fbpx JOIN LOGIN JOIN

Mastering Big Magnus – Thousand Sons TACTICS

By Horton Doughton | January 16th, 2017 | Categories: Age of Sigmar, Tactics, tzeentch

magnus the red

Magnus the Red is incredibly powerful. He has an amazing stat line, and a host of special rules that make him the fiercest psyker in the galaxy.

++UPDATE+++ Horton has taken Magnus to the next level and won the 40k SCARAB GT over the weekend. Look More tips and tactics on this soon from Horton!

But what is the best way to use him? Should he always be looking to get into assault? Should he always fly around and shoot? If so, what powers should he use? What should he shoot at? These are just some of the many questions that need answering to better understand how to use Magnus the Red on the tabletop.

First and foremost, Magnus is a powerful psyker who knows an incredible 15 powers. To really understand him, we must first know what these 15 powers are, and what each one is good at doing. Let’s dive in!

Discipline of Change

Flickering Fire of Tzeentch: This power is excellent at killing infantry of all types, and especially good at killing light infantry. A dedicated blast from a level 3 Flickering Fire can reliably kill 3-4 MEQ models, or 9-10 light infantry caught in the open.

  • Tzeentch’s Firestorm: A light infantry killer that really needs to find a bunched up pile of enemy models to be effective.
  • Bolt of Change: A beam power good at killing infantry and light armor.
  • Tzeentch Warpflame: Good at killing horde units.
  • Boon of Flame: Making a chariot is almost always good! Their guns are good vs all unit types.
  • Infernal Gateway: Great for killing light armor, or heavy infantry that have just arrived via deepstrike
  • Prismatic Gaze: Good at killing everything big!

magnus

Discipline of Tzeench

  • Tzeench’s Firestorm: Though it has the same name, it is different than the Change power. Still a light infantry killer.
  • Boon of Mutation: A risky power that should probably never be used.
  • Doombolt: Great for killing heavy infantry and vehicles.
  • Siphon Magic: Makes Magnus absorb warp charges! Great to cast when around other psykers.
  • Breath of Chaos: A template great for killing heavy infantry.
  • Baleful Devolution: Excels at killing key models embedded in squads, and taking out enemy MCs.
  • Treason of Tzeentch: The better guns your opponent has, the better this power is. Perfect for turning powerful shooting units against your opponent.
  • Gaze of Magnus: Great at killing all things big. Vehicles, buildings, MCs, etc.

 

So, those are Magnus’ powers. Did you notice anything? Magnus is EXTREMELY good at killing infantry of all types, and has the powers necessary to kill vehicles as well. In short, no matter what is across the table from him, he has a way to kill it in the psychic phase. The trick is just looking at the number of dice that you have available and seeing how best to use them. Let’s look at Magnus with only his own mastery level plus a D6.

Master 5 Plus D6 warp charge = An average of 8-9 dice.

With casting on a 2+, this means Magnus can quite reliably cast four level 1 witchfire powers with only this amount of dice. You could cast:

Doombolt (using 2 dice)
Bolt of Change(using 2 dice)
Level 1 flickering fire(using 2 dice)
Tzeentch’s Warpflame(using 2 dice)

Similarly, you could sprinkle in some level 2 powers depending on what you need to take out:

Level 1 Flickering Fire (using 2 dice)
Bolt of Change (Using 2 dice)
Doombolt (using 2 dice)
Baleful Devolution (Using 3 dice)

You could also do the approach of only using 1 dice per power, and casting more powers:

Doombolt(1 dice)
Bolt of Change (1 Dice)
Flickering Fire(1 dice)
Tzeentch’s Warpflame(1 dice)
Tzeentch’s Firestorm(1 dice)Magnus

The spare 3-4 dice could be used to make any one of these castings more reliable.

8 dice with Magnus is also enough to very reliably cast his Gaze of Magnus power.

In this way, we can see that Magnus can throw out a lot of shooting just with his own dice.

Fighting a Gladius Strike Force? Doombolt and Bolt of Change are great at killing infantry and tanks alike.
Fighting Daemons? Baleful Devolution is great at killing big MCs, and daemon infantry will be blasted away by flickering fire.

Fighting Knights? Magnus has multiple Strength D shots to take these big guys down.
We have shown that Magnus is very effective with only 8-9 dice, but when he has access to 15 or more, he is truly devastating. This allows for the casting of multiple level 3 powers and supporting level 1 powers, or the Gaze of Magnus with either other supporting level 1 witchfires or a few level 3 powers.

For example, with 18 dice Magnus can quite reliably cast the following:

Level 3 Flickering Fire (using 5 dice)
Boon of Flame (using 5 dice)
Treason of Tzeentch (using 5 Dice)
Baleful Devolution (using 3 dice)

This would allow him to potentially devastate 4 units, depending on what Treason of Tzeentch takes control of.

Similarly, if Magnus is trying to obliterate a single unit, then he can do this with 18 dice:

Gaze of Magnus (using 8 dice)
Bolt of Change (using 2 dice)
Doombolt (using 2 dice)
Level 3 Flickering Fire (using 5 dice)
Force (using 1 dice)

This brings a tremendous amount of firepower to bear on a target and buffs Magnus with the casting of a blessing. Spell Siphon is also an amazing power for Magnus, as it improves his invulnerable save and helps him generate additional dice to use later.

In all of these examples, fewer or more dice could be used, but I think the numbers listed represent the amount of dice that almost guarantee success.

It is also very important to remember that Magnus casts all these powers with no risk to himself. He cannot suffer perils of the warp. This means that if there is only 1 power that really matters during your psychic phase, such as Gaze of Magnus, then by all means, throw all of your dice at it!

Magnus the RedMagnus in Assault

Magnus is extremely good in assault. With 7 attacks on the charge at Strength 8, and a force weapon that creates spawn on a 6, there is not much he cannot kill. However, Magnus does not always want to be in assault. Without Stomp, Magnus’ offensive output in combat is only 3-4 wounds per round. This means that it is relatively easy to bog him down with fearless horde units, or models with eternal warrior and a good invulnerable save. If your opponent has these two things, you need to be very careful using Magnus to assault. However, if your opponent’s army is full of relatively soft targets that don’t have that much shooting, then Magnus can really do a lot of damage in assault. Also, do not forget that even when in combat, Magnus can still use the Boon of Flame, and Treason of Tzeentch psychic powers, and both of those can really have a large impact on the game.

The important thing to remember when using Magnus is that he has many different ways he can impact the game. He can be a psychic shooting powerhouse, a reliable summoning platform, or a close combat monster. The trick is finding out which one of these is the best use for him in your games. Let’s look at a few list archetypes and think about how Magnus might be best put to use:

Eldar and Tau Builds with lots of shooting: These armies have the firepower to kill Magnus if he is on the ground, so he will probably not be assaulting anything. However, Treason of Tzeentch and Magnus’ plethora of shooting attacks really shine here, and give him the ability to cripple the enemy whilst attacking from the sky.

Space Marine Armies: Unless these armies are full of grav cannons in drop pods, this is a matchup where Magnus can stay on the ground and take full advantage of his abilities in the psychic and assault phases.

Chaos Space Marine Armies: Chaos marines are quite powerful now, but they have very little that can deal with Magnus. He is probably best used on the ground almost every turn and launching assaults.

Deathstars: Magnus is powerful, but he does not want to get assaulted by a deathstar. Staying in the air and throwing mind bullets is probably the right call. Don’t forget that even if the enemy deathstar is invisible, beam powers can still hit it, and Magnus has 3 beams!

Orks, IG, GSC, Tyranids: These armies are grouped together because their ability to fight Magnus are all similar. There are very few things in these armies that can take out Magnus with any kind of speed, and Magnus’ assault ability can really break open any unit in these armies. The main thing to watch out for is getting bogged down by large blobs of fearless units. If you can avoid that, Magnus should be a true wrecking machine.magnus new black library 40k novel horus heresy

Knights: Strength D and stomp are Magnus’ worst enemies. Keep to the sky and shoot!

Daemons and KDK: These armies have lots of units that are very good at locking Magnus in an assault he will never escape. This will often force you to stay in the air and shoot, and only land when Magnus has reached a critical objective.

Mastering Magnus is no easy task, but if you do, you will see that he has a way to engage every single kind of army in 40k, and is well worth his price tag. That does it for this edition of Thousand Sons Tactics!

Good luck using Magnus!

tzeentch

Looking for more Tzeentch?

About the Author: Horton Doughton

Horton has a masters degree in Exercise Science from Appalachian State University, and works increase the health and fitness of his community.