The Thousand Sons were one of the 20 Legions Astartes who set off across the galaxy as part of The Emperor’s Grand Crusade – However, they were swayed by the sorcerous powers of the Warp and ultimately sided with Horus after destroying The Master of Mankind’s ultimate creation in an effort to warn Him of Horus’ betrayal.

10,000 years later, the Thousand Sons now fight under their Primarch Magnus, ravaged with mutations that have doomed many of their number to nothing but dust.

Codex Thousand Sons and the Warpflame Thrallband Battleforce are both up for pre order today, and in this full review we’ll be checking out the Codex itself and taking a look at everything that has been changed and updated, and we’ll also be unboxing the new Warpflame Thrallband Battleforce box and painting up the Sekhetar Robots to see what they look like in a more traditional Thousand Sons scheme.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending over the new Codex and Battleforce to review on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Thousand Sons goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the Battleforce which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado, let’s check out the new releases starting with the contents of the Thrallband Battleforce.

Warpflame Thrallband Battleforce

Like with the World Eaters and Death Guard, the Thousand Sons also have a Battleforce box that has a number of models packaged together at a discount along with a new kit.

Retailing at £150, this one contains 4 old kits in the form of the Rubric Marines, Scarab Occult Terminators and Exhaulted Sorcerers (These 3 kits alone would retail at £120) but also contains 2 boxes of the new Sekhatar Robots

I think its safe to say that the Sekhetar Robots were a little marmite when they were revealed. A lot of people didnt like the bone colour scheme, and after painting them myself I deffo agree that these look a lot better in a more traditional Thousand Sons colour scheme.

While they have a fairly static pose (Both of the poses above is everything you can do with the exception of pointing the guns in different directions), I reckon you could probably get away with swapping the heads in order to give you 4 different looking robots, but if you have any more than 4 in your army they are going to look similar. To be fair, from a lore point of view these are more like animated statues so these would be fairly static, but it would have been nice to have some spare heads for example to mix them up a bit.

After not immediately loving them in the preview, these have certainly grown on me after building them and painting them myself, and I’m looking forward to painting some more of them.

I reckon you probably save around £30 with the Battleforce, so not a massive discount, but still a nice collection of models and early access to the new kits – plus unlike a lot of previous sets it isnt loaded with piles of Tzaangors!

So without further ado, let’s take a look at the new Thousand Sons Codex!

Thousand Sons Codex Review

So what of the Thousand Sons Codex itself? Well there’s been some pretty big changes here – probably one of the biggest faction changes we’ve seen so far this edition. Previously, the mechanic was that your units generated a number of points that could then be spent on a list of abilities that could be triggered. In the new Codex we actually see something that a lot of people have missed in 10th Edition 40k in the form of proper psychic powers. Just like older editions, the Thousand Sons now have access to a list of 4 different psychic powers that can be cast in the shooting phase – you can cast each of these powers once, and each has to be cast by a different unit with the Cabal of Sorcerers keyword. These work much like they used to, with the caster rolling 2D6 and trying to hit a target number, but now there’s a gambling mechanic where you can add an additional dice to your cast, but if you roll a double or triple then you take D3 mortal wounds. Just a quick note here, its a little unclear if this still applies if you don’t add an additional dice, I think this made need an FAQ as this could swing either way – I feel intent is you only get this if you roll the extra dice.

The powers are all really useful and things that you’re going to want to get off every turn, and each has a boosted effect if you roll high enough.

Destiny’s Ruin allows your units to reroll hits of 1 against a selected target unit, with a boosted version allowing all hits to be rerolled

Temporal Surge allows a unit to move D6 inches, boosted to 6 inches on a 10+ roll

Doombolt deals D3 (or D3+3 if boosted) to a target unit in 12″

Twist of Fate allows you to pick a target unit and cause all your attacks to be +1 AP, and +2 if boosted – The prospect here of AP -3 warpflamers is very exciting and probably worth risking the mortal wounds on your caster.

I love this mechanic and I really hope that all psychic powers come back in this form for the next edition, as I think the passive abilities baked into profiles for 10th Edition lost some of the magic (no pun intended) of psychic powers. Hopefully this is laying the foundations of how psychic powers will work in 11th Edition!

Thousand Sons Detachments

As with all of the new Codexes, a number of new detachments have been added to expand on the one in the Index. This time round we get 5 Detachments, which feels a decent number.

First up we get the Grand Coven, which is a tweaked version of the Cult of Magic from the Index. This works in a similar way, with different abilities to pick from each Command Phase, however these have been tweaked with the options now being an extra 6″ range, +1 to wound or devastating wounds on Psychic Weapons.

There’s some nice enhancements here such as extending the range of your spells, or allowing the caster to cast Doombolt even if another model has already used it. Eldritch Vortex is also a nice option too increasing the Strength and Damage of Psychic weapons, which may be nasty on a Sorcerer on Disk looking to snipe and cause trouble.

The Strats are also pretty cool and thematic here, I particularly like the combo of giving a unit that shoots you Hazardous while also giving your unit a 4+ Feel No Pain for just 1 CP. Likewise, changing the damage of an incoming attack to 0 can be a nice get out of jail free card. Arcane Focus is pretty good too, allowing you to reroll psychic tests (though you have to reroll ALL of the dice, making it a bit of a gamble – but handy if you roll a double on an almost dead model)

Changehost of Deciet follows the pattern seen in the other Chaos Codexes, allowing you to take half of your army out of the Daemon profiles in the back of the book. Both your Daemons and 1k Sons units both get benefits here for being within 6″ of the other. Daemons gain the Cabal of Sorcerers rule, allowing them to cast Psychic powers, and your Thousand Sons Psykers gain a 4+ invulnerable save, making them pretty tough to crack!

Enhancements lean into this with ways of taking units off the battlefield and into strategic reserve, to gain a once per game 2+ invulnerable save, dish out Mortal Wounds to nearby units or add 1 to psychic tests. Most of the strats are pretty defensive with one giving -1 to hit and two others stopping your Thousand Sons from being hit in combat or shot at if there’s an eligible daemon unit nearby. On top of this there’s also some redeployment and reserves shenanigans available too. Really like this detachment, and It’s probably what I’ll be focusing on first.

Warpmeld Pact is your Tzaangor detachment, this makes Tzaangor battleline and increases their OC if not battleshocked, they also get the ability to take D3 mortal wounds in order to make the enemy -1 to wound you or take D3 wounds to get +1 to wound the enemy. This is pretty cool, especially if you have big blocks of Tzaangor to try and chew through. Standout enhancement for me is Diamond of Distortion which also gives a unit -1 to hit, further leaning into this being a force to deal with attrition.

Obviously with this detachment you’ll be burning through Tzaangor, so for 1CP you’re actually able to return D3+1 models a turn and for 1CP you can also give them a 4+ invulnerable save. There’s another really fun strat that makes your slain characters turn into Chaos Spawns too!

Rubricae Phalanx is a pretty good detachment that is similar to the old armour of contempt – if your Rubricae units (Scarab occult and Rubrics) are shot at with a weapon that causes exactly 1 damage then you are able to add 1 to the save roll, essentially giving them a 2+ save. on top of this, one of the enhancements allows you to give 2 units of Rubrics or a single unit of Scarab Occult Infiltrate too, which is very cool! Another enhancement gives your unit +1 to hit, which again might be nice to stick on a shooty unit of Scarab Occult.

Theres some nice strats here too – I particularly like Revenge of the Rubricae, which (despite sounding like the title of a B movie) allows a unit of Rubricae to shoot at a unit that destroys one of your Psyker models with a ranged attack. Infernal Fusilade is nice too, which makes all your bolt weapons S5 and gives them the Psychic keyword.

Finally we have the Warpforged Cabal, which is all about vehicles (The new Sekhetar robots also have the Vehicle keyword). This allows your vehicles to reroll a hit, wound or damage every time they shoot, and if there’s a friendly Psyker nearby you can reroll a hit, wound and damage every time you shoot! I can see this being very powerful, especially with things like the robots. There’s some nice enhancements that lean into this. Warp Syphon allows you to reroll a dice causing doubles or triples from a psychic test at the cost of causing a mortal wound to a nearby vehicle. Perplexing Cloak is really nice too and gives a hero Lone Operative while they are near a vehicle, while Bio-mechanical Mutation allows your hero to heal vehciles each command phase.

This also has some nice strats – in particular Mutate Landscape is used on an objective you control and basically turns it into a minefield – enemy units that move ear it suffer D3 mortal wounds on a 4+, and this persists until they take the objective off you. As you’d expect theres also ways of allowing you to fall out of combat with a vehicle and still shoot and charge, and for 1CP you can reduce the AP of incoming shots by 1.

There’s a really nice mix of different detachments here that all lean into different styles of army. I’m already looking into what combos exist and what fun things can be done while still sticking to the narrative theme of each of them.

Datasheets

So what’s changed in the book? We’ll be taking a look at the big changes in the Datasheets next, I’ll try and flag all the changes, but as ever some smaller ones may slip through – First up, whats gone? Well thankfully not that much! As expected, Cultists are no longer in the Codex, which is to be expected following the other Chaos books. more weirdly, Ahriman can only be taken on his disk – though I suspect this is to encourage the use of the 40k kit rather than the plastic Heresy one. So what’s changed? let’s take a look!

Magnus doesnt get any massive changes unlike his other Daemon Primarch brothers, however we can now cast 2 psychic powers a turn, and gets to add 2 to the dice rolls. Magnus will probably be your main caster trying to get those big boosted abilities off

With the changes to Cabal of Sorcerers, Ahriman has had quite a shift – he now gets +1 to cast powers and can be used to remove 3 units from the board after deployment and but them into reserves, which is nice. He also now has a nice ranged Psychic attack with D6+1 S3 Dam D3 attacks. He can now also join Tzaangor Enlightened too, which is nice to give him a unit to keep up with him.

Sorcerers have had a new profile, they get a new weapon Pandaemonic Delusion which is 6 attacks with sustained hits 3 hitting at S5, and once per battle this can be boosted to 9 attacks at S8 – low AP and damage, but this AP can easily be increases with psychic powers. he also gives the unit Lethal hits, giving you some options. Roll hot and you could be doing 36 hits here!

While Exalted Sorcerers are similar (with only the weapon profile consolidated), the varient on Disk does have some bigger changes. Mainly, they no longer give a 4+ inv save (something the on foot version still does) they instead give semi-stealth, stopping the unit from being shot at from over 18″ away. They can now also join Enlightened.

Both flavours of Daemon Prince see changes, with the foot version giving nearby units +1 to psychic tests each time a model dies (Up to a maximum of +2) while still also granting them stealth. The winged Daemon Prince now gets to reroll hits and wounds against characters, and heals D3 if he manages to kill one. He can also deepstrike outside of 3″ (but is not able to charge) and gains sustained hits D3 on his ranged attack (which now has base 9 attacks)

Sekhetar Robots are the new kids on the block, and they are pretty tasty (Especially with the day 1 points drop putting them at 90 points for 2). They are toughness 6, 4 wound vehicles with a 3+ save and 5+ inv – on top of this they also have infiltrators and stealth. They always come with a Heavy Warpflamer and Hellfyre missiles, and can be given a Pyreflux Meltagun or a power claw with integrated Warpflamer. What’s really nice about these is that they can overwatch for 0CP, making whichever loadout you give them very dangerous. I’m tempted to run a unit of 4 of each option to give a wide assortment of threats to many unit types. Taken in the vehicle detachment with the ability to reroll hits, wounds and damage this makes them very scary.

Rubric Marines get a small tweak, their icon of Flame now ignores cover. Thankfully they can also still be taken in units of 5, something I thought we might see changed in line with the World Eaters.

All of the existing Chaos Space Marine vehicles and deamon engines can still be taken too, including the Hellbrute.

Chaos Spawns have improved, with them now recovering 3 lost wounds in each players command phase, up from D3 previously.

The Tzaangor Shaman can now kill a model in his own unit in exchange for +D3 attacks and Strength on his attacks, which makes him hit a little harder.

Tzaangor Enlightened have now split into two different profiles with different abilities – the Bow armed ones stay the same, but the Spear armed ones now roll a dice for each model when they do a charge with each 4+ dealing a Mortal Wound.

Tzaangors have had a tweak, they now have scout 6″, and if they are ever more than 6″ away from the enemy at the end of the enemy turn they can immediately go into reserves, which is pretty cool – Sadly, they don’t hit as hard now, losing a point of AP on their blades.

The Mutilith Vortex Beast is still surprisingly in the new book, though the Warp Vortex Beam is now AP – 3 rather than -4, however it now gives all Psykers within 6″ +1 to their Psychic tests when they channel the warp.

We also get warscrolls for Kairos, Lord of Change, Flamers, Screamers and Horrors in order for you to take them in the Daemon detachment – thankfully Horrors still split too, so make a great tarpit to bog units down with.

Thousand Sons Combat Patrol

We’ll give a quick shoutout to the new Combat Patrol here as it has a bit of a random mix of units – A Daemon Prince, a unit of Rubric marines, a unit of Enlightened and a Shaman. I’m very surprised we don’t have the new Robots in this box, but i suppose its at least not another box of vanilla Tzaangor! Honestly, I’d try and pick up the Battleforce Box over this.

From a rules point of view it looks fun though, with them still getting access to a cut-down list of psychic powers to cast and some fun objectives revolving around positioning your Rubrics and murdering units near your warlord.

Crusade

Crusade is always one of our favourite parts of Codexes to have a look at, and the Thousand Sons get some fun stuff in here! The main mechanic revolves around the 9 great cults of the Thousand Sons, with your characters being dedicated to one of them when added to your force. Your warlord then uses the learnings of these different Sorcerers in order to gain both Lore points and Arcana points – essentially having a wide selection of units from different cults gives you a bonus to the roll that determines if you gain them.

These points can be given to your warlord or another character, and can be spent to advance them through the ranks of the cult. Early steps need lower amounts of resources in order to increase them, but as they gain levels the amount of knowledge needed increases sharply. It’s worth doing however, as there’s some really cool abilities you can learn by doing this. What’s really cool is that due to the fact that you’re probably going to want all your units to come from different cults, you’re going to end up with characters with different powers and abilities over the course of your campaign. This really leads to the feeling of these all being different individuals who have divined their secrets from different sources.

Like with other Codexes there’s the usual assortment of new Crusade options to give to your units, from battle traits and relics to some cool boons of Tzeentch – but careful with these as if you roll the same result twice then you’ll be turned into a Chaos Spawn!

Summary

So what are my thoughts on the new Thousand Sons Codex? 10th Edition has been an interesting one with some armies being copy and pastes of the index while others have had more substantial changes – here thankfully we see bigger changes that mix up how they play and add some new options. Psychic Powers in particular are a massive win in my books, with the simple act of rolling to cast powers putting a smile on my face. I think this was one of the biggest losses of 10th Edition, and the fact we see if here gives me hope for the future!

The Battleforce box is also a great buy for anyone new to the army, and I kinda wish it was a more permanent fixture as I’d recommend that over the Combat patrol for having all the key foundations you need to put together an Army. The new Robots are also much nicer in the flesh and 100% deserve a more traditional colour scheme!

Codex Thousand Sons and the Warpflame Thrallband are both up for pre order today and released Saturday 31st May

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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