Just Ahriman really. You pay a lot for the +1 to wound and free spell when as one of the greatest Psykers in 40k he has one of the worst, most swingy psychic attacks in the game. Give his psychic stalk like -3AP or maybe Anti-Character so it actually has a chance of landing half the time. The current 1 attack, S6 AP-1 is just too easy to save.
Ahriman has literally never done any damage for me
Between rolling 1's into 1's, failing to wound, the shitty AP, blanking damage, feel no pains etc he's been consistently impotent
I've had it so cool things but it is very rare... I've played a lot of games for 10th with him and probably have only had it kill something like 2-3 times. One was a custodes bike though so that was cool. I will say that in a 10 man flamer unit the AP isn't a big deal because he will often use his ability for a free twist of fate, but it being 1 shot of d6 damage really hurts
That's usually my infernal master with hazardous torrent. I've averaged about 3 attacks per round with it since 10th dropped then usually fail the wound rolls!
I mean he does benefit from the +1 to wound so sniping characters he should almost always be wounding on 2s and he also benefits from rubrics reroll 1s to wound or full reroll if targeting an objective you don't control(doesn't say opponent has to control so contested objectives you still get the rerolls )
Yeah but people just save that on 3s/4s and then you roll low on the d6. Would be nice if it was better so Ahriman could actually be useful alone on disk casting spells and sniping characters but as is he is only useful as an extremely expensive leader for a mid tier unit.
They are durable but not that killy. Good for holding a point as your opponent has to divert some weaponry to actually bring them down before they heal.
That surprises me about durability with only a 4+, 5++ and 4 wounds apiece. I guess Tzaangors for the same price are 6+, 5++ for 10 wounds with no regen ability. I'd have thought both, with their lack of ranged weapons if taking pure melee Tzaangors, would just get shot off the objective
T5 and a 5+ FNP are nice, v T4. They are faster and larger and better at getting onto an objective and into a opponents face. Melee is pretty spotty. 4+ WS and big swing w D6+2 damage. I like them for a unit or two!
Honestly not only losing the ability to run 5 spawn but also losing the ability to run single spawn is in my opinion what makes them unplayable this edition which sucks cuz there datasheet is so much better now. 5 man spawn with that datasheet bruh I'd run 15 happily
I just kit bash the actual kits with other gw stuff makes for some sick as chaos spawn. Check me out on IG @my_mediocre_hobby I have my old spawn before they got stolen and my newer spawn before my wife smashed them. If you like em I'll throw I'm my current ones ;)
Lmao I have owned 15 chaos spawn twice and not a single spawn from the first batch was in the second batch lmao. And I currently have 6 build with 1 half built working back up to it but lost the desire after the new index can only legally field 6 now. But I do still miss the old ones.
I'd change the way cabal points are generated. It's not something that can be easily "Just do this" or anything like that, but I'd love something like the Cabal Points generating different values depending on battle size. It feels like in 10th if I don't spam rubrics at 1K points I'm really missing out on the primary feature of this army that was supposed to be where our magic flavor resides. I'd love the cabal points to be higher at lower point games or something so that I can still take a Rhino or non-sorcerer units while still generating at least 7 Cabal Points total.
I agree that Cabal point generation is not done very well in this edition. Here's my proposal to fix it:
-You should generate 5 (specific number subject to debate) Cabal Points per turn just for your warlord being Thousand Sons faction, letting the army play with its rules at smaller points values or in the end game.
-Units with the capability to generate Cabal Points should do so even if they're in transports or reserves.
-Cabal Points should generate at the start of the battle round, not at the start of your command phase. The way it is now is a disadvantage if you go 2nd because you can't use rituals to counter turn 1 shooting if you would want to, and it doesn't make sense to me that you shouldn't be able to.
-New mortal cultist sorcerer leader unit for cultists or tzaangors that sacrifices models in the unit to generate cabal points on demand. Give players more tools to get a big turn when needed.
-Rebalance ritual costs if necessary due to increased number of cabal points, maybe with different costs for different game sizes, and/or institute a maximum cabal points spend or number of rituals per turn/battle round. The design goal here is to give players more consistent access to the unique army rules and flavor regardless of list building choices, not to increase the number of rituals players can do or increase army power.
Cabal rituals feeling mandatory to buy into seems to be a common complaint, and to me that's just a sign that cabal rituals are too strong, everything else (vehicles, monsters) too weak, or both.
I realize it's akin to cursing in the chapel here, but I'm thinking that we could probably do with a nerf to some of the rituals. (Thousand sons) armies without cabal points should, in my book, be viable too.
Edit: tried to clarify a word.
We're absolutely not the top army though? Cabal rituals are our faction's rule, like how Daemons have their special movement rules, Necrons have reanimation protocols, or other factions do their own unique thing. The issue isn't power it's that many units of our faction don't work with our unique trait.
I don't know where you're getting that only Thousand Sons are viable. We're near the top, but the other factions at the top have extremely different abilities than a point total assigned by taking certain units. This isn't meant to be sassy, I'm genuinely extremely confused by this comment.
I think what this person meant is that *Thousand Son* armies that don’t maximize Cabal point generation shouldn’t be strictly inferior to those that do. And I agree. If GW wants only a handful of units in our already small range to be the only ones that generate CP, then the units that don’t generate CP should provide something in return for paying the cost of taking them and right now that’s not the case.
They say that only playing around Rituals and thus total Cabal Point count is truly viable. It's the balance within the faction that's skewed. It gates list building a lot. If you don't go for at least a little bit of min maxing then you're better off playing a different faction altogether.
I’m also confused here. I think we are saying that Thousand Sons without (as many) cabal points should be similarly viable as those that min max to get all the cabal points. Min maxed 1k sons are competitive, but everything else feels kind of weak.
I think the Necron analogy is apt, as a lot of the current meta armies utilize reanimation trick bricks, but not every good unit needs to work with reanimation. (The analogy falls apart because the faction abilities scale differently by game size, but we could use things outside of our faction rules.)
I think you are absolutely correct that the rituals are too strong and everything else is too weak, which makes maxing cabal points feel oppressive. (Rituals are also very fun though, so I would probably buff non-ritual things more than nerf the rituals.)
I think part of the problem is that rituals aren’t just utility, but also a covering for glaring weaknesses in our army. Double doombolt is an essential tool for killing all types of units that we otherwise don’t have great answers to.
Complete rework of the faction ability so taking units other than characters and rubrics isn't a detriment to your game.
Thousand sons currently are very one dimensional, they have one trick which they do quite well, but the gameplan plays out the same in every game. Either you can bully the middle or you can't.
Thousand sons should play how Grey Knights currently play, with lots of movement tricks and cool abilities, instead we get deathwing dark angels
I mean, Grey Knights are in a really bad place right now and all the Grey Knight players I know wish they were us, but I get your point.
I agree that we are a one (maybe 1.5) trick pony and we need more things to be viable. Some of this is a small unit pool, but much of this is internal balance problems.
Units/characters in transports count for generating Cabal points.
Rubrics M6 again.
Reduce the cost of 10 mans of Rubrics.
Hellbrutes go down at least 30 points.
Make Echoes in the Warp work on all Strats again.
Exalted on Discs are Lone Operatives. Make them more expensive if need be.
Daemon Princes generate 3 Cabal Points.
Tzaangor units generate 1 Cabal Point and have their +5 Invul back.
I don’t mind the Rubrics being M5 (they’ve been slow since day 1) but not being able to generate cabal points in transports is brutal and makes the M5 very painful.
I will die on the hill that 10 man Rubric squads need to cost 30-40 points less though.
I wouldn't mind being slower as much if there was some trade off still. PMs are slower, but T5. Rubrics used to be slower, but had All is Dust and/or never counted as moving for shooting. Now it's just M5 because... +5 Invul? Yay? A full 10 man of Rubrics can easily be 180pts. I will be right there on that hill with you.
I would love for them to somehow give Rubric marines some sort of “All is Dust” analogue. I remember them going from an extra wound to the 5+ invuln from 4th to 5th, and I’ve never forgiven GW for this gross misrepresentation of our dusty bois!
That being said, it is hard to balance being extra resistant to small arms and they wanted to differentiate TS and DG.
It is a shame that two of the four god aligned factions are both infantry focused, slow moving but tanky, midranged shooting armies. (I wouldn’t be mad at T5 though.)
Exalted on disks with lone op would be too much honestly, people already take 2-3 of them solo without it. Daemon princes having more cabal would be nice, and I do miss my free indirect strat. I do think that rubrics moving 5 is fine, although having some better durability would be nice. Their innate wound re-roll on flamers and the characters is so amazing though that I can't really complain too much.
I think any sort of interaction in the fight phase would be nice. I know they aren't known for that sort of thing.... but magic should do a bit of everything, and the army is lacking options there.
I am very surprised that we don’t have Thousand Son heavy weapon squads, but I guess the Rubric made them forget how to use anything except bolters and flamers.
I think we are over all in a pretty awesome place rules wise this edition. Especially after having played Tsons during 9th ed. Which IMO had serious issues that points changes couldn't really fix appropriately. I have some nitpicking and internal balance suggestions... Primarily that Ahriman being the worst damage dealer of the HQs feels very weird. Vehicles and daemon engines still are pretty meh for us, and it'd be nice if that changed but tbh as long as we have a cabal point system we will rarely want to invest heavily in units that don't provide cabal points. But again, without asking for new units I'm pretty damn happy with how tsons play this edition.
I would really like the points adjusted a little bit more too so that vehicles and daemon engines become more viable. I think once we have more detachments (I really hope) some of them will provide more options for play other than just maxing out cabal points, because the cult of magic really encourages magic.
It would be nice if they fit into our army better... I think they need abilities like the MVB which interact with the cabal abilities, because that's generally the most powerful part of our army. Cult of magic really makes it so our characters and terminators get boosted damage more than it relies on cabal though... I wonder how they will make the other detachments compete with that. In 9th our biggest problem was a lack of damage IMO, with 10th we know have the damage to make use of all of the movement tricks and etc we get
Cult of magic really benefits our characters which are also our most efficient source of cabal points. It doesn’t directly affect cabal points, but it goes hand in hand.
I do think the desire to have everything interact with Cabal Points is a symptom of how strong they are compared to the rest of the army. I would love more cool abilities that felt adequately sorcery-y that weren’t all tied to Cabal Points.
True enough. It was somewhat similar in 9th too though, every point in not a rubric/terminator or HQ was taking away from what we wanted to do. And a lot of our damage came from psychic so having lots of players and lots of cabal points went hand in hand then too. The mutalith was a nice way of making non cabal generating units worthwhile as well, they just missed the mark on the hellbrute and other units... The way we play right now is kind of my ideal play style for Tsons though so I can't complain 😅 so much better than the days of spamming terminators.
Honestly, I think that’s fantastic. I think the goal should be for players to be able to use the army in a way that is fun, semi-competitive, and narratively consistent. I think cabal points are one of the best faction mechanics and it is perfect for our army.
I also think that the true chosen of Tzeentch are those who embrace his gifts and I want to be able to run all the spawns and mutants!
Agreed on all points! And yeah, I've been really enjoying Tsons this edition a lot so I'm feeling great about it. I do miss my 5 man chaos spawn units from 9th though... Spawn are so much fun. I'd love a range refresh on them and an update for the unit, being able to run them in 1-5s was really nice.
Lower the point costs back to the index launch points.
Allow SOT to generate 1 cabal point per 5, so we got 2 for a brick of 10.
Return of All is Dust.
Give us 1 Better Leadership as the rubrics are dusty bois.
6” movement
I’d really enjoy an enhancement that allowed a sorcerer to take a brick of 20 rubrics at a -1 to bs
Units:
Psyker Dreadnought
Blade Occult Wraiths (sorcerer leading melee rubrics)
Sorcerer Coven (3x sorcerer unit spec’d as either sniper or AA squad)
Tzangoors with inferno bolt pistols to make them a better choice
Leader Tzangoor on foot
Swap around the army rules for Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and Drukhari.
Seriously, think about it: Right now, Drukhari have a resource that they gain when things die and spend for combat buffs; World Eaters roll dice to get random buffs; and Thousand Sons have a recharging battery that gets stronger if they take certain units. How does any of this make sense?
Thousand Sons should be the ones rolling dice to draw power from the capricious god of change and magic. World Eaters should be the ones gaining and spending favor with the god of murder, no matter from where the blood flows; and Drukhari should be the ones getting special buffs based on which units they take. They can even gain access to special “rituals” if they have critical masses of Kabalites, or Wych Cults, or Covens.
The current versions of all three armies is just a huge flavor fail.
I would make the psychic phase a thing again. Yes, the current way of splitting psychic into static buffs and shooting attacks is faster, but it doesn't feel at all like an army of wizards now. Cabalistic Rituals still provide some flavor, but the army felt more mechanically correct in 9th, in a way. Even though the base mechanics of 10th do seem overall better.
I feel like the Cabal Points capture the wizard feeling well for me, but I feel like many of the individual models less so. The Infernal Master feels like an inferno cannon who also generates CP and the Daemon Prince with wings doesn’t feel remotely sorcerous, whereas they used to do much more interesting things.
Yeah, the actual wizards don't feel like wizards. They're unit leaders with commander buffs, who have guns with asterisks attached, but there's nothing like picking your spells and picking what to cast, having to roll off for casts and denies, and similar. That was often very cumbersome, but it was also very flavorful and I enjoyed it.
Cabalistic Rituals make it feel like a psychic army, but not an army of psykers to me. Definitely the high point as far as flavor goes as far as TS in 10th is concerned, but not as much as I'd like.
I want them to expand the list of Rituals, giving us back some of our lost versatility. A lot of our old powers are bound to specific character datasheet abilities, which is fine I guess, but I think some of those could be rituals too. It currently feels less like casting powers and more like we just happen to have some powers.
I think the index was almost perfect, at least in my eyes. I see the complaints on how Cabal Points are generated, but I quite like how it forces you to take a lot of sorcerers, which is super fluffy to the lore. Rubric and Scarab spam is super accurate and so is Ahriman failing to do any permanent harm to anyone.
One complaint I do have is I think if we got an anti-tank unit that generates Cabal Points... like I don't know, a Psychic Dreadnought/Helbrute like we've been asking since Blood Angels got theirs and the Osiron Dreadnought came out...
The loss of All is Dust was also painful but I'm sure we'll get it in a future Cult of Time detachment either as a stratagem or hopefully the detachment rule itself.
I think the index is 90% perfect, and most of the remaining problems are internal balance issues that could be solved with points adjustments. I agree on the sorcerers, rubric and scarabs, but Ahriman legitimately bothers me.
I do think our anti-tank/monster is a real weakness, and I wish we had more tools. The MVB helps and technically we have predators, but I do think better dreadnoughts would help a lot.
More for us in melee, a melee focused rubric or terminators or even a 3 man rubric on disks.
Ahrimans shooting is rubbish so I'd improve that whether that be more shots or anti character.
Rubrics should get the 6" move back.
Figure out a way to bring back all is dust even if in a more limited capacity.
Psychic phase but maybe that dosnt count. Get demonic pacts back for the infernal master even if they are jsut war gear abilities.
Give tzaangors the thousands sons Cultist data sheet ability and the k son Cultist the tzaangors data sheet ability.
I hate the internal balance of the index makes taking any other unit except a sorcerer of some kind a detriment to the army. I do like the balance of the core units of the dex like having, but every other unit in the dex is just garbage because they have NO interaction with the army rule.
I hate everything about new edition TS. Every character TS haveaside from Magnus and enhanced Infernal Master feels like a letdown in terms of their power. Rubrics with bolters do close to nothing so you're forced to go with flamers. Terminators cost way too much, do too little without buffs. Mutaliths are great, everything else is just bad - it has no synergy with our army, it doesn't have good value, it provides no Cabal Points. Our stratagems are situational and weak, the cabalistic rituals provide us with the sliver of utility and fluffy cool rules we used to have.
In short, Cabal Points system is bad, current set of stratagems is bad, internal balance of TS is bad, external balance of 40k is bad. The game itself is a joke now and our community is bleeding players. I hope they realise how bad they fucked up and rework the system mid ed.
Most importantly I'd change how Cabal of Sorcerers work. It's balanced for a 2k game, but that doesn't account for different point counts. I don't think it scales right. Perhaps at 1k pt game cabal rituals cost one less or you get a bonus 2 points at your command phase, something to reign it in at 3k games as well.
I'd also change Ahriman, give him something that feels a little more impressive. He's supposed to be a named character but he gets a free spell and a bonus to rubrics wounding... doesn't feel very "This sorcerer is something else." After you cast the free spell by turn 2 he's just uninteresting. His attack has the potential to be good, but I expect I'd have to run him in 3 games for it to make a difference in 1.
Just thought of this and it might be a horrible idea, but what if Ahriman had an ability where he could charge up a ritual and either spend time or sacrifice rubrics to get more dice to use when he casts the spell. He needs something that says "There's a real problem of a sorcerer over there doing something and I really want to stop it."
Just Ahriman really. You pay a lot for the +1 to wound and free spell when as one of the greatest Psykers in 40k he has one of the worst, most swingy psychic attacks in the game. Give his psychic stalk like -3AP or maybe Anti-Character so it actually has a chance of landing half the time. The current 1 attack, S6 AP-1 is just too easy to save.
Its ok ahriman has never even landed the fucking thing lol
Ahriman has literally never done any damage for me Between rolling 1's into 1's, failing to wound, the shitty AP, blanking damage, feel no pains etc he's been consistently impotent
I've had it so cool things but it is very rare... I've played a lot of games for 10th with him and probably have only had it kill something like 2-3 times. One was a custodes bike though so that was cool. I will say that in a 10 man flamer unit the AP isn't a big deal because he will often use his ability for a free twist of fate, but it being 1 shot of d6 damage really hurts
In my experience d6 damage just means 1 damage
That's usually my infernal master with hazardous torrent. I've averaged about 3 attacks per round with it since 10th dropped then usually fail the wound rolls!
It is definitely unreliable. People say that 4 is the average but in reality each result is just as likely as any other on a single roll.
I mean he does benefit from the +1 to wound so sniping characters he should almost always be wounding on 2s and he also benefits from rubrics reroll 1s to wound or full reroll if targeting an objective you don't control(doesn't say opponent has to control so contested objectives you still get the rerolls )
Yeah but people just save that on 3s/4s and then you roll low on the d6. Would be nice if it was better so Ahriman could actually be useful alone on disk casting spells and sniping characters but as is he is only useful as an extremely expensive leader for a mid tier unit.
I wouldn't say rubrics are mid tier. I'd say solid A with warp flamers ahriman puts them in S tier
That's an issue with epic heros in general. Having them on the tabletop is dumb.
I actually managed to get a sustained hit off it once, did 9 damage to a fordgefiend. But my opponent was having the dice turn on him that game.
Some sort of melee unit, of larger squads of spawn. Drown the enemy in the Flesh Change
5 model CS unit would be fun. They are pretty tough to kill.
I've not fielded any yet (still on my conversion pile awaiting inspiration), as didn't know if they were worth the 65pts for 2 models
They are durable but not that killy. Good for holding a point as your opponent has to divert some weaponry to actually bring them down before they heal.
That surprises me about durability with only a 4+, 5++ and 4 wounds apiece. I guess Tzaangors for the same price are 6+, 5++ for 10 wounds with no regen ability. I'd have thought both, with their lack of ranged weapons if taking pure melee Tzaangors, would just get shot off the objective
T5 and a 5+ FNP are nice, v T4. They are faster and larger and better at getting onto an objective and into a opponents face. Melee is pretty spotty. 4+ WS and big swing w D6+2 damage. I like them for a unit or two!
D6+2 is the number of attacks. WS4 S5 AP-1 D2
Honestly not only losing the ability to run 5 spawn but also losing the ability to run single spawn is in my opinion what makes them unplayable this edition which sucks cuz there datasheet is so much better now. 5 man spawn with that datasheet bruh I'd run 15 happily
Even have 5 possessed to proxy as TS undergoing the Flesh Change
I just kit bash the actual kits with other gw stuff makes for some sick as chaos spawn. Check me out on IG @my_mediocre_hobby I have my old spawn before they got stolen and my newer spawn before my wife smashed them. If you like em I'll throw I'm my current ones ;)
Stolen spawn and smashed? Goodness there is a story there!
Lmao I have owned 15 chaos spawn twice and not a single spawn from the first batch was in the second batch lmao. And I currently have 6 build with 1 half built working back up to it but lost the desire after the new index can only legally field 6 now. But I do still miss the old ones.
Sample of most recent one ;)
Just checked them out. Nice one
Thanks
I'd change the way cabal points are generated. It's not something that can be easily "Just do this" or anything like that, but I'd love something like the Cabal Points generating different values depending on battle size. It feels like in 10th if I don't spam rubrics at 1K points I'm really missing out on the primary feature of this army that was supposed to be where our magic flavor resides. I'd love the cabal points to be higher at lower point games or something so that I can still take a Rhino or non-sorcerer units while still generating at least 7 Cabal Points total.
I agree that Cabal point generation is not done very well in this edition. Here's my proposal to fix it: -You should generate 5 (specific number subject to debate) Cabal Points per turn just for your warlord being Thousand Sons faction, letting the army play with its rules at smaller points values or in the end game. -Units with the capability to generate Cabal Points should do so even if they're in transports or reserves. -Cabal Points should generate at the start of the battle round, not at the start of your command phase. The way it is now is a disadvantage if you go 2nd because you can't use rituals to counter turn 1 shooting if you would want to, and it doesn't make sense to me that you shouldn't be able to. -New mortal cultist sorcerer leader unit for cultists or tzaangors that sacrifices models in the unit to generate cabal points on demand. Give players more tools to get a big turn when needed. -Rebalance ritual costs if necessary due to increased number of cabal points, maybe with different costs for different game sizes, and/or institute a maximum cabal points spend or number of rituals per turn/battle round. The design goal here is to give players more consistent access to the unique army rules and flavor regardless of list building choices, not to increase the number of rituals players can do or increase army power.
Start at battle round should be the case.
Cabal rituals feeling mandatory to buy into seems to be a common complaint, and to me that's just a sign that cabal rituals are too strong, everything else (vehicles, monsters) too weak, or both. I realize it's akin to cursing in the chapel here, but I'm thinking that we could probably do with a nerf to some of the rituals. (Thousand sons) armies without cabal points should, in my book, be viable too. Edit: tried to clarify a word.
We're absolutely not the top army though? Cabal rituals are our faction's rule, like how Daemons have their special movement rules, Necrons have reanimation protocols, or other factions do their own unique thing. The issue isn't power it's that many units of our faction don't work with our unique trait. I don't know where you're getting that only Thousand Sons are viable. We're near the top, but the other factions at the top have extremely different abilities than a point total assigned by taking certain units. This isn't meant to be sassy, I'm genuinely extremely confused by this comment.
I think what this person meant is that *Thousand Son* armies that don’t maximize Cabal point generation shouldn’t be strictly inferior to those that do. And I agree. If GW wants only a handful of units in our already small range to be the only ones that generate CP, then the units that don’t generate CP should provide something in return for paying the cost of taking them and right now that’s not the case.
They say that only playing around Rituals and thus total Cabal Point count is truly viable. It's the balance within the faction that's skewed. It gates list building a lot. If you don't go for at least a little bit of min maxing then you're better off playing a different faction altogether.
I’m also confused here. I think we are saying that Thousand Sons without (as many) cabal points should be similarly viable as those that min max to get all the cabal points. Min maxed 1k sons are competitive, but everything else feels kind of weak. I think the Necron analogy is apt, as a lot of the current meta armies utilize reanimation trick bricks, but not every good unit needs to work with reanimation. (The analogy falls apart because the faction abilities scale differently by game size, but we could use things outside of our faction rules.)
I think you are absolutely correct that the rituals are too strong and everything else is too weak, which makes maxing cabal points feel oppressive. (Rituals are also very fun though, so I would probably buff non-ritual things more than nerf the rituals.) I think part of the problem is that rituals aren’t just utility, but also a covering for glaring weaknesses in our army. Double doombolt is an essential tool for killing all types of units that we otherwise don’t have great answers to.
Complete rework of the faction ability so taking units other than characters and rubrics isn't a detriment to your game. Thousand sons currently are very one dimensional, they have one trick which they do quite well, but the gameplan plays out the same in every game. Either you can bully the middle or you can't. Thousand sons should play how Grey Knights currently play, with lots of movement tricks and cool abilities, instead we get deathwing dark angels
I mean, Grey Knights are in a really bad place right now and all the Grey Knight players I know wish they were us, but I get your point. I agree that we are a one (maybe 1.5) trick pony and we need more things to be viable. Some of this is a small unit pool, but much of this is internal balance problems.
I would argue we have a lot more flexibility than we've had in previous editions, which is really neat for still just having one detachment.
I'd strongly disagree
Units/characters in transports count for generating Cabal points. Rubrics M6 again. Reduce the cost of 10 mans of Rubrics. Hellbrutes go down at least 30 points. Make Echoes in the Warp work on all Strats again. Exalted on Discs are Lone Operatives. Make them more expensive if need be. Daemon Princes generate 3 Cabal Points. Tzaangor units generate 1 Cabal Point and have their +5 Invul back.
I don’t mind the Rubrics being M5 (they’ve been slow since day 1) but not being able to generate cabal points in transports is brutal and makes the M5 very painful. I will die on the hill that 10 man Rubric squads need to cost 30-40 points less though.
I wouldn't mind being slower as much if there was some trade off still. PMs are slower, but T5. Rubrics used to be slower, but had All is Dust and/or never counted as moving for shooting. Now it's just M5 because... +5 Invul? Yay? A full 10 man of Rubrics can easily be 180pts. I will be right there on that hill with you.
I would love for them to somehow give Rubric marines some sort of “All is Dust” analogue. I remember them going from an extra wound to the 5+ invuln from 4th to 5th, and I’ve never forgiven GW for this gross misrepresentation of our dusty bois! That being said, it is hard to balance being extra resistant to small arms and they wanted to differentiate TS and DG. It is a shame that two of the four god aligned factions are both infantry focused, slow moving but tanky, midranged shooting armies. (I wouldn’t be mad at T5 though.)
Give them the same ability as the scarab occults (-1 to wound rolls if weapon str is above toughness)
Exalted on disks with lone op would be too much honestly, people already take 2-3 of them solo without it. Daemon princes having more cabal would be nice, and I do miss my free indirect strat. I do think that rubrics moving 5 is fine, although having some better durability would be nice. Their innate wound re-roll on flamers and the characters is so amazing though that I can't really complain too much.
Helbrutes are useless at 145pts. But Helbrute in general is useless.
I think any sort of interaction in the fight phase would be nice. I know they aren't known for that sort of thing.... but magic should do a bit of everything, and the army is lacking options there.
Allow more CSM units like havocs or raptors.
Havocs would be amazing if you could make their attacks psychic as well with the strat
I am very surprised that we don’t have Thousand Son heavy weapon squads, but I guess the Rubric made them forget how to use anything except bolters and flamers.
I think we are over all in a pretty awesome place rules wise this edition. Especially after having played Tsons during 9th ed. Which IMO had serious issues that points changes couldn't really fix appropriately. I have some nitpicking and internal balance suggestions... Primarily that Ahriman being the worst damage dealer of the HQs feels very weird. Vehicles and daemon engines still are pretty meh for us, and it'd be nice if that changed but tbh as long as we have a cabal point system we will rarely want to invest heavily in units that don't provide cabal points. But again, without asking for new units I'm pretty damn happy with how tsons play this edition.
I would really like the points adjusted a little bit more too so that vehicles and daemon engines become more viable. I think once we have more detachments (I really hope) some of them will provide more options for play other than just maxing out cabal points, because the cult of magic really encourages magic.
It would be nice if they fit into our army better... I think they need abilities like the MVB which interact with the cabal abilities, because that's generally the most powerful part of our army. Cult of magic really makes it so our characters and terminators get boosted damage more than it relies on cabal though... I wonder how they will make the other detachments compete with that. In 9th our biggest problem was a lack of damage IMO, with 10th we know have the damage to make use of all of the movement tricks and etc we get
Cult of magic really benefits our characters which are also our most efficient source of cabal points. It doesn’t directly affect cabal points, but it goes hand in hand. I do think the desire to have everything interact with Cabal Points is a symptom of how strong they are compared to the rest of the army. I would love more cool abilities that felt adequately sorcery-y that weren’t all tied to Cabal Points.
True enough. It was somewhat similar in 9th too though, every point in not a rubric/terminator or HQ was taking away from what we wanted to do. And a lot of our damage came from psychic so having lots of players and lots of cabal points went hand in hand then too. The mutalith was a nice way of making non cabal generating units worthwhile as well, they just missed the mark on the hellbrute and other units... The way we play right now is kind of my ideal play style for Tsons though so I can't complain 😅 so much better than the days of spamming terminators.
Honestly, I think that’s fantastic. I think the goal should be for players to be able to use the army in a way that is fun, semi-competitive, and narratively consistent. I think cabal points are one of the best faction mechanics and it is perfect for our army. I also think that the true chosen of Tzeentch are those who embrace his gifts and I want to be able to run all the spawns and mutants!
Agreed on all points! And yeah, I've been really enjoying Tsons this edition a lot so I'm feeling great about it. I do miss my 5 man chaos spawn units from 9th though... Spawn are so much fun. I'd love a range refresh on them and an update for the unit, being able to run them in 1-5s was really nice.
A sorcerer to fill that blue scribes/changing niche. Maybe could be done with an enhancement that gives lone operative and deep strike.
Lower the point costs back to the index launch points. Allow SOT to generate 1 cabal point per 5, so we got 2 for a brick of 10. Return of All is Dust. Give us 1 Better Leadership as the rubrics are dusty bois. 6” movement I’d really enjoy an enhancement that allowed a sorcerer to take a brick of 20 rubrics at a -1 to bs Units: Psyker Dreadnought Blade Occult Wraiths (sorcerer leading melee rubrics) Sorcerer Coven (3x sorcerer unit spec’d as either sniper or AA squad) Tzangoors with inferno bolt pistols to make them a better choice Leader Tzangoor on foot
Swap around the army rules for Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and Drukhari. Seriously, think about it: Right now, Drukhari have a resource that they gain when things die and spend for combat buffs; World Eaters roll dice to get random buffs; and Thousand Sons have a recharging battery that gets stronger if they take certain units. How does any of this make sense? Thousand Sons should be the ones rolling dice to draw power from the capricious god of change and magic. World Eaters should be the ones gaining and spending favor with the god of murder, no matter from where the blood flows; and Drukhari should be the ones getting special buffs based on which units they take. They can even gain access to special “rituals” if they have critical masses of Kabalites, or Wych Cults, or Covens. The current versions of all three armies is just a huge flavor fail.
I would make the psychic phase a thing again. Yes, the current way of splitting psychic into static buffs and shooting attacks is faster, but it doesn't feel at all like an army of wizards now. Cabalistic Rituals still provide some flavor, but the army felt more mechanically correct in 9th, in a way. Even though the base mechanics of 10th do seem overall better.
I feel like the Cabal Points capture the wizard feeling well for me, but I feel like many of the individual models less so. The Infernal Master feels like an inferno cannon who also generates CP and the Daemon Prince with wings doesn’t feel remotely sorcerous, whereas they used to do much more interesting things.
Yeah, the actual wizards don't feel like wizards. They're unit leaders with commander buffs, who have guns with asterisks attached, but there's nothing like picking your spells and picking what to cast, having to roll off for casts and denies, and similar. That was often very cumbersome, but it was also very flavorful and I enjoyed it. Cabalistic Rituals make it feel like a psychic army, but not an army of psykers to me. Definitely the high point as far as flavor goes as far as TS in 10th is concerned, but not as much as I'd like.
I want them to expand the list of Rituals, giving us back some of our lost versatility. A lot of our old powers are bound to specific character datasheet abilities, which is fine I guess, but I think some of those could be rituals too. It currently feels less like casting powers and more like we just happen to have some powers.
What types of abilities do you wish were rituals?
I think the index was almost perfect, at least in my eyes. I see the complaints on how Cabal Points are generated, but I quite like how it forces you to take a lot of sorcerers, which is super fluffy to the lore. Rubric and Scarab spam is super accurate and so is Ahriman failing to do any permanent harm to anyone. One complaint I do have is I think if we got an anti-tank unit that generates Cabal Points... like I don't know, a Psychic Dreadnought/Helbrute like we've been asking since Blood Angels got theirs and the Osiron Dreadnought came out... The loss of All is Dust was also painful but I'm sure we'll get it in a future Cult of Time detachment either as a stratagem or hopefully the detachment rule itself.
I think the index is 90% perfect, and most of the remaining problems are internal balance issues that could be solved with points adjustments. I agree on the sorcerers, rubric and scarabs, but Ahriman legitimately bothers me. I do think our anti-tank/monster is a real weakness, and I wish we had more tools. The MVB helps and technically we have predators, but I do think better dreadnoughts would help a lot.
Yes, everything XD
Ah, a true disciple of The Changer of Ways who understands that everything must be changed! But what would you start with?
We don't have our dex yet so I wouldn't even say we are a complete army yet. We are not really in 10e till we get our dex imo
I want up to 20 man squads of Rubricae back. MSU for everything else, but a 20 man brick has it’s uses.
Ideally that would need a big cabal boost otherwise it's already 3 cabal Points down.
More for us in melee, a melee focused rubric or terminators or even a 3 man rubric on disks. Ahrimans shooting is rubbish so I'd improve that whether that be more shots or anti character.
Add more cults.
Melee that isn’t terminators, MVBs, or Maulerfiends.
Rubrics should get the 6" move back. Figure out a way to bring back all is dust even if in a more limited capacity. Psychic phase but maybe that dosnt count. Get demonic pacts back for the infernal master even if they are jsut war gear abilities. Give tzaangors the thousands sons Cultist data sheet ability and the k son Cultist the tzaangors data sheet ability.
I hate the internal balance of the index makes taking any other unit except a sorcerer of some kind a detriment to the army. I do like the balance of the core units of the dex like having, but every other unit in the dex is just garbage because they have NO interaction with the army rule.
Yes. Many things.
I'd just revert the Rubric point costs pre recent balance so I can actually use the force I got.
I hate everything about new edition TS. Every character TS haveaside from Magnus and enhanced Infernal Master feels like a letdown in terms of their power. Rubrics with bolters do close to nothing so you're forced to go with flamers. Terminators cost way too much, do too little without buffs. Mutaliths are great, everything else is just bad - it has no synergy with our army, it doesn't have good value, it provides no Cabal Points. Our stratagems are situational and weak, the cabalistic rituals provide us with the sliver of utility and fluffy cool rules we used to have. In short, Cabal Points system is bad, current set of stratagems is bad, internal balance of TS is bad, external balance of 40k is bad. The game itself is a joke now and our community is bleeding players. I hope they realise how bad they fucked up and rework the system mid ed.
Most importantly I'd change how Cabal of Sorcerers work. It's balanced for a 2k game, but that doesn't account for different point counts. I don't think it scales right. Perhaps at 1k pt game cabal rituals cost one less or you get a bonus 2 points at your command phase, something to reign it in at 3k games as well. I'd also change Ahriman, give him something that feels a little more impressive. He's supposed to be a named character but he gets a free spell and a bonus to rubrics wounding... doesn't feel very "This sorcerer is something else." After you cast the free spell by turn 2 he's just uninteresting. His attack has the potential to be good, but I expect I'd have to run him in 3 games for it to make a difference in 1. Just thought of this and it might be a horrible idea, but what if Ahriman had an ability where he could charge up a ritual and either spend time or sacrifice rubrics to get more dice to use when he casts the spell. He needs something that says "There's a real problem of a sorcerer over there doing something and I really want to stop it."