Hello escapees of the wastelands of the internet Forum, SaltyJohn here from TFG Radio to bring you a break down of Magnus the Red, Daemon Primarch of the Thousand Sons. For more reviews, bat reps, tactics discussions, and analysis check out the Tactics Corner!
Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Emperor’s 15th Legion, a psyker of such magnificent power he is second only to the Emperor himself; a psyker of such immense power that while he can feel the presence of the Sisters of Silence they’re pariah abilities have no effect on his power to manifest the energies of the warp and bend them to his will. As a Primarch, Magnus was formidable enough; in the 41st millennium as the chosen scion of Tzeentch, twisted and made great with the power of the warp into a Daemon Primarch he is truly a terrible force to behold. With massive wings and a form swollen with the powers of Chaos he can lay waste to entire swathes of the armies of the Emperor with his mind, let alone the devastation he sows with his weapons as he falls upon the adherents to the cadaverous false Emperors will. But does Daemon Primarch Magnus live up to his fluff hype on the table top?
At 650 points Magnus is a hefty unit to take. For those 650 points you do get one burly psyker with a plethora of Special Rules and a decent stat line: WS7 BS7 S8 T7 W7 I7 A6 Ld10 Sv4+
- Flying Monstrous Creature
- Adamantium Will
- Daemon of Tzeentch- Re-roll failed saves of 1.
- Deep Strike
- Eternal Warrior
- Fearless
- It Will Not Die
- Psyker level 5
- Veterans of the Long War
- Omniscient Eye- Has line of sight to every unit on the battlefield for his psychic powers.
- Unearthly Power- Harnesses Warp Charges on a 2+
- Lord of Flux Warlord Trait- Enemies within 12″ treat all terrain, even open ground, as difficult terrain. Any unit that runs, flat outs, turbo boosts, or charges within 12″ takes a dangerous terrain test.
- Blade of Magnus- S User, AP2, Melee, Force, Soul Blaze, Transmogrify (Any roll of 6 to wound that kills a model creates a Chaos Spawn).
- Crown of the Crimson King- 4++ save, Magnus never suffers from Perils of the Warp.
- Gaze of Magnus- Warp Charge 5. Beam 18″ Strength D, AP1, Assault 1.
- Knows all the powers from the Tzeentch and Change tables.
So Magnus is a beast. With all these special rules and the ability to harness Warp Charges on a 2+ you’d think he would be nigh unstoppable. The problem is the Armor/Invul save and lack of Feel No Pain. Don’t get me wrong Magnus is a great unit, especially if you use him correctly. The ability to shoot his psychic powers wherever he wants on the board regardless of LoS is a big benefit to him, especially as he’s flying around. That brings us to a big bonus, he flies! There are very few lists, outside skew lists and the random Battle Company build, that bring much in terms of anti-air these days. The biggest key to Magnus is running him in an effective manner. At 650 points you can’t just shoe horn him into any old list. The list has to be built around taking him. Unfortunately there are a few specific ways you can run Magnus.
Pros: Powerful psychic phase. If you take him with something that can summon Pink Horrors you can effectively rule the entire Psychic Phase and always have enough dice to insure you can shoot any powers you may want of the 5 he can cast. Hard to hit, as a flying monstrous creature he is a difficult target to hit for most armies. His close combat prowess is formidable. I don’t suggest sending him to try and cleave through something with Close Combat D weapons but anything else he should cleave through easily enough. Plus he can make you Spawn with his CC kills!
Cons: Fragile. I know, but T7 with only a 4++ and no FNP is a fragile unit. He can’t roll to get the re-roll to saves power and he only re-rolls failed saves of a 1. There is a lot of S6+ shooting in 40k these days, especially of the Twin-linked, and/or Shred variety. He dies fast once you start getting the hits on him, especially in later rounds. Expensive, at 650 points he really needed to be a tougher unit with maybe some less effective psychic phase shenanigans or have his current rules but at 400 points.
There are certainly ways to mitigate most of these problems, as we’ll discuss below.
Magnus can be taken in any Thousand Sons CAD as a Lord of War. Not a bad way to run him. If you want to run actual Thousand Sons marines with Magnus this is probably your only hope. The formations that use Magnus and/or Thousand Sons are just too expensive and restrictive. In fact most ways you see Magnus being put in lists around the internet and in stores is with a CAD of some sort attached. Normally Daemons.
A crazy, but fun, list using Magnus in a CSM CAD:
- Magnus, LoW
- 1k Sons Exalted Sorcerer
- 2x 10 Rubric Marine units with 2 Cannons in each
- 20 CSMs with MoT and VotLW, 2 meltaguns
It isn’t a great tournament winning list but if you’re looking to have Magnus lead the Thousand Sons into battle in a standard, 1850 point, game of 40k this is likely your best bet. There are several formations Magnus can be taken in. The Sekhment Conclave can be composed of Magnus and 3-9 units of Scarab Occult Terminators. Unfortunately Scarab Occult Terminators are 250 points per 5 and only 1 wound each. Magnus plus 4 minimum squads with no upgrades would clock in at 1650 points…
A popular way to take Magnus, and still be able to field something else, is the Rehati War Sect. The Rehati War Sect is Magnus plus 3-9 Daemon Princes or Exalted Sorcerers. I ran a version of this with Magnus and 3 Sorcerers on Discs in my most recent battle report for TFG Radio. Usually the Rehati War Sect that uses Sorcerers will be run with a bare bones Daemons CAD featuring Heralds of Tzeentch and Pink Horrors. In this list you want to roll on the Malefic table until you get Cursed Earth. This way you can get Magnus down to a 2++ save re-rolling 1s. This is far and away the best way to run Magnus if you’re committed to doing so. Another iteration of the War Sect that is popular is Magnus plus 3-4 Daemon Princes with wings. If you take 4 that’s your list. If you take 3 you have room for a small Allied Daemon detachment. With the Flying DPs you’ll be abusing the fact you can fly around casting a ton of psychic powers a turn. Hopefully you get Cursed Earth and a few Summoning powers, plus maybe Endurance so you can get Magnus a 2++ re-rolling 1s save and a 4+ Feel No Pain! Even without Cursed Earth, he can still “Bless” himself for a 3++ re-rolling 1s so not too shabby either. It is a list that would be dependent on going first more than any other list I can think of. Planning for the potential seize, or running into Coteaz, would be of utmost importance for this list.
An important aspect of this list that I forgot to include in the original draft of this article is Magnus’ ability to summon Burning Chariots. Summoning 5 Chariots over the course of the game is meta breaking for a few lists. Notably Eldar jet-bike spam and Battle Company. If you combine Magnus’ ability to reliably pop transports, thanks to his Psychic phase dominance, with his ability to summon Chariots of Tzeench with their AP3 shots you get a great Battle Company counter.
All things considered Magnus is an amazing model and a powerful, if a bit over costed, unit. The addition of Daemon Primarchs into 40k is most welcome and with a small points adjustment I think the future Primarchs that might be released by GW for 40k could be potentially great additions into the game. If you’re going to run Magnus the Red just be sure to take him in a list that can get him Cursed Earth. If you can, and you can keep it up most of the game you’ll be doing quite well against your opponents! Good luck out there Thousand Sons!
As always, share your thoughts in the comments section! And remember, Frontline Gaming sells Games Workshop product at up to 25% off, every day.
Fine review but you forgot that Magnus can easily access a 3++ save (reroll 1) on his own without cursed earth as long as he is in a TS list. He’s not that fragile.
As long as he has a Blessing up he’s pretty tough, but it’s very possible for you to simply be going second, get Seized on, or just fail his Blessings for the turn and end up with a much less impressive 4++. He’s tough, but not as tough as many people will expect for 650pts and he can actually go down quite quick to concentrated fire, so the key is often gonna be keeping him in the air where he isn’t such an easy target.
Getting seized on sucks no matter what, but failing his blessings turn 1 isn’t all that with two WC1 options for it: Force and Siphon.
It’s hardly impossible, but presuming that the rest of your psykers rolled up some blessings you’re not completely SOL if that happens. You throw ~2 dice at Siphon and your odds of failing it are really low- then throw another 1-2 at Force (depending on what other powers you have/need) and your chances of failing that as well are getting fairly astronomical. And then to fail the spells off your other 1-3 Sorcerers/Heralds? It really shouldn’t happen.
Yes, this is true. Especially since you’d most likely have him cast Siphon on himself.
Did you seriously suggest 400 points for Magnus with his current rules? That’s as criminally undercosted as a Wraithknight!
Yeah, I’m all for a bit of a points drop given he’s just a really good psyker that is susceptible to getting wrecked if he doesn’t have a blessing up… but 400 points would be insane. Maybe 600 or 575 but nothing lower.
You could always bring an Allied daemon detachment with a herald + grimoire and give him a 2++ from that as well (assuming you don’t fail which would not be good).
I did. The Wraithknight is the bench mark. Why should Eldar be the only army that gets access to really good units at a great price?
I’m sorry but it’s not ‘a great price’, it’s ‘a price that is almost universally agreed to be comically low’ and, as the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. Magnus @ 400 points would be an auto-include in pretty much any army.
Auto-include. Like a Wraitknight? Like free transports in a Battle Company?
Precedent is precedent, and a precedent has been set.
But those are bad precedents that shouldn’t be followed. The solution to power creep and broken units is not “well, then let’s make the next codex even MORE POWERFUL!!!” because that is a cycle that will never end.
It always ends when a ‘Nid Codex drops
thats just not good design perspective. Wraithknight is very undercosted so it shouldnt be used as benchmark. Nor actually almost any other GC either since most of those are criminally over-costed. Only Tau get their CGs almost right, Taunar is also way too cheap.
I’m sorry SaltyJohn but with comment like this I’m going to skip your articles in the future. I kinda dont trust your opinions on stuff anymore.
You’re free to skip what you like. You should note however that you’re comparing the pricing of two Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures to a Flying Monstrous Creature. The fact that Magnus is 650 points and is being compared to GMC without having the benefits of being a GMC really indicates he is in fact over costed.
Without the benefits of a GMC?
He’s a FMC which means he gains hard to hit while flying. He knows 15 psychic powers. Cannot Perils. Passes powers on 2+. Can see anything anywhere on the board when he’s shooting with psychic powers. Can get a 2++ re-rollable invul pretty easily.
You’re not honestly arguing that just because he’s a FMC he should never be more expensive than a GMC are you?
I am arguing that yes. Without the proper support he is fairly fragile for a unit that costs 650 points.
I’d say he’s at least in the ballpark- he can spit out a Str D beam, and a Str D solid shot each turn with relative ease, and can stack several other powers on top of that pretty easily if you have 1-2 other psykers. So long as he’s in the air, 3++ rerolling 1s is pretty hard for most armies to bring down and he is good enough in melee to tear up most basic units, though he won’t be able to fight a dedicated deathstar.
He’s a flying psychic machine with several utilities built in. 650 might be a bit on the high side, but certainly not by 250pts.
Eldar _shouldn’t_ get those units at those prices, I think most people can agree to that. Wraithknights, Scatter Bikes, and Warp Spiders (as well as several of the FW units) are all comically undercosted for what they can do.
I’m not sure I’d call him fragile exactly. T7 isn’t exactly an easy nut to crack. What is more concerning to me, especially with today’s meta, is the 4+ armor save. That makes him highly susceptible to grav alpha strikes, which we see all the time in Skyhammer now. If you don’t get Turn 1 and you’re facing off against that, you’re better off keeping him in reserve, but having 650 points in reserve can really hurt your army, especially when you consider how much damage he can lay down.
Once he gets going though, he is nearly unstoppable when you consider that players will be fishing for Cursed Earth or toting a Grim from a Daemon CAD for example. A 2++ re-rollable invuln is pretty huge. That said, there are lots of little tricks people can pull to “remove from play” him such as Hellfrost, Black Mace, or god forbid, a stomp. It’s not easy, but a few armies can do it.
I think success with Magnus will be very matchup dependent. Some armies will have better answers for him than others. In the competitive environment, especially with the prevalence of skyhammer grav, you have to ask is it worth taking the risk to bring him? Because so many people play SM armies a matchup against that in a tournament is pretty much a foregone conclusion I think.
he doesn’t have armor, he only have an invulnerable save, but grav will still wound him on a 6
If you look at his profile, he actually does have a 4+ armor save (though not from any wargear.)
His profile lists a 4+ under Save. That means he has a 4+ armor save.
If you want to give him a 2++ you have to go grimoire as the 1k sons special rules only stay in effect as long as the save is no better than 3++. So cursed earth does nothing if he has a blessing up.
I am surprised you didn’t talk more about the spells he does have access to or the fact that he is simply a command choice in the 1k sons decurion and their core is fairly cheap. It does help him get more powers off.
That’s not true at all. Only the *Mark of Tzeentch* states that it cannot improve your invulnerable save. Magnus doesn’t have the Mark of Tzeentch. He just has a 4++ invul. And the Blessing of Tzeentch rule does not say anything about how good the invul can get. It just says units affected by blesssings increase their invulnerable saves by 1.
Threllen is absolutely correct on this.
I must have been thinking of all the other thousand sons who rely on the mark of Tzeentch to get to a 4++. So my statement was only true for warp talons, possessed, mutilators, and obliterators.
Sorry about that.
It is definitely a valid point for the units you mention, however. A unit of Tzeentch Warp Talons with Cursed Earth is only going to get a 3++ invul even though 4 base + blessing + CE should get you to 2++.
I do have something I’ve always wondered how people rule it, though. The rule in question says the Mark of Tzeentch can never improve a model past a 3++ invul (not that the model itself can never get better than that.
So let’s say I have some Warp Talons and I use Cursed Earth + grimoire on them. Entirely discounting MoT they should be at a 2++ (daemon + CE + grimoire). Does the Mark of Tzeentch prevent this due to its rule? Or do they still get the 2++? I wasn’t actually using the MoT as part of the buff that made them that good.
I think as long as you aren’t “counting” the Mark of Tzeentch in there they should be fine- the Mark says that _it_ cannot improve the save to better than 3++, not that the model cannot ever have a save of better than 3++ (which is different from the wording on some other abilities.)
Magnus is one of the best units in 40k. However, he must be supported correcfly. If he is, then there is not much he cant handle.
I would agree with that in general. With the correct support he is awesome.
Something to consider with Magnus is using a paltry 4 psychic dice a turn he can summon a Burning Chariot. If he does this every turn for 5 turns that’s 500 points right there. He does thing for Daemons that most FMC lists are poor at like cracking open transports with his 4 AP 1 powers. He kills hordes with Flickering Fire. He is absolutely brutal on Gene Cult with his NOVA power and summoning flamers. He does need support, namely a grimore or cursed earth.
Yes, good points all around. I am going to add the Burning Chariot part to the actual article. I can’t believe I forgot to put that in, it’s so important. I would go with Cursed Earth over Grimoiore.
I actually have a couple of Burning Chariots on the way for this very reason. Flying up the field then throwing down a burning chariot 12″ from him and tossing a torrent flamer on units is a nasty way to clear out infantry. Plus throws another scoring unit on the board. I think being able to bring in those chariots with ease is one of his more powerful abilities.
Absolutely which is why I can’t believeI forgot to put it in the original draft of the article. It is such a great counter to Eldar Jetbike spam and Battle Company.
I enjoyed the review by the way. Very good and well written.
Thanks!
How are you able to summon chariots? Boon of Flame? I am not seeing the rule for this.
Magnus knows all of the Change powers. I believe one of the Change powers in the CoW book allows you to summon Tzeentch-related units (including Chariots).
Yeah, Boon of Flame is the Change power that summons either an Exalted Flamer (for WC2) or Burning Chariot (for WC3). It’s a solid power, if not a complete blowout.
Magnus is in a weird spot. He is kinda overcosted, but he also probably fits well in a tournament winning list.
Magnus knows all powers on the Change tree. The Change tree in the Curse of the Wulfen (the first one) has a power to summon in chariots or flamers of Tzeentch.
In the non-kill point games I have played with Magnus he created a burning chariot almost every turn. This really really adds up in a full game. He may not kill 650 or more points of enemy models by himself, but when you add in making chariots and spawn and the damage those created units do, then his impact on the game is tremendous.
Exactly. He’s capable of creating multiple scoring units that can lay out some pretty good damage in their own right. While flying around the battle field wrecking things with his own witchfires.
The Chariot is admittedly quite fragile and prone to getting assaulted and killed (since punching the Herald inside is almost trivially easy to do), but that still means the enemy has to dedicated resources to doing so.
Do you guys think you would fly him turn 1 and 2, then land on 3 just to up his chances to keep him in the game longer? Only landing after the dangerous threats have thinned out? I bought 2 burning chariots in preparation for Magnus along with a renegade knight. Just gotta figure out how to build out the troops as efficiently as possible.
I’m also considering 2 other lists. Magnus in a barebones Sehkmet conclave (core) + plain helbrute (aux) is exactly equal to 1500 points. How long can that last on a table at 1500 points though assuming you don’t get to go first? Is it even possible before I spend all that money on those scarabs lol.
Second is Rehati War Sect with 3 DP WITHOUT WINGS. They are only going to be malefic summoning batteries hiding in ruins in the backfield at the start of the game while Magnus flies. This gives me enough points to bring a daemon CAD of herald with grimoire and 3×11 pink horrors starting on the table. I think the loss of wings is worth it?
The issue with taking a Rehati War sect without wings is what are you really getting? Ok you get 3 Daemon Princes who are summoning batteries but that is one hell of an expensive battery. Because they don’t have wings they’re actually pretty susceptible to death if you don’t park them hidden away and I’m not so sure summoning is worth that cost. The list you mentioned features 3 DPs hiding for dear life, one herald, and a few squads of horrors (also probably hiding for your life). So sure you can summon a bunch of bodies but your only true threat in the entire 1850 point list is Magnus himself and he’s getting warp charges leached away by 3 DPs trying to summon.
If things go wrong then yes, this is true. Otherwise though IF powers are successfully cast then Magnus would first cast that siphon magic thing that gives warp charge when spells are successfully cast. He would probably then summon a burning chariot to burn a threat in range. Then each daemon prince (hopefully 1 would have gotten cursed earth to protect them all) would use their own 3 dice maybe 4 to bring in a horror unit each. I think siphon magic would have granted 4-5 warp charges at this point? If anybody has sacrifice it would be awesome to sac one of the newly summoned pink horrors for a herald of tzeentch. Oh yeah the herald in the CAD can summon a pink horror unit too.
If that successfully happened on turn 1 then I just got 460-530 free points. My warp charges would have went from starting at 25 to 29-31 depending if you get a herald and want grimoire or not. You could also possibly summon some screamers. I think it could work if you don’t die on turn 1?
He’s such a big part of your army, I don’t think I’d reserve him without any reserve manipulation of your own. Having ~1/3 of your army, and likely your primary damage dealer, not arrive until Turn 4 could be disastrous.
Yeah I would hide him in the back with the DP’s at deployment switch him to swooping on my turn.
If you ally in Ancient Oracle’s you’d be able to reroll your reserve roll. I intend to do so for my Magnus list.
You could technically run Magnus in a non-Legion CAD, and use Typhus and Plague Zombies as your tax. Hide behind a Void Shield turn one, have him fly, cast, then swoop into ongoing reserves. Use the D and alpha-strike anything of note. Fill in the rest.
Some big arcane monolith as a shield generator would be kind of awesome… especially if it lit up.
I did something like that. It doesn’t light up, but it does look pretty awesome, and it was ridiculously cheap and easy to hack together from some foam and a few bits I had lying around.
I wouldn’t go with Typhus, he’s too expensive- just bring a cheap Sorcerer, some Cultists, and maybe a few of the Rapier batteries if you’re feeling saucy.
There is no way that a Daemon Primarch (especially Magnus the Red) should be less eternal than a random line Weaaboo KV128. But he is.
Did you ever play Epic? Because Magnus was a LOT more fragile than the basic scout titan-level units in that game. So it’s not like there isn’t a precedent, and it makes sense.
Could be using the fluff to understand his power level. In book two of the Thousand sons novel for example, Non-daemon Magnus Rips a xenos Titan limb from limb with his mind.
Fluff =\= tabletop, but I can see where some people might be expecting things. (Sorry if this doubleposts, mobile is odd.)
Well, I mean, he _can_ rip a titan apart with his mind; he’s got two Str D spells and three Str 8+ AP1 spells. That’ll do a number on most things.
I feel you. Just playing devils advocate to why people may have expected more.
As a long time player, I chuckle at his t7 7 wound 4++ flying butt being called fragile. Truly, the creep is real.
All measures of functionality are calibrated by cost. Magnus is fragile _for a 650pt unit_; a MEQ statline is generally considered “moderately tough” at 14pts/body, but if the model instead costs 35pts per, suddenly that exact same statline is “fragile.” Everything is relative.
There’s no doubt there is a lot of creep, but as AP said – you can’t look at the statline in a vacuum to determine toughness.
Imperial Knights are incredibly tough. AV13 on the front, an ion shield, 6 hullpoints, and all the benefits of a super heavy. All for ~375 points (depending on loadout).
The Khorne Lord of Skulls is fragile. Basically the same statline except a 5++ invul all around instead of a 4++ on one side. And he has 3 more hullpoints. But he costs 888 points. The significance of your investment is a major determinant of “tough” vs “fragile” because you can look at it from the perspective of “how many points of units does my opponent need to destroy it.” If your investment into the model is much greater than what it takes your opponent to wreck it with… it’s fragile.
“2x 10 Rubric Marine units with 2 Cannons in each”
Did they change the soul reaper to one per 5?
He’s not undercosted at all.
He’s the best caster, knows 2 D Str powers, and can summon a 100pt strong unit a turn.
How do cover saves work if he does not have line of sight to a target?