Lords of Forbidden Lore: The Complete Guide to Playing Thousand Sons

Thousand Sons are one of the most complicated armies in the game. If you can’t divine the future, then you won’t succeed in the present.

Fortunately for you, here at Warphammer we have a special connection to the Dark Gods. I travelled into the Warp to obtain the forbidden knowledge of how to succeed with Thousand Sons from Kairos himself. Unfortunately, Kairos’s advice was pretty useless. He gave me great tips for winning in 9th Edition and 11th Edition with Thousand Sons, but couldn’t give me any advice for our current Edition. So we had to make a deal directly with Tzeentch himself. I had to sacrifice my sanity (along with thousands of Cultists), but I’ve finally discovered the secrets to playing Thousand Sons in 10th Edition.

This is one of the best guides we’ve ever published at Warphammer, and I’m excited to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for one of my favorite armies with you. Without further ado, here is the complete Warphammer guide to playing Thousand Sons.

Where Do They Stand Currently?

Thousand Sons are one of the strongest armies in the entire game, and you have a real chance to win any event you attend with the Sons of Prospero.

They’re also one of the most complicated armies in the entire game, and have a lot of plays available that 99% of players are going to miss when looking at the board. You also have to avoid making mistakes versus higher-level opponents because if you lose resources quicker than needed, your house of cards can quickly collapse.

They have less flexibility in list-building than most armies, due to the Cabal Point system highly incentivizing you to bring 1300-1700 points of Characters and Rubrics. Being honest, I think this “issue” is slightly overblown among their critics. Almost everything in the index ranges from playable to great, which is more than a lot of other armies can say.

“But Mike, I don’t like being forced to run Cabal Point generating units to use my rules.”

You don’t like running lots of Space Wizards in your army of Space Wizards?

Did you really get into Thousand Sons to run 3 Vindicators like you’re an Iron Warriors player? Did you really get into Thousand Sons to run 120 Tzaangors like you’re a Tyranids player?

I’m serious. Did you actually get into Thousand Sons to run 120 Tzaangors? That’s fucking awesome. You sound really cool, and I want you to come join the Warphammer discord today: https://discord.gg/9RHUH4JQ.

Matchups

Thousand Sons have a lot of great matchups, and a few poor ones.

Artillery is a huge issue for Thousand Sons, and the continued nerfing of Indirect Fire units is the single biggest buff that Thousand Sons could have asked for. The UK style Guard lists running 2 Manticores and 2 Basilisks getting dismantled in the latest MFM is huge for Thousand Sons. Guard versus Thousand Sons was one of the most lopsided matchups in the game, and even a mediocre Guard player could present a huge challenge for a strong Thousand Sons player by going first and lobbing Manticores and Basilisks at you in between bites of crayon. Death Guard are a weird matchup, because you’re still likely to run into 3 Plagueburst Crawlers, but PBCs aren’t going to do that much damage to you and you’re also just so good at doing damage to them.

Necrons remain one of the game’s strongest armies, but are very vulnerable to Thousand Sons. Thousand Sons damage output in the mid-board is so great that not even Necrons can exist for 5 turns against them. On the flip side, Thousand Sons evaporated C’tan, but most Necron lists are going to move away from running 1-3 C’tan to running more MSU and mission focused lists with their latest points changes. This means Thousand Sons will be slightly worse into Necrons than they were before, but it’s still a definitely favored matchup.

Elite melee armies like World Eaters and Custodes present an issue for some Thousand Sons players, but it swings back in favor of the Thousand Sons if both players are really good.

I’m slightly concerned about the matchup into the new Orks, as well as Montka T’au. These are the two strongest armies in the game right now. On terrain heavy boards, Orks can explode outwards and tie up a huge amount of your army in a single turn and grind your gameplan to a halt. Thousand Sons do outrageous amounts of damage to Orks if they get a chance to connect, so that matchup will come down to your ability to moveblock and predict where the Orks want to go on the following turns. It’ll also come down to how safely the Orks can stage before bumrushing you. It’s a very winnable matchup, albeit one that is slightly favored for the Orks. T’au are a different beast. I’m going to wait to see the final points costs for the new codex as well as how exactly Assault works in the new detachment before worrying too much. But in theory, an army that can go extremely long distances to get angles and does crippling amounts of damage could present an issue for Thousand Sons (and everyone else in the game).

Tactics

Playing Thousand Sons is extremely complicated, so we’re going to lay down a few concepts that you can use to guide your decisions.

There is one fundamental issue with this guide that I want to get out of the way early: To play Thousand Sons well, you have to be very good at 40K in general. It’s not like I can tell you “insert XYZ play into every one of your games and collect your wins right away”. What I can do is give you a series of principles to keep in mind to improve your in-game decision making, and then we’re going to dive into specific plays as specific topics come up.

The most important thing to remember is that no two Thousand Sons games play the exact same. There will be times you should do the exact opposite of some of this advice. Get reps, keep improving as a player, and use this guide as a guideline instead of firm rules.

You Are A Control Army. Don’t Get Into a Trade War.

Your units that do real damage are extremely expensive, and you don’t have many of them. If the play pattern you’re used to is “expose unit, enemy exposes unit to kill it, you kill the unit that they exposed, they kill the unit that you exposed, etc” then you’re going to run into serious issues applying that mindset to Thousand Sons.

You need to destroy their units without taking damage back whenever possible. This sounds like magic, but just comes down to applying the right type of resource to the right situation.

Because you have so few units, you want to get 3 or 4 benefits from each unit rather than just using units for 1 task. For example, a beginner Thousand Sons player might look at the board, look at their Exalted Sorcerer on Disc, and think “this turn, the Exalted Sorcerer on Disc’s purpose is to slow down that unit” and move their Exalted Sorcerer on Disc out to slow down that enemy unit. And there is nothing wrong with thinking like that, especially when you’re starting off. However, a better Thousand Sons player’s thought process might be along the lines of “this turn, that Exalted Sorcerer on Disc will slow down that unit, then Temporal Surge diagonally to get behind that mid-board ruin and out of Line of Sight of their other killy unit so he doesn’t immediately die. That point will also push back their deepstrikers on that side of the board. Between Doombolt and his shooting, he should kill the 5 Scouts the opponent was using to hold a point. We’re then going to make sure the tip of his staff is rotated to see the tip of the claw of their dangerous melee unit behind another mid-field ruin, so we can then use Warp Sight and have Magnus light up that unit with Indirect Fire”. The newer player used their Exalted Sorcerer on Disk to slow down the enemy. The experienced player used their Exalted Sorcerer on Disk to slow down the enemy, screen out their deepstrikers, cast Doombolt, shoot, let Magnus unleash his damage output from safety, all while taking no damage back on the following turn.

Obviously things won’t always work out this perfectly, but stay on the lookout for opportunities to maximize the value of your units.

You Want to Surgically Dissect the Enemy Army In Certain Areas of the Board, Not Fight Everywhere

You want to completely clear our areas of the board near you so they can’t retaliate. Rather than maximizing the amount of damage total you do, maximize the amount of damage you do to units that can retaliate to you in the near future.

Let’s do a simple thought experiment. Let’s divide the board into quarters, and assume that an enemy unit can get everywhere inside a quarter but can not do damage on the following turn to units in another quarter. And let’s say the opponent has 4 units of equal value in each quarter of the board. Would you rather destroy 6 enemy units total or destroy all 4 units in one quarter? For Thousand Sons, the clear right choice is to destroy all 4 units in one specific quarter rather than trying to do 50% more total damage that is spread out across the board. This means they won’t be able to retaliate on the following turn, and your intact army can then repeat the process on the following turn.

Moveblock Them and Slow Them So They Can’t Hit You Back

The combination of very fast cheap chaff and Exalted Sorcerors on Disk gives access to more control over your opponent’s movement than any other faction.

One of the strongest plays Thousand Sons can make is Scouting a unit of Cultists 6″ forward and then moving it 8″, 16″, or 24″ again to end an inch or two in front of the opponent’s army. If you go first against an army without lots of Fly, they can get entirely bottled up. In general, I think 40K has too many of these mechanics right now like Gargoyle Jail or Kroot Jail, but that’s not our problem to fix.

A tech piece I’ve seen popping up lately that I really like is a Tzaangor Shaman with the Umbralefic Crystal attached to 10 or 20 Tzaangors. What’s so powerful about this tool is that fact you can show up in front of a key staging point (like a wall with a Rhino full of Berzerkers and Kharn and 2×3 Exalted Eightbound behind it) and then move once or twice with Temporal Surge to plant a wall in front of that unit and block it from moving for a turn. It’s also a wildly good tool for contesting objectives, as you can string some OC2 Tzaangors out to put a few models onto objectives held by things like Scouts and deny them Primary. And unlike using the Umbralefic Crystal on something like an Exalted Sorcerer leading a unit of Rubric Marines, your Cabal Point “tax” for teleporting that turn is tiny.

Exalted Sorcerers on Disk are one of the strongest board control tools Thousand Sons have access to, and there is a reason that almost every successful list runs 2 or 3 of them to spam their Binding Tendrils ability. Say your opponent has 4 or 5 terrifying units bearing down on you but you only can kill 2 or 3. What you can do is prioritize several units to kill and use Exalted Sorcerers on Disk to tell the other units “Hey, I can’t deal with you right now, so how about you chill out and wait there for a turn”. The ability to halve the Move/Charge/Advance distance for an enemy unit is absolutely wild. Because there is a chance you can roll a 1 on Binding Tendrils, you do need to weigh the risk of failure and whether you’ll get completely destroyed if it doesn’t work. If the penalty for failure is too high, you need to consider alternate approaches like a guaranteed moveblock with Cultists or Overwatch or pre-measuring to stay out of that unit’s charge range or angles of fire.

Use Overwatch as a Proactive Tool, Not Hoping Your Opponent Walks Into It

Overwatch is one of your strongest tools, but higher level opponents will have faced strong Overwatch before. They’re going to have a bucket of tools available for avoiding Overwatch. I can’t think of a single time I took damage I cared about from Overwatch in the last 3 or 4 tournaments.

What you want to do is funnel your opponent into being forced to take Overwatch to make plays they want to make. Let me show you an example of how this works in practice.

If you have a unit of 5 Rubric Marines, don’t just have them vaguely near an objective to Overwatch. If the opponent is good, they’re going to measure how many of those Rubric Marines are actually within 12″ of the far point of the objective. Maybe all of your Rubrics were within range of most of the objective, but there is a specific point where they can toe the very edge of base onto an objective while only being within range of 2 of your 5 Rubric Marines. A strong opponent will find that point, place a model there, and then ask whether you want to spend a CP to fire 2 Rubric Marines. What you should do is pre-measure to make sure all of your Rubrics can fire to every point on that objective. Maybe that’s not possible, in which case you’re probably better off leaving them hidden.

Magnus Is Your Key to Victory, So Use Him Well

No other army in the game is as dependent on one model for both synergy and damage as the Thousand Sons are on Magnus. When used correctly, he takes huge chunks out of your opponents army early from safety and then dominates the late-game. When used incorrectly, he’s thrown away for little value.

What does a typical “good” game for Magnus look like? Battle round 1, you pick the +2″ move aura. You won’t need the -1 Damage because you’ve deployed him defensively and won’t get aggressive with him early. Using his mobility (and maybe a double move), he pokes the tip of his wing around a building to destroy an isolated enemy unit from a place where enemy units can’t get angles to him the following turn. Round 2, you use Warp Sight to nuke an enemy unit that was staging behind a midfield wall. While staying behind the wall, he’s projecting +1 to Wound to your Arcane Vortex Infernal Master to destroy a unit on the other side of the wall. Turn 3, he destroys another enemy unit while taking a small amount of damage back. Turn 4, you triple move him to score Capture Enemy Outpost with his 6 OC. At this point, the enemy doesn’t have enough resources left to kill Magnus.

If you have ever lost Magnus on turn 1 or 2, something has gone horribly wrong and you’ve disappointed Tzeentch. If you’re facing Drukhari and all you can shoot turn 1 without taking return Dark Lance fire is 5 Mandrakes, just shoot those 5 Mandrakes. Don’t get greedy with Magnus. If you’re playing Magnus cagey, you also get the huge benefit of being able to more often choose his +2″ move aura instead of -1 Damage.

Tzeentch Rewards Planning, Not Speed. Gather Knowledge Before Acting.

If you’re ever looking at the board in your Command Phase and think your options that turn are obvious, you are probably missing a bunch of plays. I like playing Thousand Sons on a clock because sometimes I need to consider my options for a while before moving any models, and I don’t want my opponent worrying about having enough time.

My Premeasuring Phase lasts several minutes before my Command Phase even begins. Because so much of Thousand Sons gameplay is comboing plays together, you’re going to want to have complete knowledge of how far certain units are from each other and which points they can reach, as well as where the opponent’s units can go on the following turn.

Even if you don’t end up using all of this knowledge in your turn, you’ve still collected knowledge for the sake of knowledge’s sake, and you’re still operating fully in the spirit of a Thousand Sons player.

How Many Cabal Points Do You Need?

I have a number in mind but I don’t want to say it just yet. We’ll get there later.

Your Guide to Getting Value from Cabal Points

Mastering the Cabal Point system is the most important part of playing Thousand Sons well, so this is where we’re going to start.

Before we get into all the pro tips, there are a few very important nuances to using Cabals that I wanted to make sure we all understand.

All Cabals Are Used at the Start of the Phase

This is one of the most common ways I see Thousand Sons players cheating (accidentally or not). You cannot shoot with a unit and then Temporal Surge back to safety, or wait to see if you fail a save and then use Weaver Of Fates to reroll a save.

Do note that you can sequence them however you wish. This is mainly important for Temporal Surge, as we’ll get to later.

Cabal Points Are Generated In Your Command Phase, So You Have 0 Turn 1 If Going Second

This usually doesn’t matter but is sometimes very important, specifically in situations where you would want use Weaver Of Fates to reroll a save during the top of turn 1.

Cabal Points Are Not Generated By Units Off the Board or Battleshocked at the End of Your Command Phase

If you pick a unit up in your Command Phase (like a Daemon Prince with Wings or Umbralefic Crystal teleporting), then those units don’t count towards your Cabal Point total. Same with any units that are Battleshocked, which makes Shadow in the Warp pretty brutal on a go-turn for Thousand Sons.

You Can Select the Same Unit Twice with Lord of Forbidden Lore, Just Not the Same Psyker Model

I played Thousand Sons for months before realizing this, so don’t feel bad if you didn’t know it either. If I have a Character with Lore of Forbidden Lore attached to a unit of Rubric Marines, I can Doombolt from the Rubric Marine Psyker model and then again from the Character model. This is extremely powerful.

With these points all clarified, let’s dive into the Ritual themselves and find the best ways to use them.

Using Doombolt

Doombolt is my personal favorite Ritual and really captures the feeling of space wizards destroying opponents with their minds, so let’s start here.

• Doing damage
  • It’s just a great source of damage. Even if you’re not getting creative with it, it’s still just good clean fun.
• “Shooting” into combat
  • If the opponent has some non-Monster/Vehicle units in melee that you don’t want to Fall Back from for whatever reason, you can Doombolt to kill those units even in melee.
• Freeing up a unit to shoot or do actions without Falling Back
  • This is huge and underutilized. Thousand Sons don’t have a way to Fall Back and shoot/charge, so something like a random Venom touching a squad of Rubrics with a Character can be quite annoying. Just toss a Doombolt or two into a unit tagging your unit to destroy it, and now your unit is eligible to shoot.
• Doing damage without exposing a unit by comboing Doombolt + Temporal Surge
  • This is one of those plays that is easy to do but still feels like playing 5D chess every time. Move your unit forward to get visibility and range to the target in your movement phase, cast Doombolt, and then cast Temporal Surge to move back behind a nearby wall.
• Killing Lone Operatives
  • Because Doombolt doesn’t have a targeting step, you can Doombolt Lone Operatives from 18 or 36 inches. Just know that you’re a scrub if you do this before warning your opponent that you can get around Lone Operative.

Using Temporal Surge

Temporal Surge is extraordinarily flexible, and one of my favorite spells to cast. It reminds me of casting Warptime, which reminds me of playing CSM in 8th Edition, which reminds me of running Contemptors and Brass Scorpions and Fire Raptors, which fills me with sadness when I think about GW just removing a massive amount of beloved units from the game and holy shit is it just me or was the community just way too chill in response to this?!?!?!? But yeah, Temporal Surge is really good.

• Moving to get line of sight or get in range for your shooting
  • Boring, but very effective. Moving a unit of Rubric Marines a second time to get in range with their Flamers is good clean fun.
• Bring your Exalted Sorcerers on Disk back to safety after slowing a unit down
• Bringing a unit back after Doombolting
• Screen/respond to Rapid Ingress
  • Say your opponent had a unit of Deathshroud or Custodian Guard that they want to Rapid Ingress and then walk up to make a short charge the following turn. You can send a unit forward to push back their Rapid Ingress, they Rapid Ingress in to charge that unit, and then you cast Temporal Surge to move your screening unit away and give them a long or impossible charge on their following turn.
• Moveblock
• Avoiding Overwatch
  • Overwatch can only be used in your opponent’s Movement Phase or Charge Phase. If your opponent has a nasty Overwatch threat like a Land Raider Redeemer pointed at an objective, don’t move onto it in your Movement Phase. Wait 12.1″ away from its Flamers, and then use Temporal Surge to move onto the objective in your Shooting Phase.
• Avoiding Reactive Moves
  • Similar to Overwatch, every reactive move stratagem (like Squad Tactics from the Gladius Task Force) can only be used in your Movement Phase. If you need to move somewhere but don’t to trigger a reactive move, wait until the Shooting Phase to Temporal Surge into that area.
  • Note that some innate reactive moves (like Serberys Raiders) aren’t locked to a phase, so they can still be used in response to a Temporal Surge. If in doubt, talk to your opponent beforehand if there is a reactive move you’re looking to avoid triggering.
• Steal Objectives After Deepstriking/Teleporting
  • It is complete bullshit that you certain rules let you move again after arriving from Deepstrike/teleporting, but we’re almost a year into 10th Edition and it hasn’t been fixed. Unfortunately, I have to assume its intended at this point. Did your opponent stop you from deepstriking onto an objective? Come down 9.1″ away from their units and then make a Normal Move in your Shooting Phase to get onto that objective.

Do keep in mind that Magnus’s +2″ Move aura is not phase-locked, so units Temporal Surging near Magnus will get +2″ to move each time they move. You can also re-embark in a Transport after Temporal Surging, as long as the Transport has enough space left to fit your unit.

Using Weaver Of Fates

Weaver of Fates is a great outlet for any leftover Cabal Points in your opponent’s turn, or something you can plan ahead to use if you want to keep a key unit alive.

Keep in mind that Weaver Of Fates doesn’t require you to select the unit you want to reroll a save on, but rather select a Psyker model. You can then choose any unit within 18″ of that model to reroll a save this phase. This lets you use your Weaver Of Fate rerolls even on units that can’t cast Rituals.

• Keeping Magnus alive
  • This requires way too many resources and will never happen, but in theory you could re-roll 4 saves and blank 1 failed damage in one phase with Magnus.
• Deter opponents from shooting a certain unit
  • Say I’ve got a Mutalith on an objective with the rest of my army hidden. If I have 4 cabal in their turn, I’ll tell my opponent that I can re-roll 2 failed saves for free in their Shooting Phase. Then they’ll start thinking “Wait, there is a really high chance this Mutalith will soak way more damage than I expected to have to allocate. Do I even expose all these resources to try to kill it with a high chance of whiffing or do I just let the Thousand Sons hold that objective?” Either way, I’m happy.

Using Echoes From The Warp

Now that only Battle Tactics can have their CP cost increased or decrease, the only Stratagem that Echoes From The Warp lets you do for free is Devastating Sorcery, as well as the generic CP re-roll or Go To Ground.

Keep in mind that Echoes From The Warp lets you use a stratagem again if you’ve already used it, but doesn’t let you repeat the stratagem from another unit if you used the stratagem from Echoes From The Warp first. Make sure you active your units in the right order (non-Echoes, then Echoes) if you want to use Devastating Sorcery twice.

• Saving CP
  • Depending on the game state, I might value CP higher than Command Points. In that case, we can use Echoes From The Warp to save 1CP when we shoot with Magnus into something tough.
• Doubling up on a stratagem
  • Magnus is the main recipient of Devastating Sorcery, but occasionally you’ll want to use it twice. For example, maybe you have an Infernal Master who lost all of his Rubrics and no longer has Wound rerolls on his amazing flamer. Echoes can be very useful in that situation.

Using Twist of Fate

The other cabals, generally speaking, require some skill to use optimally. Twist of Fate doesn’t. Just look at something like a Redemptor Dreadnought, line up a bunch of guns, and wave goodbye with your 9 fingered hands.

The main thing I’ll say is that 9 Cabal Points is an extremely high cost, and beginner players are probably using Twist Of Fate too much and other Cabals too little. Is Twist of Fate great? Absolutely. Is it usually as good as 2 casts of Temporal Surge in terms of winning games? Sometimes, but usually not.

Twist of Fate is best cast by Ahriman, as doing a Cabal for free once per game is most valuable on your most expensive Cabal. Really complicated stuff.

So Mike, How Many Cabal Points Do You Need?

Now that we really understand how to use all of the Cabals, we can finally answer this question.

I really like having 21-24 Cabal Points in the list. This means that I can Umbralefic Crystal turn 1 or start a unit in a Rhino and still have enough Cabal to Doombolt twice and then cast Temporal Surge. There have also been very successful lists with 15-20 Cabal Points, so don’t view it as a hard and fast rule.

Restrictions You Need to Remember

We’re just going to list a bunch of things that you might be messing up, in no particular order. Remember that Tzeentch loves planners. Tzeentch does not love cheaters.

You (Usually) Don’t Get Full Wound Rerolls When Overwatching Units That Walked Onto Your Objectives

This is by far the most common mistake I’ve seen Thousand Sons players make since the last Rules Commentary came out. Objective control is checked at the end of every phase, not continuously. If an objective is controlled by you, and then an opponent walks onto that objective in their Movement Phase with more OC, you do not get your full Wound rerolls when overwatching that unit because they do not control that objective when you’re resolving your Overwatch attacks.

Now, if they already controlled the objective and then another unit of theirs walks onto that objective (or a unit walks off of that objective), go wild and re-roll all your Wounds.

Magnus’s -1 Damage does not work versus Psychic attacks

This used to be niche, but will become very important now that Thousand Sons and Grey Knights are two of the strongest armies in the entire game.

If only you had a stratagem to get a 4+++ Feel No Pain versus Psychic Attacks. That would be pretty cool.

Destined By Fate only lets you blank damage for Psychic models

You cannot use Destined by Fate to 0 out damage on a Mutalith Vortex Beast or Chaos Spawn.

Destined by Fate doesn’t work versus Devastating Wounds

Destined by Fate requires you to fail a Saving Throw, which you don’t get to make versus Devastating Wounds. If Magnus get shot by a railgun and they roll a 6 to wound, you’re SOL.

Warp Sight and Sorcerous Might only work on Psyker Models

You can’t shoot your Rubric Marines’ flamers through walls or shoot them 21″. That would be way, way, way too good so I’m thankful they put those restrictions in there.

Ahriman doesn’t let you double up on Cabals, just cast one that hasn’t been cast yet for free

This is an easy mistake to make since most abilities that made stratagems free also let you use that stratagem again. Ahriman simply lets you do a cabal for free, but doesn’t get around the restriction on only using a Cabal once per phase (outside of Lore Of Forbidden Lore).

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Recommended Units

Magnus: Magnus is arguably the single best unit in the entire game. Start your lists with him and then go from there.

Exalted Sorcerers on Disk: Between the incredible ability to control a unit’s movement, mobility, strong flamer, Infantry keyword, and 2 Cabal Points, you’re going to want 2 or 3 Exalted Sorcerers on Disk in every list.

Infernal Masters: One of the best shooting units we have, and an extremely well-priced source of 2 Cabal Points. The key to using Infernal Masters is just ignore their ability to give Sustained Hits to a unit and run all Flamers (with one Soulreaper) on your Rubrics anyway.

Sorcerers: Less valuable now that Indirect Fire continues to be nerfed (thankfully), but I still like having 1 in my lists. They’re one of the best caddies for Lord of Forbidden Lore since they’re the safest Character we have, and their psychic attack actually gets pretty vicious with Rubric Marine rerolls.

Rubric Marines: Rubrics mainly exist to keep our Characters safe and make their shooting better with the unit’s Wound rerolls, but they’re not a bad unit in their own right. You’ll never see me run Rubrics without a Character attached, but that doesn’t mean the datasheet is bad. The “optimal” loadout is probably Warpflamer Pistol, Warpflamers, and Soulreaper, but you can have some variation without feeling too bad.

Cultists: Cultists are sneakily one of the best units in Thousand Sons, especially after their recent points drop. I like having both MSU units to screen and grab objectives early as well as a big brick of 20 Cultists to Scout 6″+Temporal Surge once or twice and trap people in their deployment zone. The ability to generate CP also makes playing Fixed more palatable. They’re also going to be key to winning the Orks matchup.

Magnus: Mentioning Magnus again to reinforce the point.

Tzaangors: Cheap sources of 20 OC that can move way faster than other high OC with Temporal Surge. Goats are also one of the cutest animals out there. What’s not to love?

Tzaangor Enlightened: Cool models but it’s really funny watching them take the long way around walls because they’re Mounted while the power armour Disk Characters are Infantry.

Tzaangor Shaman: Cheap, gives Cabals, can hold the Umbralefic Crystal. Just a very versatile unit. I wish his gun wasn’t absolutely awful, but you take what you can goat.

Chaos Spawn: Spawn are a bit harder to justify now that Cultists went down in points, but they’re fast and durable and can win scraps with other chaff units like Scouts. You also get to flex on every other Chaos army, since Thousand Sons have the only Chaos Spawn with an invulnerable save.

Helbrute: At their new reduced cost, I’m actually kind of into 1 Helbrute to refund Cabal Points and provide a counter charge unit for the late game. My biggest issue with them is the 6″ Move is cripplingly slow, and Thousand Sons like to play very dynamically and you’re not always casting your Cabals from a predictable place. It’s totally fine to run 1 and I’ll try it out again, but I’m not sold on Helbrutes and they’re teetering right on the Recommended/Not Recommended line.

Mutalith Vortex Beasts: Either 0, 1, 2, or 3 Mutaliths can work. Those lists all play very differently (well 2 and 3 Mutaliths play similarly, but yeah). I run 0 Mutaliths personally because I prefer to Doombolt from up close so I can see the fear in their eyes, but bringing 1 Mutalith lets you play a more passive list because you can use 36″ Doombolts and things like Warp Sight to do damage very safely. 2 or 3 Mutaliths is interesting because it gives you real beef on objectives that requires opponents to really commit and dislodge you, but you start running low on Cabals.

Daemon Princes With Wings: These seem like a beatstick, but really one of the more finesse units we have. With their ability to redeploy every turn, they’re perfect for getting unexpected angles for Doombolt. Because they’re your most flexible unit in terms of positioning, they also love getting the Lore of Forbidden Lore enhancement.

Not Recommended Units

Before you read onwards and find a unit you love in the Not Recommended section, please note that these recommendations are in the context of high-level competitive play. Basically all of these units have at least some merit, and are perfectly fine to take to an RTT or practice with your friends.

A Second or Third or Fourth Magnus: I would if I could. It’s a shame this game has rules.

A Fifth Magnus: Now you’re just blatantly cheating. 5 Magnuses doesn’t even fit in a 2000 point list. TO, red card this guy.

Heldrakes: GW just doesn’t want Aircraft to be a thing competitively in 10th Edition. I am totally okay with this.

Land Raiders: Stuffing a lot of stuff in the Land Raider is a great way to ensure you don’t have enough Cabal Points to do what you need to do. It’s also a really funny way to ensure that you lose the mirror match.

Forgefiends and Predators and Vindicators: Here’s where we’re going to get spicy: I actually really, really like Forgefiends and Predators and Vindicators as shooting platforms. But if you want to go down the “big gun platforms” route, you need to really lean into it. Something like 3 Forgefiends, 3 Predators Vindicators, Magnus, Ahriman for a free Twist of Fate, and just become a shooting list that can do 1 or 2 magic tricks a turn rather than a finesse Cabal Points army. And that is a much stronger list than I think most people realize. It’s also not the optimal way to play Thousand Sons at higher levels. I’m going to put these shooting platforms as Not Recommended because I think bringing a medium amount of them is a trap, but don’t be discouraged if you want to run them. It’s not like you’re going to automatically lose every game you ever play if you know the army very well, have 1825 points of optimal stuff, and then stick 1 Vindicator in your list.

Basically, the 3 Forgefiend Thousand Sons list is actually damn good, but I’m going to put them into the Not Recommended section to mess with people who are just skimming and because I think that list archetype is worse than the Oops All Cabal version.

Defilers: Exact same thing as the Forgefiend/Predator/Vindicator section up above, but with a worse priced unit.

Daemon Prince: The Stealth aura has some merit in a beefy list bringing Mutaliths and Forgefiends, but a winged Daemon Prince gives you way more versatility and doesn’t tie your dynamic army to one spot. The Precision part of his datasheet is almost completely useless in practice. He’s not awful, but I’d be hard-pressed to justify him in a list.

Sample List

This list is the result of my own testing and discussion with other great Thousand Sons players like Michael Mann. You do not at all have to copy this list exactly to have success with Thousand Sons, and I’d actually encourage you do try a bunch of different things and see what works for you specifically and your individual playstyle.

• Magnus
• Ahriman on Disk
• Exalted on Disk
• Exalted on Disk
• Infernal Master (Arcane Vortex)
• Infernal Master
• Infernal Master
• Daemon Prince with Wings (Lord of Forbidden Lore)
• Tzaangor Shaman (Umbralefic Crystal)
• 5 Rubric Marines (Warpflamer Pistol, Warpflamers, Soulreaper)
• 5 Rubric Marines (Warpflamer Pistol, Warpflamers, Soulreaper)
• 5 Rubric Marines (Warpflamer Pistol, Warpflamers, Soulreaper)
• 20 Tzaangors
• 3 Tzaangor Enlightened
• 10 Cultists
• 10 Cultists

Closing Thoughts

I love playing Thousand Sons because every game is a new challenge and a chance to grow as a player. With this guide from Warphammer, hopefully you feel more confident running this complicated army. Now get out there and douse the tabletop in warpfire before Tzeentch turns you into a Chaos Spawn.

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