We played mission Q (Supply Drop/Rapid Escalation/Sweeping Engagement) from the Pariah Nexus Tournament Mission Pool. It was my first time facing Thousand Sons, and the introduction lasted about half an hour. They are a very technical army, and require a lot of thought playing with or against.
Battle round 1
I scouted up my Accursed Cultists, then ran them on to the central objective. Bikes to the left and right to take objectives and do Sabotage.
In the first display of psychic might, the Thousand Sons Daemon Prince flew up to take the objective on the right, and shot at my bikes (primarily with Doombolt).
Battle round 2
I responded with my own show of force. Both squads of Obliterators, 10 Raptors and the remaining bike were not enough to shoot down the daemon prince (even with Focus of Hatred). Fortunately, out of 3 charges and a reroll, one made the 9" and the two Obliterators punched the daemon prince to death.
The left side went about the same, with the Bikes failing their 7" charge. I would have liked to tie down a squad of flamer Rubrics (behind the ruin), but oh well.
At least I got some actions in, with the small squad of Raptors and Accursed Cultists.
Magnus then double-moved into the place of the Daemon Prince, and shot down the Raptors with a psychic barrage. He also charged a squad of Obliterators. In a questionable maneuver, I heroically intervened the other squad, hoping they'd live, but they died.
With the Predator and Mutalith Vortex Beast advancing to the center, my Bikes left out in the open got nuked, and the Raptors also took casualties.
Battle round 3
Send in the clowns! The Chosen did work, but failed to kill Magnus, who then interrupted to kill the Raptors along with Haarken.
Send in more clowns! The Terminators did comically badly against the Beast, with the Accursed Cultists doing most of the work, bringing in down to 4 wounds.
Magnus retaliated, but the Chosen were surprisingly resilient against his shooting. Then, they chopped him down.
The battle shocked Vortex Beast made a desperate escape and died, which was great, but that left the Terminators open to die to shooting, which was not great.
Rubrics use their crystal artefact to teleport Behind Enemy Lines.
Battle round 4
At this point, I was at a deficit, both in victory points (although not by much), and in units on the board (by a lot). But the leftmost objective, guarded by a squad of Rubrics, disappeared, giving me hope to catch up on primary. The center objective was marked as Omega, and I had some secondaries to take it from the Thousand Sons. Send in the Land Raider!
And also the Rhino, to tie up the Rubrics. Of course, when the sorcerers roll like gods, the poor tank takes 5 wounds in melee.
I took the objective through OC numbers, but lascannons did jack, and tank shocking barely scratched the Forgefiend, so things went back to looking grim.
The Thousand Sons mopped up my remaining smaller squads, scored points and took the Land Raider down to a couple of wounds. And then they took the center objective as well by charging in everything.
Battle round 5
I tried taking away the center, but failed to kill anything meaningful, and threw in the towel there.
Conclusion
I think the game went fairly well, even though I lost. I gave up as I saw no chance of scoring, but the score was actually pretty close up to the last moment.
The big decisive moment was me sacrificing the Obliterators for nothing. This cascaded into Magnus not dying that turn; me needing CPs (that I wasted on Heroic Intervention) and throwing away Bring it Down! which I would have scored plenty next turn; not having the firepower later, etc.
There are also the secret missions to now consider. Previously, they were crap, but now they have changed in a variety of useful ways. I definitely should have picked one. That, plus the battle ready bonus, could have well swung the points total in my favor!
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