[The Wraithlord]

Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes are also scoring units now.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Here's why Thousand Sons are 23 points apiece. Against a solid 80% of the weapons in the game, your 4+ invulnerable save counts for a whole lot of nothing. AP3 is just as good as AP5 against quite a few things as well-- only against Space Marines are the Inferno Bolts valuable, and while there are still a disproportionate number of Space Marines running around tabletops, there are a drastically increasing number of Imperial Guard and Tau players.

Also, Thousand Sons are tactically inflexible, which makes them far less useful in a tournament setting particularly than their entry in the Codex would otherwise suggest. The sorcerer's inability to take any equipment is, to put it mildly, removing one of the squad's testicles, and giving them such specialized abilities (basically, Space Marine hunters) at the expense of tactical flexibility means that if there's nothing for them to specifically go after, they're not really doing anything useful for you, and they're a lot of points to be effectively a dead weight.

I have to disagree with you here my friend. While they may not be as tactically flexible as some of the other cults, Tsons are still incredibly hard to kill thanks to that 4+ save vs most marine killer weapons (plasma, etc). And they are just as effective vs Tau as marines as Tau have a 4+ save vs normal bolters. Don't forget that the 4+ save applies to things like rending claws, power weapons, monstrous creature hits, etc. This is an incredibly huge advantage.

Add to that the fact that the sorcerer can cast 2 powers a turn or 1 and still use the force weapon and you have a character/MC killer without peer. Even vs a Toughness 7 Carnifex you only need to roll a single 6 to wound which is easier than you might think with the Warptime power. Pass a LD10 psychic test and that 5 Wound MC is a pile of rotten chitin. If you aren't a purist fluff nut, taking a Slaanesh sorc with the Lash power increases this advantage even more as you can theoretically pull enemy units into rapid fire range, vastly increasing the amount of damage you are doing vs an enemy unit. Then because of the S&P rule, you can also charge in afterwards. I have had several games using a nearly all Tzeentch marked and Thousand Son list (1 Slaanesh sorc is the exception) and haven't lost a game yet. One game was against a min/maxed marine list with all 5man las/plas squads and I won it hands down thanks to the Sons incredibly potent hitting power. And even vs thing like Nids who couldn't care less about the AP3 bolters, the ability to fire a full 24" while moving is not to be disregarded.

Another good example was a game I had vs Nids with several MC's in it. I had one unit of 10 Tsons get charged but a Tyrant with 3 guards and a T7 Carnifex. Under the current codex, my sons would have died horribly and quickly from the MC attacks which ignore armour. However, between said 4+ save and the force weapon I won the combat in 3 turns.

Tsons have a great deal to offer now I think.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Better than the 300+ from Forgeworld.....

 

[The Wraithlord]

They can take wings, a bike, a daemonic steed, all marks but Khorne, plasma pistol, meltabombs, familiar, personal icon, terminator armour and a combiweapon (if in term armour). If you are just referring to the close combat weapon itself, then yes they can only take a force weapon.

 

[The Wraithlord]

I'm interested in getting back into Warhammer 40k and was going to start a word bearers army since they have such a dynamic amount models to choose from (was gonna convert huron into my dark apostle) but now it seems they will be useless. Is Thousand sons the way to go now?

It all depends on what you want. If you want to go with Word Bearers, then do so. A lot of people are hopping on the Tson bandwagon (to the disgust of us longtime Tson fanatics) because of the 4+ inv save and the AP3 bolters, thinking that the army will just rip through everything. The truth is that the Tsons are EXPENSIVE and if you go with them you are going to be massively outnumbered just like before. You can probably put down almost double the marines if you are just giving them the Icon of Chaos Glory.

The new codex allows for a varied playstyle and armylist due to the amount of decent, worthwhile units in it, unlike before. Don't search the net for 'the way to go'. Decide what units and abilities you like and go from there.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Sure they will will work, they are CSM's after all. It is still more than possibly to do a daemonbomb style list with the codex if that is what you are looking for.


And no, you don't have to have units of all the different gods to work. My chaos list is primarily Tzeentch with a single exception and it works just fine.