Thousand Sons — the codex, measured

The verdict

Your codex prints 60 datasheets. 26 of them are Legends — they cannot touch a tournament table. 3 of the 9 detachments belong to a different game mode. And 6 of the "your faction" daemons refuse to join a normal list at all.

So the real codex is 34 sheets, 6 detachments, 1 attachment market. That's not a downgrade — that's clarity. The pruned book is genuinely good: a Battleline core that's cheap to hold ground with and brutal to remove, a short list of leaders who don't fight so much as multiply, and an army rule that asks 1 question every Shooting phase — which enemy unit would you like the whole army to be better against?

The trap isn't bad units. The trap is buying the wrong half of the book. We measured which half. Here's the math.

The cut, so you never learn it the hard way

• 26 Legends sheets — every Sicaran, the Falchion, the Leviathan, the Thunderhawk, the Lord on his flying frisbee. Gone from every number and every tier on these pages. If a list guide rates them, close the tab.
• 3 detachments printed for a different game mode. Devoted Thralls is not a matched-play choice. It never was in this edition.
• 6 daemon sheets — both greater daemons, Horrors of both colours, Flamers, Screamers — carry the Scintillating Legions keyword, not yours. They exist for exactly 1 detachment, and we rate them there, behind the door.

The army rule, priced

Every Shooting phase your casters roll 2D6 against a warp-charge bar, army-wide, aimed at 1 victim. The printed bars, converted to honesty:

• The cheap ritual lands 83% of the time and grants rerolls of 1 to hit against the victim, army-wide. Reliable enough to build every turn around.
• The armour-sharpener lands 28%. That's a lottery ticket, not a plan — until Ahriman or Magnus casts it, and the ticket becomes 42% and 58%.
• The direct-damage ritual lands 58% for about 1 mortal wound. Its real job is waking the 2 Predator hulls, whose clauses switch on against anything a psychic attack already touched this phase.
• Doubles backfire. About 1 attempt in 6 eats mortal wounds on the caster's own unit. Over 5 rounds of greedy casting that's a real body count. The cheap caster in every Rubric squad is not a luxury.

The rule reads as spectacle. It prices as a targeted, army-wide accuracy tax on 1 victim per turn — with a self-harm clause that keeps you honest.

6 detachments, 3 that move numbers

• Grand Coven is the damage pick: its boons push the caster roster up 26 to 37% — the Shaman, the Sorcerer, Ahriman. If your list is spells with legs, this is the one.
• Rubricae Phalanx is the durability pick: +1 armour on Rubricae bodies against small arms. The massed-fire half of the incoming spectrum becomes paint. The flamer-brick detachment.
• Hexwarp Thrallband pays the characters themselves: +17% on the casting elite.
• Changehost of Deceit is not a buff, it's a door — the only legal route to the daemon allies below.
• The other 2 buy things a closed form can't price — a single-die salvage, a pact mechanic — and they're flagged on every page rather than silently scored at 0. We don't fake numbers. Ever.

The attachment market

Characters carry no letter here, on purpose: a leader isn't a unit, it's a multiplier with legs. The market, measured:

That table IS the codex. The same 100-point brick is a B alone and an A with the right passenger — and the only S on the board exists once the Terminator Sorcerer steps into the Scarab brick. Seriously.

The board

Characters carry no solo letter by design — their value is the pairing, shown on their own boards. Allied sheets are banded apart: a normal list cannot take them.

Read the bottom before the top. The Heldrake is a D at 3/20 — 1.7 damage per 100 points, 0 objective control, and it still hands over kill points when it dies. It is not a bad sheet that skill redeems. Stop playing Heldrakes.

Then read the quiet A-tier nobody streams about: Helbrute and Maulerfiend at 15/20 — cheap doom-engines that out-fight hulls twice their price. Sekhetar Robots at 13/20 with 8.9 damage per 100 into infantry. And Tzaangors at 70 points holding 14.3 control per 100 — the best board presence per point in the book, and a Shaman makes them 33% angrier.

The allies behind the door

Pick Changehost of Deceit and 6 daemon sheets unlock. Measured against your own codex: Flamers 14/20, Pink Horrors 14/20, Screamers 13/20, Blue Horrors 11/20 — plus both greater daemons as leaders. That's a genuinely different army, screening and trickery instead of a firebase. Just know the price: the door costs you every other detachment's rule.

If you want the numbers

Every figure above re-derives from the published datasheet model: expected damage per 100 points against a versioned gallery of reference targets, durability as enemy points required to remove 100 points of the unit, control per point with nerve scored separately, and the kill points each death concedes. Pairings and detachments are the same model re-run with the printed modifier applied — a combo here is a measured delta, not an adjective. What a verdict can't price is flagged on the page it belongs to. The coverage badge is part of the method, not a disclaimer.

Go put it on the table. Seriously.