Lessons Learned from GTA Meta

Imp Guard, Imp Guard, Marines, Imp Guard, Necrons, Chaos, with incoming Dark Angels.....wow lots of MEQ and MECH....

Well I have taken a hard look at my list and come up with a single loophole, tank busting. I knew it was there, but no quite like I imagined. See I have tank busting in the list, three drakes can do a lot vector striking and a S6 template is no slouch. I also have the Flying Prince and obliterators. Thing is ALL of that isnt on the table turn one. NONE. I have exactly ZERO tank busting for a whole turn minimum and when the stuff does come it is piecemeal...a little at a time normally.

Well the fix was two-fold. First I changed a single drake to the Hades Autocannon. That adds 4 s8 shots a turn, but doesn't address timing. I sat with my codex in my lap ALL day Sunday and thought about what I could do without changing too much. I thought about the cost/benefit ratio of all of my allied units, and my HQ choice. I had to factor in the following issues:

1. Point cost. I only have so much to spend in a point tight list
2. Tank busting ability. MUST kill tanks on turn one so drakes can focus on infantry
3. Scoring units. These units must take this into account either from being scoring themselves, or leave points to do this elsewhere in the list
4. Fluff. It's important to me that these units fit the story of the fall of the Thousand Sons to Tzeentch's influence

Well after all of that I ended up with a surprising turn....for me at least. I chose to take marines that are NOT Thousand Sons in a pure Sons list. (who woulda thunk it?) The new list looks like this, and reflects the non psychic tactical marines present in the legion at the time of the fall of Prospero.

Ka'Nihek, sorceror, marked Tzeentch, lvl 3 mastery, sigil of corruption
3x 9 Thousand sons
2x 10 Chaos Marines, flamer and lascannon (this is the non Psychic marines)
2x Heldrakes with Baleflamer
Heldrake with Hades Autocannon
2 obliterators
Scaraba Occult 3 Tzeentch terminators with 3 combi meltas and chainfist

The list allows 5 scoring units on the table to start. This allows 2 lascannons on turn one that can objective camp and kill a transport or two. Later as reserves arrive I use the obliterators and Terminators to pop high priority ground targets and draw attention from the infantry. The thousand sons work their way to midfield and hide near an objective until turn 5 then camp and hopefully score at the end.

I know there are a lot of people on the net that say the Sons don't do this well, and are over costed. I have to say I dis-agree. As a long time Sons player I see them as better now than ever, with a lot of (albeit random) utility in the sorcerer we no longer have to pay extra for. I for one seem to be proving that despite a fairly even win/Loss record ALL of my opponents sweat my lists and I give them a challenge every game. I intend to stay with this version of the list for a while to see how I do with it. As my skill improves I hope the record gets a bit more tilted to the win category. In the meantime, I'm having fun with the list, and that is more important to me than the over all record. I think that trumps "Teh Interweb's" opinion any day.