Thousand Sons list these days to compete. But if you’re going to do that, you want one of them to be The Changeling. For 75 points this guy gets you as close to an Assassin as you can get in chaos, with a LONE OPERATIVE with a solid psychic flamer attack who can cause enemy units to battle-shock when they target it and can mess with enemy shooting. Add in the Deep Strike ability and you have a solid option for dropping behind your opponent’s lines and disrupting their plan that’s almost impossible to screen out.

And as long as you’re going that route, Flamers are still a solid option. They pack the same basic weapon as Warpflamers but on a tougher, faster body with the ability to Deep Strike and shoot after making a Fall Back move. They’re more of a harassment/secondary scoring unit than a proper damage threat, especially if you take them in 3-model units.

Army Lists

Let’s close things out by looking at some recently successful lists for the faction. We have a few solid options to choose from, and with different builds, though ultimately many of the combos/interactions are the same with these. 

Christopher Rice’s List – 5th Place, Capital Clash 2023

After a tough round 1 loss to Custodes – always a tough matchup for Thousand Sons – Chris rattled off 5 straight wins including wins over Ultramarines, GSC, Deathwatch, and Imperial Knights to finish 5-1 and in fifth place at the 2023 Capital Clash event. 

”Chris’

Chris’s list opts for 10 Scarab occult Terminators led by a Terminator Sorcerer with Lord of Forbidden Lore to allow them to double up on Ritual use. The list also runs three units of Warpflamer Rubrics, one led by Ahriman, one led by a Sorcerer, and one led by an Exalted Sorcerer. Note that as needed the list can just not attach the Exalted Sorcerer to a unit pre-game and use the Umbralefic Crystal with a single model for easier deep strikes and stealing objectives/completing secondaries. 

The unique element here is the Daemon Prince, who is a capable counter-melee threat with Psychic Melee attacks that do 3 damage per swing and really benefit from Magnus’ aura. On top of that his The Weave of Fate ability lets him give a unit of friendly rubrics or Scarabs within 6” the PRECISION ability for a phase, which can be a devastating trick for removing a key character like a Blade Champion or Nexos from a unit as you drown them in fire. The 6” Stealth Aura isn’t too shabby, either.

Liam Grossmith’s List – 5th Place, North and South GT

A 4-1 5th place list from the North and South GT in Australia, Liam’s list shows a vision of the hell that multiple Mutalith Vortex beasts can be. 

”Liam’s

Liam’s list doubles up on Mutaliths with Magnus to give the list a very fast, mobile punch that can range ahead and clog up the board with more durable threats. It’s supported by Chaos Spawn, a unit of Enlightened and a solo Exalted Sorcerer on disc, who can do mortal wounds and cut the movement of enemy units in Line of Sight with Binding Tendrils at the end of your Movement phase. The two Rubric units here get Ahriman and a Sorcerer for support, and the Terminator Sorcerer with a Crystal gives the Terminators some on the ground mobility. This is an army that can absolutely get around the table, but is going to be more susceptible to big anti-tank guns, and that’s one reason Liam struggled against double-Caladius Grav Tank Custodes in round 4.

Austin Johnson’s List – 5th Place, Arch City GT II

Austin took this list to a 5-1 finish, losing to Custodes in round 2 (notice a pattern yet?), but beating GSC and Aeldari in rounds 4 and 5. Austin’s list mixes in Daemons for some extra mobility and punch.

”Austin’s

This list trades the Scarabs for a Forgefiend, two units of Flamers, and the Changeling, making it much more mobile and giving it the ability to play the mission a bit better. The Forgefiend can slow down enemy units by tagging them with its cannons while the flamers are just great sacrificial deep strikers who can harass enemy units and do actions. There are three big Rubric units of here, two of which will rely on standard sorcerers, who make the units untargetable outside of 18”. More than likely you’ll want to put the crystal with the 5-model unit of Warpflamers to make it easier for them to deep strike into tight spots, while the other sorcerer and the Infernal Master can go with Inferno bolter Rubrics, where they add the most value. 

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot to like with Thousand Sons right now and the army is a blast to play. The army’s basic units are very strong, and even if you don’t want to paint 30-40 Rubrics you have plenty of alternatives which can still amount to a solid army. While they aren’t on the level of Genestealer Cults or Eldar as an army, they’re still strong enough to compete yet not so busted your friends will hate you for fielding them and that’s a strong reason to pick them back up if you have the models.

That wraps up our look at Thousand Sons but we’ve got more faction focus articles coming up so stay tuned over the coming weeks. And if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.