How to Beat Thousand Sons with Space WolvesBeating Thousand Sons with Space Wolves isn't as easy as you might imagine, because amost every model will be carring an AP3 gun of some sort, cutthing through your 3+ Power Armour save like a hot firsbee through butter!
And take make matters worse, once you make it into close combat, your Power Weapons, Power Fists and Rending attacks become weaker thanks to the Thousand Son's 4+ invulnerable save.
So open ground is to be avoided where possible and so are basic weapon shoot outs, because the AP3 Inferno Bolters will beat you every time.
Based on my gaming experience, I'm going to explain how to beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves while explaining what to look out for and how to utilise your units to their best effect.
THOUSAND SONS ARMY STRENGTHS
AP3 Bolters
Thousand Sons exist to lay waste to everything in power armour! AP3 bolters are absolutely devastating against Space Marines of any colour. Even Blood Angels with their Feel No Pain save take an absolute beating when rapid fired by AP3 Inferno Bolts.
Provided the Thousand Sons keep their AP3 Bolters in the next edition of the Chaos Codex, I can see them becoming the Legion of choice in 6th edition when cover saves are lowered to 5+.
4+ Invulnerable Saves
Who needs cover when you have a 4+ invulverable save? Even better, who needs a storm shield in close combat when your entire unit has a 4+ invulnerable save.
So in the past, if you relied on your power weapons and power fists to carve through whole units of Chaos Marines, think again. Now they're only half as effective. This makes Thousand Sons very difficult to wipe out in close combat (although they are Fearless) and the Sorcerer leading them is likely to kill off any Independant Characters with his Force Weapon very quickly too, while being safely hidden in the squad.
Slow & Purposeful
Being able to move and fire at full range with those AP3 Bolters is pretty amazing too. They should move 3-4" on average per turn, but they are likely to be riding around in a Rhino transport. But they can simply disembark and open fire up to 24" away.
So a 12" Rhino move, followed by a 2" disembarkation, 1" to the front of the base and a 24" basic weapons range gives them an effective reach of 39". Owch!
THOUSAND SONS ARMY WEAKNESSES
Slow & Purposeful
The flip side of being Slow & Purposeful is being sloooow. So if a Thousand Sons unit loses their transport and has to slog it forward on foot, they may not advance very quickly. Similarly, if they lose their Sorcerer leading them (most likely due to wound allocation), they only roll 1D6 for their Slow & Purposeful movement instead of the usual 2D6 and pick the highest.
Range
Like most Chaos Space Marine armies, Thousand Sons need to rely on their Heavy Support choices to provide long ranged firepower. Typically these take the form of Obliterators, Defilers or Land Raiders. But overall, this gives them a distinct ranged disadvantage compared to the loyalist Space Marine Chapters.
Sure, Thousand Sons squads have a 'reach' of 39", but their lack of heavy weapons means that they struggle against armies made of numerous lightly armoured vehicles.
Price
A Thousand Sons army is always quite expensive from the basic Thousand Sons themselves to the Sorcerers leading each unit and the Heavy Support choices needed to back them up.
As a result, this kind of army is typically small and easily outnumbered. But against Space Marine armies, the sheer volume of AP3 weaponry more than makes up for this if they are allowed to get into range.
TYPICAL THOUSAND SONS ARMY LISTFew people seem to run Thousand Sons army nowadays, which is surprising considering the number of Space Marine armies out there. So this example is based on James' Thousand Sons list which has mercilessly made short work of Blood Angels, Grey Knights and given me a serious run for my money against my Space Wolves. Remember that the sacred number of Tzeenthc is 9!
Chaos Lord with Temrinator Armour, Daemon Weapon and Mark of Tzeentch
4 Chaos Terminators with Standard of Tzeentch and combi-weapons
Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour
Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour
Thousand Sons Squad:
1 Sorcerer with Bolt of Change and 8 Thousand Sons
Rhino with extra armour
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators
1 Defiler with extra close combat weapons
Thousand Sons Strategy VS Space WolvesBlow up the Space Wolves transports with the Obliterators, then advance with the Thousand Sons effective reach of 39" and wipe out packs of Grey Hunters with AP3 bolters.
Thousand Sons can confidently survive in the open while Space Wolves Cannot.
The Defiler provides long range Battle Cannon support to keep the Space Wolves spread out while being a counter-charge unit against anything that gets too close.
Meanwhile the Obliterators and Chaos Lord leading the Terminators Deep Strike on to the board and Lascannon or mass combi-weapon any key targets into oblivion while holding their own with a 2+ save and invulnerable save.
But the key to success is staying just out of assault range while popping the transports and gunning down any Space Wolves with AP3 weapons before they can get close enough to charge.
Luring Space Wolves out into the open or forcing them to cross open ground in order to fight or win a mission is an equally cruel, but effective method of wiping them out.
Space Wolves Strategy VS Thousand Sons
Get across the board as quickly as possible and start beating face! It really is that simple. Grey Hunters cannot compete in terms of basic weapons fire, so they absolutely have to get into close combat.
However, the Space Wolves are certain to take a lot of casualties, so any transport based assault needs to be focussed on a particular point in the Thousand Sons battle line.
Meanwhile the Long Fangs will focus fire on enemy transports to limit mobility and stop any Thousand Sons squads evading your armoured spearhead of Rhinos.
Long Fangs are also ideal for taking out Defilers and other units which can pose problems for your Grey Hunters in close combat or wipe out clustered troops with Ordnance blasts.
Space Wolf players will also be trying their best to ensure that close combats are resolved during the Thousand Sons player turn. This way the Grey Hunter packs can move from combat to combat or jump back into their transports or cover and better avoid another round of fire from the Thousand Sons army and all those AP3 Inferno Bolters.
CONCLUSIONIn order to beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves you need to get across the board and into close combat as quickly as possible, then turn the game into one huge punch-up!
Despite their lack of popularity, right now Thousand Sons are a very good anti-Marine army thanks to all those AP3 Inferno Bolters. Once you break cover to close with the enemy, they are going to gun you down in short order. So expect to take heavy casualties.
But be sure to focus your firepower and your advances in order to annihilate one key threat at a time while allowing your Grey Hunters to leap from combat to combat. If your Space Wolves are exposed to concentrated Thousand Sons firepower out of cover, they will die in droves. So get stuck into close combat in order to stay safe.
Many marine players are taken by surprised when they first face Thousand Sons. So I would recommend play testing a game against them to understand how they work.
15 comments:
March 19, 2012 at 9:06 AM
Love anti-tactica articles!
Great job!!!
March 19, 2012 at 10:34 AM
One big tactic chaos players use in conjunction with thousand sons is a Slannesh daemon prince with the lash.
They pull you out the cover, then blow you away with inferno bolts.
It happened to me once and that was in their first turn. Absolutely no countering that whatsoever back then. (it was before the spacewolves got their latest codex)
Despite how out dated the chaos codex is, they still have some of the cheesiest options.
March 19, 2012 at 4:59 PM
^^^ This. Truth.
March 19, 2012 at 6:51 PM
Not a bad article. However, the reason i'm not surprised at all to not see many TS armies is because Grey Knights kinda neuter a lot of their strengths. What with cover being so easy to get, you can just throw up shrouding, and bam, you have a 3+ save again.
March 19, 2012 at 7:46 PM
How to beat thousand sons. Really? One of the easiets armies to beat ever..... They have few models, and their anti tank is so bad it is just sad. A couple obliterators, and the odd bolt, that is it.
I dunno how you can claim that they are a good anti marine army when they struggle with just opening the tin cans.
Can you please explain to me in detail, why should I even be remotely scared of thousand sons?
March 19, 2012 at 11:50 PM
Tossidin,
I certainly see your points, but not every article is written in a way that will leave every single reader thinking "ah hah! so that's the sound of one hand clapping!"
We have, hopefully, everyone from dudes with fangs so long they protrude from their closed months, to the greenest of greenhorns reading this site.
And guys who mightn't have ever played against C:CSM before.
etc.
Just because the article wasn't good for you, doesn't mean it wasn't good for some readers ;)
Much like how not every painting article needs to be aimed at Golden Daemon standard painters. etc.
If that makes sense?
March 20, 2012 at 4:40 AM
Tossidin makes a fair point in that for the 1K sons, their anti-tank/transport is practically non-existent, and their reliance on other 'aut-includes' to provide for this (oblits, defilers, land raiders, etc) is definitely a weakness that can be exploited.
Also Ranulf makes the point that one should expect a 1K player to have considered the Lash + Inferno bolt combo, which can be lethal. Thing to remember is Lash can only affect non-vehicle enemy units, so keep your puppies in their transports for as long as possible if you can!
I too will be facing off against the 1Ks in a game tomorrow night myself for the first time ever, so I've found your article very useful! Keep up the good work.
March 20, 2012 at 12:04 PM
@Adam: how about the 24" inch shooting after disembarking? They count as having moved, so shouldn't that be 12"?
Nice article btw!
March 20, 2012 at 10:03 PM
They have Slow and Purposeful, which means they are relentless.
March 20, 2012 at 11:20 PM
Thousand Sons can always shoot 24 inches even on the move or move and rapid fire at 12
March 21, 2012 at 4:28 AM
@Unknown: ty!
March 21, 2012 at 9:33 AM
@Marshall:
I know wery well that you have a varied audience that may get something out of an anti 1k sons post. I wouldn't have jumped so hard onto it either if it were not for me thinking that the article doesn't provide us with good info on how to beat them. you stated that we should get into close combat with them, which I think is inherently wrong.
Look at it this way:
They have, nearly 0 anti tank. shoot their anti tank (oblits), and they are forced to advance on you. You have 15 long fangs, some las/plas razors and a wery good amaunt of grey hunters. How are 3 squads of 1k sons, only supported by a foot termi squad (hello las/plas) going to kill it? Cause if they come out of their rhinos, they are dead. they are nothing more than marines in cover. you can actually win the rapid fire war against them.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't get into CC with them, but it doesn't need to be your main goal, cause you don't really need to. It is a tool for when they get close, nothing more.
I dunno, I may have been too harsh in my first post, but maybe you understand my reaction now :)
March 21, 2012 at 5:05 PM
Tossidin;
I see your point :)
I guess the more I look at people's army lists, and their reasons for playing 40K, I understand that not all of them love the thrill of a tough game, which comes from competitive lists.
Some dudes are down with fluffiness, or haven't the cash for 15 Missile Fangs, or LasplasBacks, etc.
So dudes running Blood Claws, or Foot lists, or Sky Claws, etc. still would like to know some of the ins and outs of their opponent, and don't have a strong list [because of dollars or philosophy or lack of list fu] to simply gun down a Thousand Sons army.
Whilst they mightn't get that buzz from playing a hardcore list, they still want some clue about what they're doing.
Thoughts?
March 21, 2012 at 6:28 PM
Of course, people who run "not optimal lists" would still likt to know how to win. I agree, but you concluded with
"In order to beat Thousand Sons with Space Wolves you need to get across the board and into close combat as quickly as possible, then turn the game into one huge punch-up!"
When this is wrong for so many of the space wolves list, I react. That people may run swiftvlaws, skyclaws and all the other "non optimal" choises, that may force them into assault, is not something to base your article on.
Also, learn to use your hunterkillers in bolter arms if you dont want to spend way too much on launchers ;)
April 23, 2012 at 2:56 PM
Fenrisian Wolves would make a great choice against the Thousand Sons! You can get 45 Wolves for 360 pts. They move really fast and can tie up the Thousand Son troops marines long enough for your Grey Hunters or Blood Claws to get up close. And who cares if your wolves have no armor, since against T-Sons, your marines don't either.
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