So, to start this off, I am a fanatical Thousand Sons player. I love everything about that legion. FFG, THANK YOU for coming out with rules to play a sorceror of that legion! I actually squeeked like a little girl at a Justin Bieber concert when I saw that exerp!

Personally, I''''m really in two minds about that preview. On the one thing, I think they''''ve completely nailed what a Thousand Sons PC should be in game terms, from a background perspective and it is a good compromise between their implied age (hailing from the Scouring at a minimum).

On the other hand, when you look at the starting careers in Black Crusade, it is an absolutely massive leap in power levels. In every possible way, The Thousand Sons Sorceror beats the generic Chaos Space Marine Sorceror into a pulp in terms of crunch. While admittedly, the latter does have the option of eventually taking Exalted Powers, Tzeentch powers are not to be sniffed at and this advantage (if it is an advantage) only would manifest itself late in the campaign if at all.

Without reading the whole book (there might be a chance that the Thousand Son career along with other new careers comes with a blanket set of penalties, such as less starting xp, no selection of passions, possibly starting derangements), it''''s best to withhold final judgement, but I had hoped that PC power creep was something FFG was moving away from (it''''s particularly noticable in Deathwatch with each supplement adding new abilities, which when combined with the old ones make it very easy to build characters capable of feats well beyond what even a Brother of the Snake style Space Marine should be capable of).

Im just happy that Biomancy and Pyromancy are in. I''m planning on using the Black Crusade psyker system in Dark Heresy by changing the advance scheme and I was struggling to write those powers myself.

Kaihlik

That''swhat I thought.
I would most certainly not give them any additional XP or bumb the other pc''s a thousand xp:P

I didn't like it at all to be honest. I felt that it was far, far to narrow to be an archetype and if someone wanted to play a Thousand Son there's already the Sorcerer archetype available for use. I hope the other Archetypes will be wider in scope.

I'm confused by it as well. Why would to make a starting class that not only overlaps with one that already exists, but is obviously superior? Inferno Bolts? +5 WP and Fel? +9 Infamy? Unnatural WP +2? WTF?

It's because they're meant to be better. Sometimes something is more powerful not by accident but by design.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Exactly.

The Thousand Sons were THE experts on all things sorcery pre-heresy. They were a driving force behind the development of the librariums within the legions and were the only legion to openly practice and use sorcery in combat. Combine their access to knowledge that no one else had, the most powerful psyker in the galaxy after the Emperor as a Primarch, and the fact that the majority of the legion were psykers as well as sorcerers, they should be scary good at what they do.

Gurkhal said:

As do I.

Early on, when the book was announced, I posited that Legion Archetypes would be too specific in their own way ("why can't I play an Alpha Legionaire AND a Champion?"). Though if any Legion was going to be made in to an Archetype, the Thousand Sons would really be the best choice, since It's an either-or situation with them. If you're not a Sorcerer, you're a suit of armour full of ashes and daemon-farts. One could also Argue that World Eaters all generally fall under a single Archetype too. But I don't think all of the traitor Legions could be made so specific.

Blood Pact said:

I think you have alot of points. The main problem I see if all the Cult-Legions get their own Archetype in the coming books that could be sad although I'm pretty sure that we'll be seeing Berzerkers, Plague Marines and Noise Marines. As long as these don't get tied to a specific legion in the way that the Thousand Son Archetype is they should however be managable and I most certainly hope there won't be an Archetype for every Traitor Legion. If it does I will cry a river.

I counted xp difference, based on allied xp cost, and Thousand suns has about 3k - 4k (if counting unnatural wp) xp more than normal sorcerer. That would make him almost as good as DW marines. Plus 1000 starting xp, and he's got the same amount as DW.

Does anyone know wether or not you have to always be Tzeentch aligned, because i couldn't find anything about it in the Skills/talents/traits section.

I suppose it should be possible for a a Thousand Son to seek to break alignment, I mean for sure there are probably one or two of them who considers the deal dealt to them by Tzeentch as pretty bad and wanting to change to a new deity. And since it only states that the character starts as aligned to Tzeentch I suppose that its free to turn it around.

H.B.M.C. said:

That doesn't make it a good thing. Is every book for each god going to be like this one? With archetypes that totally outshine everything in the core book? I don't see the point in the core book if that is the case.

I am wondering if several of the benefits are due to the mark of Tzeentch. one more psy rating unnatural willpower 2 and soul binding effects seem like the archtype could easily start with the mark. they even have enough corruption to get one roll on the charts.

Lateral and detailed expansions on the theme are fine, but expotential power creeps in every book are bad because it turns it into some sort of horseshit, power-up way of selling merchandise where everything has to be bigger than the last. Palladium taught us that many years ago by turning relatively manageable settings into things that make GM's want to stab PC's and game designers with a biro. Don't care if its the ducks nuts of 40K sorcerers and matches up with all the fluff ever written about them, a game breaker is still what it is.

DJSunhammer said:

I imagine it's also only usable by characters starting with 3000 more xp - at least, that's what the higher starting Infamy and Corruption values suggest (because +9 Infamy and +15 corruption is exactly the amount suggested for starting with an additional 3,000xp). By that token, it looks like you're exchanging some early flexibility for some otherwise unavailable abilities set towards a specific concept.

it has around 3000xp more than sorcerer archeotype, but there is also +5 Fel, Unnatural Willpower and Rubric of Ahriman.
Still the heretek that was put as an example of +3000xp character had infused daemon flesh so meaby it's how it should be.

PS. I don't temember where are the rules for +3000xp; I know I've seen them but I don't know where. Any help?

When I counted how much xp the thousand son sorcerer got over the basic sorcerer I amounted to 3800 xp plus Rubric of Ahriman (Unnatural Willpower (+2) and extra Perils dice roll) which I couldn't estimate a cost for.

The obvious drawback, as some have said before me, not being able to get khorne or nurgle advances at allied cost anymore.

Black box on page 47 you're looking for, ShadowRay.

BrotharTearer said:

That is only a real drawback if you cant change alignment.

Bassemandrh said:

Yes, but it's still a drawback as you'd have to become unaligned (which costs allied/opposed xp) to get those cheaper Khorne or Nurgle advances, and also losing access to Tzeentch psychic powers while unaligned. Then it might be a while until you're aligned with Tzeentch again depending on if you've got enough advances to become aligned at a corruption threshold.

I might be going out on a limb here, but if you're concerned about Khornate/Nurgle advances when playing a character that should be steadfastly Tzeentchian - so much so that you're trying to get back to unaligned - then you're doing something wrong.

BYE

I gotta say I agree with the above comment by H.B.M.C.

Yes, and that's how the Thousand Sons Sorcerer gets penalized (as far as we know) - which some would argue is enough to justify it. For example, the staple OP melee sorcerer with Warptime and Lightning Attack becomes quite more expensive compared to someone not aligned to Tzeentch from the get go.

If the Tzeentch character has to do melee you have a lot more to worry about then just spending an extra carp load on feats.