Traitor Legions: Review: Thousand Sons

Hey everyone, Chandler here with a rundown on the Thousand Sons Legion from both Traitor Legions and Wrath of Magnus.   For more analysis, battle reports, and reviews check out the Tactics Corner.

The sons of the Cyclops are back and ready to strike vengeance at the heart of the imperials!  Thanks to the Wrath of Magnus, and subsequent Traitor Legions supplements, Chaos Space Marines universally are making a return to the table tops with new Legion traits and rules.  Of the Nine Traitor Legions, the Thousand Sons are one of most infamous. Their tragic story is one of the great tales of 40k grim dark lore.  Their pursuit of knowledge and strength through mastery of sorcerery makes them a deadly army and fortunately for Thousand Sons players, that is reflected in their new rules as well.

Overview:

Traitor Legions is a new supplement for Chaos Space Marines detailing rules for the 9 Traitor Legions for your games of Warhammer 40k.  Each Legion is given the spotlight with specific legion benefits, guidelines on forming a detachment using those legion rules, relics, warlord charts, and their very own “Decurion” style detachments.  Thousand Sons are one of the Chaos Space Marine legions devoted strictly to the Chaos god Tzeentch. Through his twisted machinations and plots he turned the glorious Thousand Sons from the Emperor during the Heresy granting their Primarch, Magnus, Daemonhood.  While most of the Imperial Primarchs died or went into hiding at the end of the Heresy, Magnus and his brothers began making preparations for revenge against the imperials and specifically the Space Wolves for the destruction of their home world Prospero.  The Thousand Sons are unique in that their Legion primarily focuses on mastery of the warp and is led by a group of Sorcerers and the great Crimson King himself.

Legion Benefits and Restrictions:

Each Legion in the Traitor Legions supplement comes with it’s own set of Legion specific rules and restrictions.  Any Chaos Space Marines detachment can be a Thousand Sons detachment also. First, the only unique units that may be taken are Ahriman and Magnus.  All units that can take Marks must take the Mark of Tzeentch and may have no other units with a different Mark.  Every unit that can do so must have the Veterans of the Long War upgrade but at no additional point cost. Demon Princes must take the Daemon of Tzeentch special rule.  Finally, psykers in a Thousand Sons detachment can choose to generate all their powers on the Discipline of Tzeentch tree.

In addition to those requirements they gain some pretty awesome benefits.  Blessing of Tzeentch allows each unit with Vets of the Long War affected by a Blessing psychic power to gain a +1 to their invulnerable saves until the start of your next Psychic Phase. That’s a pretty big boost and adds a lot of durability to your units!  They also have the Blood Feud special rule which gives each unit with Veterans of the Long War the ability to re-roll all failed To Hit rolls in every round of close combat when attacking Space Wolves units, and Space Wolves gain Hatred (Thousand Sons).  This isn’t so bad and is quite fluffy, but for the most part, Thousand Sons are not a close combat oriented army.  The detachment also gains the Legacy of the Rubricae rule allowing Rubric Marines to be taken as Troops choices instead of Elites. That’s fairly standard for cult troops, but an option nonetheless.

The Legions benefits are pretty good, no doubt. Getting a 3++ on your Rubrics or Scarab Occult Terminators definitely increases their durability.  The unfortunate thing here is that these units are incredibly expensive.  Rubrics come in at 150 points base, and Scarab Occult Terminators are 250! That is insanely expensive for Toughness 4 models with one wound. Sure they have an incredibly durable invulnerable save, but their ability to cause damage is limited primarily because of their weapon options.

Unfortunately Thousand Sons don’t do much to make Chaos Space Marines themselves that much better. Sure you can get a 5++ save, which is pretty nice, but factor in that’s pretty much all you get beyond the normal rules for Vets of the Long War, and you’ll find there are better Legions suited to run basic Chaos Space Marines.  The one benefit to running basic Chaos Marines is their weapon options like Plasma and Meltaguns  gives you something to deal with vehicles and walkers and 2+ armor saves, something Rubrics and Scarab Terminators will struggle mightily with. And while it might not be fluffy to do so, running a Chaos Lord on a bike with a Mark of Tzeentch, Power Fist, and Lightning Claw isn’t a bad option as he can gain a 3++ while under the affect of a Blessing if he’s carrying an Aura of Dark Glory.

Thousand Sons Artefacts:

The Thousand Sons have some pretty awesome artefacts, but the ones that stand out the most to me are the Astral Grimoire, Staff of Arcane Compulsion, and the Athenaean Scrolls.

The Astral Grimoire allows you to choose the bearer or any friendly Infantry unit within 12″ to gain the Jump type until the end of the Movement phase.  That really helps in tossing those Rubrics and Terminators around as Thousand Sons units tend to be on the slow side.  Your opponent will have to be cognizant of this as you can choose different units to gain this benefit at the start of every Movement phase.

Staff of Arcane Compulsion is dirt cheap. For 10 points you have a +2 STR melee weapon with Force and the ability to make units subtract 2 from their charge rolls when charging the Bearer or his unit.  At first glance when you look at this it’s easy to bypass because it’s just a Force Stave with a minor special rule.  This artefact is meant for your Daemon Prince, however, because suddenly he has access to Force to bump his invulnerable to a 4++ re-rolling 1s, causing Instant Death with Str 8 and AP 2 for being a Monstrous Creature. This in my opinion is the best ten points you can spend on a Daemon Prince.

The Athenaean Scrolls prevent an enemy unit from attempting to Deny the Witch if targeted by a Psychic power when the bearer rolls doubles on his Psychic Test. That’s pretty strong considering many armies run Psychic Deathstars with the ability to deny powers pretty easily (like the Cabal Star for example).  The Athenaean Scrolls seem to be an auto take for a Sorcerer in a Thousand Sons army.  Especially because so much of the damage you’re going to be doing will be in the Psychic Phase with this army.

The other Aretefacts are decent, but not great.  Seer’s Bane is a pretty good weapon, but the Bane of Wisdom special rule makes it less attractive.  It does have Force and the Daemon Weapon special rule which is a double edged sword.  It can be pretty solid when faced with high Toughness units like Wraithknights because of the ability to get extra attacks and instant death, but the Str being equal to the Leadership and wounding against the enemy’s Leadership makes it less attractive to me for the points.

Helm of the Third Eye isn’t bad as for 20 points you can give a unit of Rubrics the ability to Overwatch. Or Scarab Terminators the ability to fire Overwatch at BS2 and with Twin-Linked that can make them a hard target to engage.

The Coruscator relic is not really that great as it gives you a 12″ Blast weapon with AP3 and the Soul Blaze rule. Probably never worth taking for 20 points in an army where points are going to be crucial.

Warlord Traits:

The Thousand Sons Warlord Traits are pretty good and represent the abilities of the army quite well.  Some are better than others, but all of them can be quite useful. Lord of Forbidden Lore stands out to me because of how much this army relies on the Psychic Phase gaining an extra power can be huge.  Walker of the Webway is nice as you can Deep Strike those Scarab Occult Terminators without scattering. Giving Rubrics Deep Strike can also overcome a lot of their mobility issues as well. But it is a random roll so you can’t develop a strategy around that.  Lord of the Flux is interesting particularly because it is Magnus’ warlord trait.  With Magnus flying around the board, making all terrain difficult in that 12″ bubble can be useful for slowing down enemy forces.  Of course, many strong competitive assault oriented armies rely on Beasts or bike units with Skilled Rider, effectively ignoring the terrain threat from Magnus.

All of the Warlord Traits are decent, but I’m not sure they replace the Strategic Traits in the main rulebook. Getting the ability to infiltrate those Rubrics is just too good to pass up rolling for I think. Still, if you choose to roll on the Thousand Sons chart all of them are useful for your army.

Psychic Powers:

The old Chaos Codex Tzeentch tree was extremely underwhelming. Doombolt was quite often the only power worth using in the discipline.  Traitor Legions offers a brand new Tzeentch table with 3 additional powers added, all of which are quite good.

Tzeentch’s Firestorm remains the Primaris, which is somewhat disappointing, and Boon, Doombolt, and Breath of Chaos are still there as well.  Added to this we have Siphon Magic, which is a Blessing that lets your psyker generate extra warp dice when friendly models within 18″ of him manifest psychic powers. This can be huge for someone like Magnus, who will be casting a lot of witchfires and will demand a healthy amount of dice in his pool.  Baleful Devolution is warp charge 2 and is a focused witchfire that fires d6 STR 6 AP2 shots with the Transmogrify rule, which states that any roll to wound of a 6 causes Instant Death and any model killed in this way turns into a Chaos Spawn under your control. This power is great for picking out pesky weapons in squads like meltaguns or grav guns and the possibility of making them Spawn is a force multiplier.  More importantly, it seems this power was meant for Monstrous Creatures.  Riptide Wings are really common and this psychic power is a great answer for them as they have little defense against it.  And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to turn a Riptide or a Flyrant into a Spawn right?  Treason of Tzeentch is warp charge 3 and lets you take over any non-vehicle enemy unit within 24″ and shoot with them as if they were your own unit.  This is probably my favorite of the new powers in the Tzeentch tree.  Taking over a unit like Grav Centurions or a Stormsurge can be devastating for your opponent.

Finally there is the Gaze of Magnus, which is not actually a power you can get with any Sorcerer. Only Magnus has this and it is Warp Charge 5 with an 18″ STR D AP1 Beam.  That is absolutely brutal.  Warp Charge 5 is a lot, but Magnus harnesses warp charge on a 2+ so rarely will it ever be a problem to cast. Especially with Siphon Magic active so you can add free warp dice to his pool.

Psykers in a Thousand Sons detachment can choose to roll all of their powers on the Tzeentch tree as well, which isn’t a bad option as it gives you basically access to more powers, many of which can be quite devastating.  The psychic discipline for Tzeentch got a huge boost, which compliments Thousand Sons quite well.

Also, Thousand Sons gain access to four new psychic disciplines.  These are essentially the same powers as those given to Space Marines in Angels of Death only with more Chaosy names.  Many of them are quite good, however.  Heretech, for example, can be a great discipline to roll on when facing an Imperial Knight army as it has multiple witchfires that have haywire or just strip hull points off of vehicles.  Warp Fate, off of the Sinistrum tree, allows you to re-roll failed saves (same as Veil of Time for their imperial counterparts) which can be great with units rolling around with 3++ saves.

New Units and Wargear:

As mentioned earlier, Thousand Sons have several new units and wargear options available to them. I won’t go into great detail on them here as there will be other specific reviews on their uses in the game, but it is worth noting.

Tzaangors are a little more durable than the typical Chaos Cultist.  They are a cheap troop option to supplement many of the high cost units in the Thousand Sons army.  For 70 points you get 10 troops with Toughness 4 with a 6++ save. This can’t be modified with Blessing of Tzeentch, however, as they don’t have the option to take Vets of the Long War. Still they make pretty solid objective campers.  Expect to see these guys a lot in CADs featuring Thousand Sons primarily as ablative wounds for disc riding Exalted Sorcerers.

Rubrics have not changed much, except the addition of new wargear options beyond simple Inferno Bolters.  That said, many of them are not as good really. Any Rubric can replace his inferno bolter for a warpflamer, which is a STR 4 AP4 flamer with the Warpflame special rule for 7 points each.  Any unit that suffered one or more unsaved wounds must take a Toughness test. If failed the unit takes an additional d3 wounds with no armor or cover saves allowed.  If it passes the test, however the unit gets Feel No Pain of 6+ or +1 to their Feel No Pain if they already have it.  This could be pretty awesome if it was a Toughness test for each unsaved wound as it could easily generate many more wounds. The fact that it is a single toughness test regardless of killing 1 or 10 models means it will usually be quite easy to pass, and why bother giving your opponent a buff with Feel No Pain for the game? Additionally, for every ten models, one of them can take a Soulreaper Cannon which is basically an Assault Cannon that is STR 5 AP3 with Rending.  Not a bad option, but odd that you have to take 10 of them to unlock it considering Tzeentch’s number is nine. 290 points is a lot to unlock this weapon. That is just too much to invest in a single unit that has Slow and Purposeful.  Rubrics are best kept as cheap as possible running them in 5 man squads.

Scarab Occult Terminators are quite nice, if not a bit pricey. For 250 points you get 5 terminators firing AP3 Twin Linked combi-bolters with a Mastery Level 2 Sorcerer with 2 wounds attached that has access to all the standard powers as well as Divination to boot.  Unfortunately all the terminators are equipped with power swords with no way to upgrade them.  For every 5 models you can take either a Heavy Warpflamer, which is basically a Heavy Flamer with AP3 with the Warpflame rule, or the Soulreaper Cannon.  The Hellfyre Missile Rack is a nice option as it gives you a 2 shot STR 8 AP 3 weapon which can help in popping those light transports.  This unit is quite pricey but can also be buffed easily to a 3++ save with Blessing of Tzeentch.  They have some staying power, but like most terminator units, they are slow.  That said, if there is a character nearby or attached with the Astral Grimoire, they can suddenly become Jump infantry in the movement phase which is quite nice! Try and stay out of combat with hard targets like terminators or Walkers as their effectiveness will be very limited against them. Because they are Fearless they cannot get out of the combat until either they have killed the unit or they die themselves.

Exalted Sorcerers are a new unit available to Thousand Sons as well. They are 160 points base with a pretty decent statline.  WS and BS 5 along with 3 wounds and 3 attacks means they have some staying power.  Additionally they are Fearless and have the Mark of Tzeentch.  They are Mastery Level 2 with the option to upgrade to Mastery Level 3. They can take Rewards as well, which means you can stick a Spell Familiar on them (and you should always) but they cannot take a Bike unfortunately. That said, for 30 points you can give them a disc increasing their attacks and toughness by 1 and making them a jetbike.  They come stock with a Force Stave with no way to switch it out as well as an Aura of Dark Glory and Vets of the Long War, which means most of the time they’ll be rolling with a 3++ save. They have the option to take all the powers a normal Sorcerer can except they can only take Malefic powers from Daemonology but they do gain access to Divination, which is a huge boon for the army.  They also have the Lord of the Silver Tower special rule which gives them a once per game STR 9 AP2 Blast shot with Lance that has Unlimited range.  That can be devastating for catching units out of cover late in the game to blast them off objectives or for popping open Rhinos and other transports so you can gun down the boys inside with AP3 bolters. Throw in Prescience to twin-link the shot or even Perfect Timing so it has Ignores Cover and that is even more brutal!

Finally there is the Crimson King himself. Magnus the Red, the Daemon Primarch for the Thousand Sons.  He is an absolute beast as a Lord of War option in a Thousand Sons detachment.  As mentioned above, he knows the Gaze of Magnus power as well as all the rest of the powers in the Discipline of Tzeentch as well as every single power in the Change Discipline.  Additionally he manifests warp charge on a 2+ and never suffers from Perils! That is an amazing bonus especially considering he’ll spend most of his time in the air blasting things.  Being a Flying Monstrous Creature, Magnus will usually fly around the board with a 3++ or even a 2++ if you cast Cursed Earth around him casting 5 and even up to 6 psychic powers per turn, including two D shots all at different targets if need be. With the Daemon of Tzeentch rule, he can also re-roll saves of 1s.  His statline is pretty awesome as well with WS, BS, Toughness and Initiative 7 as well as STR 8 with 6 attacks.  He is 650 points so a very significant investment, but short of D weapons and “remove from play” effects, not much can deal with the big guy.  He will be extremely hard to capture in close combat, and even when you do, his Lord of the Flux warlord trait will often ensure that most things that can really hurt him will swing on initiative 1.  Personally, I think Magnus will be a game changer and is probably the single best thing the Thousand Sons have going for them.

Formations and Detachments:

Any Chaos Space Marines detachment can also be a Thousand Sons detachment if the requirements listed above are met. So essentially you can run a Combined Arms Detachment or Allied Detachment with Rubrics as a troops option.  Additionally they have their own “Decurion” style detachment called the Grand Coven.  As with most of these, it has the requirement of 1 or more Core and Auxiliary and 0-4 Command Choices.  The Grand Coven has some pretty awesome command benefits as well.  Of course, the ability to re-roll the Warlord Trait when rolling on the Thousand Sons warlord traits chart.  Masters of Arcane Knowledge allows them to re-roll Perils of the Warp results on the Perils chart and Psykers in the detachment can each cast one more additional psychic power than their mastery level normally allows.  That’s a pretty nice boost considering this army will focus on dominating the Psychic Phase.

The Core choices are decent, if not pricey.  The War Cabal is the best option here, but hard to max out to get the Favoured of Tzeentch rule, which allows you to re-roll saves of 1 when the Formation has the max number of units.  Still, the ability to re-roll all To-hit rolls of 1 in both Shooting and Assault if a Psyker from one of the units successfully casts a power is pretty amazing! The Sekhmet Conclave is a decent, if not pricey option as well giving all units Toughness 5 or Magnus Toughness 8 if within 6″ of two other units.  That’s pretty awesome and will help mitigate the wounds they take as it is an incredibly expensive Formation.

For the Command choices we have the Rehati War Sect, which gives all units within 18″ of Magnus the ability to manifest warp charge on a 3+ and have line of sight to every unit on the battlefield.  A pretty huge boost for the Formation.  You can supplement Magnus with 3-9 either Daemon Princes of Exalted Sorcerers in this Formation. I think the Daemon Princes are the better option here giving you essentially a flying circus of daemon princes and Magnus tossing around tons of witchfires, blessings and maledictions.  This isn’t really a viable command option except in massive point games as the Rehati War Sect can add up in points and even be an entire army in of itself!

Ahriman’s Exiles features Ahriman and 3-9 Exalted Sorcerers.  All of them that are within 18″ of Ahriman can manifest Warp Charge on a 3+.  Again, an expensive Formation, but Ahriman is a beast and his warlord trait allows you to infiltrate those Rubrics and Terminators around the battlefield.  Throwing around powers on a 3+ is an amazing boon as well especially with re-rolls from a Spell Familiar!  Ahriman himself is extremely expensive, especially when mounted on a disc, but his ability to cast the same witchfire multiple times while harnessing on a 3+ can be huge.  3 Psychic Shrieks can be devastating against units with 2+ saves, for example.

You can also add a Lord of the Legion as a Command option which allows you to unlock Magnus by himself. Optionally you could run Ahriman, an Exalted Sorcerer, or a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch instead.

The Auxiliary choices are interesting as well.  The War Coven features either 1 Daemon Prince, Exalted Sorcerer, or Sorcerer as well as 3-9 additional Exalted Sorcerers or sorcerers.  You can choose from one of the basic psychic disciplines available to them and can manifest warp charge on a 3+ when attempting to cast from that discipline. That is a huge bonus as it lets you get those powers off easier when all of them are focused on one school.  Personally this is probably my favorite Formation besides the Rehati War Sect in the book. It can scale in power equal to the Cyclopia Cabal, albeit a bit more expensive.

The Tzaangor Warherd is another Auxiliary choice featuring 3 units of Tzaangors and from 0-6 of either Tzaangors or Chaos Spawn.  The Tzaangors gain Fleet and can Run and Charge in the same turn. If they roll a 9 or more on the charge roll they add 1 to their STR and Initiative in that Fight Sub-Phase. Not bad, but I would have rather seen this as a Core choice as it is much cheaper than the other options to run.  That said, you’re probably not going to charge these guys often as they don’t have grenades and aren’t really great in assault anyway.

You can also run a Daemon Engine as an Auxiliary between a Defiler, Forgefiend, Helbrute, Heldrake, or Maulerfiend. I find these to be nice compliments to the Grand Coven and a fairly affordable Auxiliary. The option to bring a tax free Heldrake is pretty nice and can offset some of the speed options the army lacks. Heldrakes aren’t the brutal kings of the table top they were a few years ago, but still formidable enough to be strong options in the game.  Spamming Maulerfiends here isn’t a bad option either, as it gives you some fast units that can deal some brutal damage to hard targets like Imperial Knights, Thunderwolf Cavalry, etc.

Finally, you gain the option of running units from the Legion Armoury such as Chaos Land Raiders, Predators, and Vindicators. Nothing incredibly special about these units, but a cheap way to fill the Auxiliary should you choose to use them (except the Land Raider of course).

Tactics:

Thousand Sons probably have the most unique options available to them in Traitor Legions.  Most of the “Decurion” style builds in the book all use the same Formations, except Thousand Sons.  Unfortunately most of the options for building a Thousand Sons Grand Coven are insanely expensive.  Factor in that most of the time you’ll end up missing out on at least one Formation benefit, Favoured of Tzeentch, and it hardly seems worth it to use.  There are a few gems in the book though beyond the Grand Coven such as the Rehati War Sect, which you can build an army around by itself, the War Coven, and Ahriman’s Exiles.

This army also struggles in dealing with vehicles. Even light vehicles like Rhinos can be difficult to crack open because of the lack of high strength weaponry available to these units. Walkers can also be a huge thorn in their side as most of the units are Fearless and can’t hurt them at all.  While they come equipped with a Force Stave, I find melta bombs a bit more reliable for the Aspiring Sorcerer to deal with Walkers in assault.  2+ Armor save units can also be a problem as Thousand Sons are designed to kill Space Marines, something they do exceptionally well, but not harder targets.  This can be mitigated a bit with Psychic Powers as many witchfires are AP 2 or lower, but the unpredictability of the Psychic Phase can make it challenging, even with the buffs Thousand Sons can get to manifesting powers.

The army is also very slow and will struggle to deal with fast, mobile armies who can spread objectives on them such as Eldar.  Getting across the board will be a challenge for units in a Thousand Sons army. The Astral Grimoire is a great option and should be an auto-take for any Thousand Sons army focusing primarily on running Rubrics and Terminators. It gives at least one unit some speed to help scoot them around the table.

From a thematic standpoint, Thousand Sons just work differently from other armies.  It’s not about various tactical units covering the board with a wide variety of roles, such as Space Marines.  Rather this army is all about the Sorcerers and the damage they deal in the Psychic Phase.  Troops in this army serve as mostly ablative wounds as the Psychic phase will be where most of the damage is done.  Exalted Sorcerers on discs surrounded by Tzaangors and Rubrics for ablative wounds while they move around blowing stuff up or summoning other units on the battle field.  Learning how to manage that psychic phase will be crucial. You’ll need to know what you’re up against so you can have a plan for power and tree selection to deal with the various threats you will face.

Magnus can answer a lot of deficiencies in the army, but he comes at a very high price point.  This alone is not a problem, but when combined with the fact that most of the other Thousand Sons units are also insanely expensive then your ability to cover the board with bodies becomes even more limited. Still Magnus alone is enough to wreck half of an army by himself. He is an absolute beast and when he gets in the air, he becomes hard to stop. Things to look out for are tricks like Hellfrost weapons which can remove him from play if he fails a test after taking a wound, or the Black Mace which can do the same.  Many armies have little tricks like that which can get rid of him quickly and most likely that’s what your opponent will try to do.

Because of how expensive some of these units can be, Thousand Sons will often work best when supplemented by a CAD of Chaos Daemons. Daemons answer a lot of weaknesses in this army by giving them plenty of cheap bodies in the form of Pink, Blue, and Brimstone Horrors, as well as Screamers capable of tearing apart vehicles.  Also summoning in new units of Horrors and Heralds will be crucial in making sure you can keep enough Warp Charge to fuel that Psychic Phase.  Let’s take a look at a sample list:

1850 Thousand Sons and Daemons

Ahriman’s Exiles

• Ahriman on Disc
• 3 Exalted Sorcs on Discs, ML 3, Spell Familiars

Thousand Sons CAD

• Sorcerer, ML 2, Aura of Dark Glory
• 2 x5 Rubric Marines
• 2 x10 Tzaangors

Chaos Daemons CAD

• Herald of Tzeentch, ML3, Disc, Paradox, Locus of Creation
• 2 x10 Pink Horrors

At 1850 points exactly you have 22 warp dice before rolling. The Horrors are able to run around the board doubling the number of new horrors they create because of the Locus of Creation. The herald can then summon in more Heralds, Horrors, and Screamers as needed.  The disc sorcs all ride around with either Rubrics or Tzaangors for ablative wounds casting destructive psychic powers every turn and using their one-use only STR 9 AP2 blasts to crack open transports.  The list gives you a lot of obsec bodies all over the board as well as the meat shields to keep the Sorcerers alive for long enough to devastate your opponent.

Thousand Sons detachments are very solid and definitely enhance the units like Rubrics, Daemon Princes, and Sorcerers from the Chaos Space Marines Codex.  Is it really competitive though? I’d say, probably not top tier worthy, but certainly able to hang with many tournament builds out there, especially with Magnus.  He is an absolute monster and will be difficult to deal with in the meta for a while until people figure out ways to handle him, but the meta adjusts as it always does. For now though, let the Crimson Cyclops fly and blast away.  As to the other detachments and units, they are incredibly expensive, low model count, but with devastating ability in the Psychic and Shooting phases.  I think there are several competitive builds that can be made from the army such as the list above, the Rehati War Sect or using a War Coven to supplement death star builds.  The Grand Coven is nasty, but due to the lack of speed army wide, and the low model count, they will struggle against fast msu armies that tend to dominate the meta.  You probably couldn’t take this army to a GT or Major and expect to do better than mid-tables with it, but there are a lot of fun options and I find the rules stay true to the Thousand Sons lore, while giving you some nice options on the table to use.  As a Thousand Sons player, I’m excited for what the army can do, even if it’s not top tier.

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