NOTE
I decided to update the first post as the army has changed greatly since I first started and it's always a good idea to have some models shown in the first post for the new viewers who don't want to search throught the first pages of concepts and ideas.

INTRO
Last year I read ‘A Thousand Sons’ and they’re by far the most interesting Space Marine legion ever. Of course I was already interested in them thanks to the Horus Heresy Artbooks so when I brought it I already knew a bit about the Thousands Son interesting background and suspected that I would want to build an army of them after reading it. As expected I started work on a Scarab Occult army sortly after finishing the book.

WHO ARE THE SCARAB OCCULT
For those of you who haven’t read the book the Scarab Occult were the Thousand Sons veteran psykers and I believe made up the entire first company. It consisted of several cults, each specialising in a unique use of psychic sorcerery…

The Corvidae - Able to see the future and warn the brothers of threats in the middle of a fight.
The Pyrae - Skilled Pyrokinetics able to generate and control fire. Shields projectiles you name it and control robots.
The Pavoni - Able to manipulate body chemisty; boil blood, evaporate oxygen in the lungs. Disturbing stuff.
The Athanaeans - Powerful telepaths used for reading enemy squad leaders minds and communicate to their brothers.
The Raptora - Telekines that can offensively hurl things at enemies or attack them directly or defensibly generate ’kine shields’ powerful invisible barriers.

Luckily at the time the two best releases required for such a project came out Codex: Grey Knights an army of psychic Astartes and Tomb Kings with some nice bitz to use. I’m also keen to build an army with a small amount of models after completing 64 infantry and 19 tanks for my last project. Lugging that stuff up a hill to my gaming club ain't fun lol.

UNIT CONCEPTS SO FAR!
Magnus The Red
I considered including the Primarch at first using Lord Draigo but then thought how unpractical it was as Magnus destroyed 3 xenos titans in the book by himself, so unless I was going to use count as stats from a titan he wasn’t going to be in the army.




Little Magnus
So I decided to create a captain nicknamed 'little Magnus' due to his resemblance to the Primarch similar to little Horus of the Luna Wolves/Sons Of Horus. I then found the prefect model…




True I won’t be able to use it in GW stores but I think he’d make a great Draigo counts as with storm shield in one hand. I’m also debating if I should attempt to green stuff some more hair on him?

One Of The Captains
I plan to convert one of the Thousand Sons captains from the book, not Ahriman thou as everyone does him and I think there are much better ones to choose from.

Interceptors
I been considering the idea of using artificer armoured marine as ‘counts as’ terminators for a while as marines are always spoken of in the 40k fiction of being able to take down hold squads of infantry and having an small army of elite dramatically posed marines was tempting.




Of course as you can see from these three I plan to model every warrior to look like a hardened veteran, attached wargear and robes, the iron armour should represent artificer armour very well and I've also modelled a personal teleporter on the backpack. Thou storm bolters would be represented by magical bolts with the heavier weapons being modelled as powerful spells being cast.

However after asking around on forums about it was decided that they looked too much like interceptors and would be confusing. So these guys will be used as my interceptors.

Terminators
So given on how my artificer armour idea wasn’t going to work I decided to focus on converting terminator armour, I had already come up with some ideas on how I could do it with the legs being the only problem then I saw the micro art studio legs and everything fitted into place.

I also used a pair of chapterhouse shoulder pads I had ordered during a previous project out of curiosity and the Scibor Scarab Shield to replace the storm bolter plus a few other bits. I went with the power armoured helm because I prefer it to the angular terminator version.





I've also decided to scrap the invisible magic bolts for actual weapons so I’ve brought several of the SM commander’s storm bolter which was the easiest to convert. However rather than trying to remove the awkward mould line on the top detail I got rid of it and was going to replace it with a bolter sight from the tactical box set, but instead I made my own sights using the parts of the interceptor teleporter packs instead.
My favourite squad member is the hammer user, I love seeing thunder hammers in Dawn Of War and Space Marine as you really feel the impacts. So I decided to copy the animation when the force commander raises it in the air then brings it down on an enemy from DOW.
Finally there’s the reaper Autocannon which will represent my Psycannons, I got rid of the skull and added a eagles wing to the side to make it less chaos themed, I also swapped a halberd to the left hand.

I’m looking forward to seeing one of my squads charge for the first time as they completely dwarf standard models, just look at their size compared to the black reach marine. The dreadnoughts will be quite big as well so this will be an army of giants!

Dreadnoughts
It took a while but I final got a hold of a pair of relic contemptors and after a bit of work the first one was completed.




Aside the basic bits such as putting a scarab over the Aquila and a nice head crest on the helmet I converted the heavy bolters to Autocannons. I shorted down the IG Heavy weapon team Autocannons because I felt they would have looked odd if I had kept them at their original length.
Another edition was 2 strong magnets to make the arms exchangeable, now they weren’t wide enough so I brought some plastic tubing the same width as the arms to put them in and thanks to the Dread‘s size this hasn‘t effected the model too much.

I'll talk about the specialised boltgun that the interceptor has in my next post.

& MUCH MORE
Now I know that people using the Grey Knight codex for Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons is common. But I feel one of the biggest benefits to the codex is it’s ability to allow me to field the other forces of Prospero alongside the thousand sons. Will get to each of them later in the log but for now here’s a quick recap.

Warrior henchmen allow me to field an attachment of Prospero Spire Guard with a general representing Coteaz.

The Legio Cybernetica robotic units can be represented by basic dreadnought and paladins.

& the Thousand Sons Hidden One Operatives can be represented by assassins and inquisitors.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Due to GW’s attitude towards the hobby side of their business, and continuing price rise I’ve decided to make this army my last, but with so much potential I feel it will be my best project ever.

Anyway I look forward to hearing your feedback on the current and future conversions for this project.

Horus Heresy collected visions Black Libby @£30. ish


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Flying brick as well?

Looks like this one's gonna be awesome. Can't wait to see it come together!

Also, if you want a quick and easy Magnus, a company did him a while back. They pop up on eBay semi-frequently:

Sounds like a great (and ambitious) project. Be interesting to see how you carry it out.

Nice…. I just finished the audio book…. I listen while working on my army. It beats 40K radio lately.
Was thinking the same thing, it sounds like a great army to build….

wow, this looks interesting. definitely subbed

Glad to see someone is doing this! I'd heard the idea booted around in a couple local gaming groups, but no one has done it yet.

As far as modelling, the more GS you use to make cool fire/warp/energy effects, the better. This army should wear it's sorcerous power proudly!

Do you own the Collected Visions of Heresy book? There's so much good TSons material in there...

Darth Bob wrote:Looks like this one's gonna be awesome. Can't wait to see it come together!

Also, if you want a quick and easy Magnus, a company did him a while back. They pop up on eBay semi-frequently:

That's actually my photo of my copy of the model, which is for sale (link in my sig)--no clue what that website that copy of the image is hosted on is, though. For some reason my photo keeps being used by people on ebay.

I like your idea for the army. My own was formulated from Codex: Space Marines and if I started it again now, I would probably end up with something similar. I like using the curved blades, if you're lucky you can sometimes get large-ish lots of them for cheap on ebay. I agree that the power armour Grey Knight heads will work well on Terminators; MaxMini do good pre-Heresy shoulder pads for Terminators or you can use Dreadnought shins or plasticard.

Omg awesome!!!

1k Sons are my prefered pre-heresy-army.

And GK codex fits pretty well... fire discipline for bolters (= storm bolter) is okay..

I thought Space Wolves codex would be okay for pre-heresy... 4 hq slots for librarians...

motorhead1945 wrote:I thought Space Wolves codex would be okay for pre-heresy... 4 hq slots for librarians...

That's wrong on so many levels thou.

One thing I discovered today is that the heavy support grey knights don't require LOS which made me immediately think of the tutelaries; warp entities that the thousand sons use, often used for locating enemies and sniping. Maybe model them like this miniature; http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/575/ksonp2.jpg

Protieus what happened? The string has unravelled leaving only the loose threads (Metaphor-puntastic if i may say so).. So is this thousand sons Defo defo defo x1000 your chosen army?

Perkustin wrote:Protieus what happened? The string has unravelled leaving only the loose threads (Metaphor-puntastic if i may say so).. So is this thousand sons Defo defo defo x1000 your chosen army?

Tau & Night Lords; I know, trust me I know.

It just so hard finding a project that can be as interesting and match my previous projects. The Thousand Sons & Post-Apocalyptic Kroggs! are my next two projects; FACT!
I aim to enter the Kroggs into the 'Armies On Parade' and with the Thousand Sons army being so small it I can work on that on the side. I may come back to do the Night Lords in the near future thou.

Maybe for the teleporting guys they could jump the warp using physic powers?

Indeed, and to represent the teleporting guys, you could have them modeled mid-blink. (There were some great Warp Spiders posted a while ago where they were modeled with warp portals behind them.)

DREADNOUGHTS CONCEPT
I’ve been looking at the Grey Knight codex and I’m thinking about a purifer based list as the 1k sons of the Pyrae cult were skilled pyrokinetics and it seems appropriate. However pre-heresy dreads are a pain to convert and those sgt 8 auto cannon dreads are too good not to take. But rather than stuggle to convert a pre-heresy dread I thought of a concept that could work instead.

I will use a conversion I used in my machine cult project and mount the body of a venerable dread on it, add a few details to the legs and with the added auto cannon arms I’ll hopefully have something similar to a Protoss Immortal from Starcraft 2.





Also I'm thinking about using the FW Iron Armour kits with thousand son torsos for the gold trim and heads, but I'll have to see if I can learn how to paint the 1k son symbols on by hand since I won't be using the Chapterhouse studio pads with them.

What will you use for helmets?
I would like to find out how to make the helmets.

Do the Immortals.

A Venerable is basically a Pre Heresy dread. Adding more legs to it imho would make it look quite odd.

Arken Vul'tan01 wrote:A Venerable is basically a Pre Heresy dread. Adding more legs to it imho would make it look quite odd.

Not by the standards of the RT era dreads, nor the art from the Visions of Heresy series it's not!

dont paint the scarabs use GS there realy easy to do .

Thought of using any of the new TK stuff? Not sure if it fits your theme or not.

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Thought of using any of the new TK stuff? Not sure if it fits your theme or not.

Of course, I plan to use their blades for the weapons. Also instead of the dreadnought maybe I could use the old space crusade dreadnoughts as robots as the Pyrae cult also specialised in controlling machines and used robots for frontline and support.

Could always use the Necrosphynx with the Drednaught. Those arms would look great on it!

Looking awesome, good idea for the codex btw

ARTIFICER ARMOUR?
I’ve come up with an much better concept for the Thousand Sons model, basically the FW Iron Armour model with Thousand Son torso and grey knight arms with tomb king blades. Now even with bits websites these will work out to be very expensive, so I’m a bit reluctant to take 30-40 of them especially since the 30 FW iron armour marines would cost £120!

So I’m debating mounting them on 40mm bases and saying they have artificer armour and use just Grey Knight Terminators and Paladins, this means…

It will be a lot cheaper as I will only need 15-20 models. This also means I can focus more on them and add more detail.

I can feature the warrior’s tutelary on the base (the most powerful Thousand Sons have a warp entity that help them channel their power)

Converting tutelary warriors as ghost knights could be an interesting concept?

For the Psycannon I’m going to model the warriors casting a magical projectiles, now terminators get to keep their CCW while the power armoured GK can’t, so I won’t have an unarmed thousand sons fighting in close combat with just their fists, if you get what I mean.

I can use the Ahriman model as my librarian with a few tweaks to the model.

However the huge downside is that this could easily cause confusion for my opponent and other people as GK terminators and their power armoured counter parts have identical wargear. So I’m reluctant to take this option.

Anyway I’m going to ask for player’s opinions at Throne Of Skulls this weekend and I’m eager to hear what you guys think on the matter as well?

You can get a terminator kit and a Space marine Tactical squad and combine bits and such.

hey proiteus,
im thinking about doing something similiar and i was wondering if/how you were planning on making the scarab emblems?

Well it seems like you're in for a long modelling ride no matter what you do.

I would suggest that you use Terminators for the Terminators. It's just going to cause confusion otherwise. The big difference between GK and SM Terminators is that GK's are more embellished and look older and more regal. But they also have all that embossed Roman all over them. What you could do, if you were game, would be to dremel out all that Roman and replace it with Hieroglyphics.

With the standard GKs, you could probably use Dark Angel or Black Templar bodies (for the plastic robes) and raid Bitz services for the GK arms. For the heads, similarly convert GKs or use the FW heads and either cast them or contact FW and ask if they could just cast the heads for you for a discounted price.

The Thousand Sons torsos are covered in Tzeentch iconography, not Egyptian scarabs.

I like the magic concept. A friend of mine used magic as a replacement for obliterator weapons. You could say that the "Storm Bolter" is just them casting fireballs, and that they are so good at using fireballs that they no longer need to take a psychic test to do so.

CONCEPTS & IDEAS
The Grey Knight codex is fantastic problem is coming up with an effective list that suits this theme and has some variety. Here are some ideas for units I’ve had…

Justicar Thawn
To sum him up he’s a grey knight terminator justicar with a ‘will be back’ regardless of what puts him down he’s up the next turn on a 4+. I like the idea of modelling his fallen body with his tutelary hovering over him healing it, have his arm growing back bone first, skin 2nd and have the armour regenerate behind it with some glowing effects it could look fantastic.

Mordrak & Ghost Knights
Coming up with ghost knight representatives for this theme had been hard so far I have 3 ideas…
1. Powerful Tutelaries; perhaps using the new tomb kings stalkers, however tutelaries enhance the powers of the psykers and never actually fight the enemy directly.
2. Ghost Thousand Sons; calling his fallen brother backs from the warp to aid him.
3. Necromancy; thou a bit dark for the pre-heresy a skilled member of the Pavoni cult could use his powers to manipulate the body chemistry of a fallen enemy like a puppet. Problem is describing why the enemy has force weapons and GKT stats.

Thrall Sorcerer Squad
Inquisitor henchmen squad with 6 psykers in a rhino can create a sgt 8 AP 2 large blast template for 100pts. So I thought it would be a nice idea to create a unit of human psykers and convert them to look like a squad of small sorcerers who combine their powers to aid the thousand sons.

OOOO SHINY BITZ
Still debating the idea of saying all of the warriors in the army have artificer armour and mounting them on 40mm bases and counting them as terminators. Saw these bits online and fell in love with them, might use them for squad leaders and characters or perhaps use them as artifcer armour for the terminator squads?

As always I'm grateful for any feedback on the ideas?

Like the idea of the Thrall Sorcerers very much!

I personally wouldnt have a problem with you putting artificer armoured marines on 40mm bases and using them as Terms, provided they were modelled dynamically () and that there were no PA marines on 25mm bases.
Holy hell those bitz is sweet! get 'em...!

First off let me ask where did you find those marine bodies!

I am also thinking of using the Grey Knights codex for the Pre-heresy thousand sons. Here is what I have gotten so far.

I bought the shoulder pads from Chapter House. Even though they are going to be sued they still delivered quickly.

http://chapterhousestudios.com/webshop/component/virtuemart/?page=shop.browse&category_id=44

I ordered these from Scibor for Halberds:

http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=1076

Head dresses:

http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=910

Lastly from kromlech.eu i added some Khopesh Vibro Swords for variation.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Kromlech-Khopesh-Vibro-Swords-/160569161533?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2562aaf73d

My plan is to combine all these bits into a Grey Knight Terminator Squad.

Hope this helps you on your quest.

And the sound track "Walk like an Egyptian."

You could use Egyptian god symbols.

veritechc wrote:First off let me ask where did you find those marine bodies!

I'm told they sometimes appear on ebay so I'm going to have to wait for them to reappear.

I'm going to have to split up the bits if I use them, because I'll want to attend tournaments at Warhammer World with them and from what I understand conversions need to be a made up of a 3rd of GW parts to be useable at the venue.

THE HELMET CREST, WHAT TO USE?
Another problem I forgot to mention was I'm struggling to find a bit to use for the crest they have on their helmets; Any suggestions?

I am doing a small Thousands sons squad but mine will be post Heresy. I got a set of those torsos and hopefully they will be with me soon.

Word of warning though I bought the Scibor Egyptian shoulder pads (They have Scarab designs on them.) and basing kits and they look awesome but they are too big for power armour marines but hopefully they will look good on termies.

Proiteus wrote:

veritechc wrote:First off let me ask where did you find those marine bodies!

I'm told they sometimes appear on ebay so I'm going to have to wait for them to reappear.

I'm going to have to split up the bits if I use them, because I'll want to attend tournaments at Warhammer World with them and from what I understand conversions need to be a made up of a 3rd of GW parts to be useable at the venue.

THE HELMET CREST, WHAT TO USE?
Another problem I forgot to mention was I'm struggling to find a bit to use for the crest they have on their helmets; Any suggestions?

maximini steam knight heads

This is very interesting. I'm really liking your ideas, and I can't wait to see more.

Consider me subscribed! Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons caught my eye after my cousin lent me the Horus Heresy books...

- A shame about the Egyptian Knight bodies not being for sale anymore, but an E-bay expedition item.

MORE INSPIRATION FOR THIS PROJECT
During the Throne Of Skulls tournament last weekend I saw another grey knight army based round the Thousand Sons legion, all the models were fantastically detailed and drew on a lot of the concepts from the book. I just couldn’t stop looking at it, it was amazing.

We spoke several times over the weekend and discussed our ideas, he liked the regenerating Thawn idea and a captain of the Pavoni controlling dead wolf guard terminators and asked if he could use those ideas.

The best part of his army was the fact he had modelled tutelaries (warp sprits that enhance the psyker’s powers) on all of the warriors backpacks in such a way to really draw attention to the army. They’re were much better painted armies nominated but his great and imaginative conversion work won him best army. I highly recommend you check out his army on BOLS > LORD MAGNUS DEMANDS YOU CLICK HERE!

A DOWNSIDE
The only downside is I also planned to model the tutelaries as they’re an interesting part of the pre-heresy 1k sons. However I was going to model them on 40mm bases and have them hovering behind the warriors mounted on a flying base stem or thin wire rod. I had always imagined that the tutelaries looked like similar to this guy.


The idea was I’d model them differently to represent the cult the warrior belonged to, still debating the telepath's spirts thou…

Pyrokinetics convert VC Ghouls and paint the hair as flames.

Telekinetics convert the savage orcs to sprits.

& for those who could see into the future use the dark eldar crows.

Problem is I’m now reluctant to model the tutelaries cause I be attending Throne Of Skulls with this army in autumn or winter and I believe those who haven’t read the book will just think I’m copying his idea?

I think that while modeling the tutelaries is a creative and inspired idea they are invisible is I remember correctly until the last battle in the book. Personally I am going for the "pure" pre heresy Thousand Sons before their psy powers lead them down the road to chaos. I am looking for a really Egyptian theme.

The other army is great and his conversions dynamite. I love the scarabs in wings concept and you can consider that stolen!

Here are pre-heresy Thousand Sons symbol and a stylized scarab symbol. You can use these to make transfers for your army.

Pre-Heresy Thousands Sons Symbol JPG: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17584656/Thousand-Sons-Pre-heresy-Symbol.jpg

Pre-Heresy Thousands Sons Symbol GIF http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17584656/Thousand-Sons-Pre-heresy-Symbol.gif

Pre-Heresy Thousands Sons Scarab JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17584656/Scarab.jpg

Pre-Heresy Thousands Sons Scarab GIF http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17584656/Scarab.gif

i would go with the spirit creatures, the goal would be to make them different enough so that they are your own work and can be identified as such.

veritechc wrote:Here are pre-heresy Thousand Sons symbol and a stylized scarab symbol. You can use these to make transfers for your army.

Personally I can't stand transfers; they're difficult to place on the space marine shoulder pads, they come off easily and shine, I'd rather paint the symbols on. Which I'm not looking forward to in the slightest.

Regarding the egyptian knights parts; they look great but I need to consider the fact that GW venues require that the model is made up of mostly GW parts, so in order to keep the right percentage in parts I’m going to use the heads and torsos on separate models and only include one of the Egyptian shoulder pads per model with a blank one on the other side with the legion’s icon painted on.

I might not use the torsos at all and just use the heads and shoulder pads as most of the 1k sons had very basic breast plates with scarab details?



Also any ideas where I can get some resin jews and scarabs because when you sculpt details they're either going to come out great or look poor, mine will probably be the latter.

Proiteus wrote:

veritechc wrote:Here are pre-heresy Thousand Sons symbol and a stylized scarab symbol. You can use these to make transfers for your army.

Personally I can't stand transfers; they're difficult to place on the space marine shoulder pads, they come off easily and shine, I'd rather paint the symbols on. Which I'm not looking forward to in the slightest.

Regarding the egyptian knights parts; they look great but I need to consider the fact that GW venues require that the model is made up of mostly GW parts, so in order to keep the right percentage in parts I’m going to use the heads and torsos on separate models and only include one of the Egyptian shoulder pads per model with a blank one on the other side with the legion’s icon painted on.

I might not use the torsos at all and just use the heads and shoulder pads as most of the 1k sons had very basic breast plates with scarab details?



Also any ideas where I can get some resin jews and scarabs because when you sculpt details they're either going to come out great or look poor, mine will probably be the latter.

Oh man you are doing transfers all wrong then.

The key to water slide transfers is to clear coad the transfer jest before it drys. I uss a brush on gloss coat then a dull coat when I seal the model. So much cleaner then I can paint on a symbol.

I agree with you about the Egyptian models. Upon second look I am just going to use the Scibor Egyptian parts on the Grey Knight bodies http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=910

I am also going to use the Chapter House shoulder pads. That should contain enough GW parts to pass inspection.

What are you thinking for basing?

Im sorry, "resin jews"?? Not seen any of them before!

Perhpas press moulding some from the new TK stuff?

veritechc wrote:What are you thinking for basing?

The ruins of Prospero; some resin bases with details like space wolves helmets and torn pages. I'm thinking I might use GW helmets to start with and replace them with the egyptian knights bits later, that way I can enter them into the 'Armies On Parade' contest.

For that scarab shape, I think I'd get myself a modelling tool with wire attached to one end, and bend that wire into a round shape for the scarab body. Then use a knife and cut leg shapes in. Just squish a blob of GS onto the model and cut into it.

For resin gems... diamontes work sort of. Or roll GS into tiny elipses, wait for it to dry, and cut the elipses in half. Then get a tiny blob of GS and press it onto the model and then press the half-elipse into the blob. Simple gem.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS?
I’ve been writing up army lists for this project and since Gks are expensive it’s not been easy. Anyway I’ve now got two competitive lists and now I need to pick which one will look better visually and play well, so here‘s what’s in the two lists…

List 1: The Elite
Mordrak & 4 Ghost Knights
Librarian
20 Terminators
Dreadknight

Although the army is all in terminator armour I’ll be converting them using the FW Iron Armour bits and will mount them on 40mm and say they’re equipped with artificer armour. This way I can get more interesting poses and stuff. The Ghosts of Prospero should be fun to make, I can also include Magnus the red (Dreadknight) and Ahriman; with a few tweaks to the model (Librarian) in the army as well.

List 2: The Flames Of The Pyrae
Crowe
3X8 Purifiers
3 Pre-Heresy Rhinos
1 Venerable Dreadnought
2 Dreads

This list is a bit more expensive but has more variety to it with the inclusion of the pre-heresy dreads and rhinos which should be fun to convert. Crowe will be a Pyre captain with a flame sword.

The question is which list to I go for, list 1 is cheaper and smaller and features the Primarch or do I go with the 2nd list with the pre-heresy tanks. I suppose I could do both if I can come up with a way to swap the bases of the infantry models?

Also any suggestions on modelling Psycannons, I have considered warriors casting spells but the problem with the power armoured version is he’ll have no weapon when he’s in combat which seems a bit daft.

Also good news, hopefully I’ll be able to upload a complete conversion next week when the tomb kings come out.

THE FIRST CONVERTED MODEL (WELL ALMOST)
Finally got round to throwing together the first model today, sadly it won’t be complete till Sunday where I’ll be adding a few scarabs and jewels to the armour and adding a tomb guard blade to the halberd. I put a piece of plastic tubing where the storm bolter was, this will be painted up gold with symbols on I was going to put a gem on it but that made it too bulky. Plus I finally found a part to use for the helmet crest from a dark elf corsair box.

Other details I included was a piece of cloth down the front, which took 3 attempts to get right but I’m confident I’ll get the hang of it. I also converted the back pack into a personal teleporter to represent the deep strike ability, not sure if it works or not so I look forward to your feedback.

That looks awesome. The custom parts make it really stand out. Good work!

finally a model. ive been lurking on this blog waiting for somthing cant wait to see a army

the teleporter backpack looks good! I was actually trying to think of a way to represent this a while ago, and never came up with anything. Are you planning to make parts of the teleporter thing glow? Just curious. I like the helmet very much! Keep up the good work!

Nice model. How is the hand done? Repositioned and GS'd?

I like the model as well.


In terms of the list, I would go with the first one, the ability to have that large base seems perfect for this army, it allows you to have a ton of room to have a lot of character with each marine, as well as dead enemies and ruins on the base that can help tie the army together.
It also allows you to have the primarch. I personally don't know how good ghost knights are, so if you want to save some points you can always knock modrak and the ghost knights to get some dreds or another dreadknight if you want some more armor.

What a great start to what will be a beautiful army. Can't wait.

THEN THERE WERE TWO
Well the ball has now starting rolling on this project with the first two Scarab Occult warriors built. The new tomb kings blades look fantastic and fit on nicely.



I did try to cast the detailed scarabs off the tomb kings stuff but it failed, so I’m going to try creating the scarabs from green stuff and if I’m not happy with that I’ll paint the centre plate gold and paint the details on.

DISPLAY BOARD CONCEPTS?
I have two concepts for the display board for the ‘Armies On Parade’ contest. I’ll be able to use a laser cutter so I can go nuts with certain details and match the board design to the army’s bases which will be these…



The Temple
The first idea is a simple one, a ruined Thousand Sons temple with a gold scarab on the centre of the floor, perhaps a stairway, a few statues and maybe a water feature lol.

The Conflict At Shrike
This was a key moment in the Thousand Sons book where Magnus stopped the Space Wolves from destroying the main archives of a world they had invaded. The battle takes place on a large causeway above a chasm with the thousand sons defending the end of the causeway from an onslaught of space wolves.

The idea would be I’d have the platform the thousand sons army was based on mounted on a piece of polystyrene and raised above the main board with the space wolves marching towards them up the bridge (see the designs). This certainly would be a great display board however there are a few problems mainly constructing the cliff face and cutting the base without a polystyrene cutter?

There is also the issue of base size, now you know I’m using them as terminators but people seeing the army will be confused as to why the power armoured troops are on 40mm bases and I can’t simply put them on 25mm bases just for armies on parade cause as soon as they’re mounted on 40mm bases the display will be useless?

I’d be very grateful for any advice regarding the display board?

Looks simply brilliant. The display board will certainly be one of the coolest things ever if it's nearly as good as your other armies.

Best of luck!

Go for it! Just use the 40mm bases, perhaps have a plaque on a wall with some notes explaining the army or something?

Love the first two models. The FW bits look awesome! Love the khopesh's and the little headcrest bits. It all combines into a sweet model, great job!

Wow! Those blades fit really nicely onto them. + Props.

I like both ideas, though the first sounds nicer. Less diorama-esque and more Armies on Parade style. As for the GS scarabs: tiny oval blob, let it harden a little, press a T into it. Done. Though I'm sure your method will be more complicated and ultimately look insanely better.

I.

Love.

This.

Project.



HOLYCOW.

TheGreyJedi wrote:I.

Love.

This.

Project.



HOLYCOW.

perfect way to show my own feelings!

I harbor a secret (heresy!) love of the Thousand Sons. I want someday to build a true army and the GK codex MIGHT just be the way to do that and make it fluffy!

Foxtale wrote:I like both ideas, though the first sounds nicer. Less diorama-esque and more Armies on Parade style.

Really? I only seen a few example of armies on parade, the advantage to the diorama board over the flat open one is the fact it won't make my army look too small, as it will only contain around 20 models.

A NEED FOR SPEED?
Also heres an idea for Grey Knight Teleporter squads how about Pre-Heresy Jetbikes? It would suit their teleporter move better and make them easier differentiate from the 'artificer armoured warriors'. True they'll still be toughness 4, but the idea of having jetbikes with halberds down still sounds interesting.

Its certainly cool, but if you're talking about Interceptors it's a bit of a size gap. Still, its only you thats at a disadvantage in that case, so i say go for it!!

The size issue would be a big problem if you plan to play torties.

Maybe have marines riding discs but that may be a bit too chaos for you, or maybe spirits of some sorts.

BASEWORK & FILLERS
The biggest problem I'm facing is because I’m using them as artificer armoured troops (terminators) I have to mount them on 40mm bases, some of the models can be posed to make the base not look to big but there are a lot of large gaps. I would love to model some small tutelaries (warp entities the thousand sons used) on the base but I’m having trouble finding the right miniatures to convert, I did think of using the ghouls and painting the hairs as flames but they’ve got too many bones on them so I don’t think it would look right.

So any ideas on what I can use to convert something similar to this critter right here which is how I imagined the tutelaries looked to go on my bases?

HARD WORK!
So far the first model looks to be my best painted miniature yet, and it should be given that I spent a evening blending the red, a 2nd evening doing the gold and sunday afternoon on the other details and I've still got to do the arms. Makes me look forward to the finished model and glad I'm only doing around 25 of them!

With luck I'll have the first guy done by the end of the week, just need to figure out how to detail his base so he isn't dwarfed by it?

Looking very nice, basing will depend on what environment you want them in. You could easily fill a 40mm base with some kick-ass industrial ruins/detritus.

Could you maybe elevate all the dudes on the larger bases, like have them standing on rubble or floating or something? That might offset their smaller size.

JUST THE FIRST OF MANY!
Well this has to be my best painted model ever and he’s only the first of 20 to 30 more just like him! Which is good as he took a week to paint. I used painting tutorials from 2 White Dwarfs to help me paint the model to the best of my ability; the Space Hulk captain tutorial for the armour and jewels and the high elf prince’s for the gold, robes and sword. The hardest and most frustrating part was the symbols, especially the thousand sons logo but with a few snarls and curses later I was happy with it thou I will paint the scarab a little smaller next time.



I did try to paint an engraving into the bracelet but it didn’t come out like I had hoped. I’m very pleased thou with how the robes came out.

Because I’m looking to make an army of artificer armoured warriors (counts as terminators) I needed to include a personal teleporter for the deep strike ability and although the thousand sons can hurl objects, lightning and fire they always carry a holster bolt pistol or bolter, it’s a small detail I going to add to all of the warriors.

As for the base, due to his pose I couldn’t place him on a flat 40mm base without him being dwarfed by it, so I created a raised platform for him using a resin 40mm and greenstuff.

Now I’m even more psyched to get started on the next model and try make it better looking than this one!

Very, very nice!

I can't say I'm really a fan of the standard-sized model on a 40mm base, but you did it quite well.

Keep up the great work!

Valete,

JohnS

Very sexy painting!!!

Will be keeping an eye on this!

Oh my..................................

This is awesome.

Loverly painting!!The base looks great, though i think the tutelary is needed to fill it out a bit more. Are you still planning to do them??

The time you spent on that paintjob really shows.

I like it. Though I'd have made the glaive a little longer.

HEAVY HITTERS?
I finally played a game against some dreadknights, thanks to their Teleporters they tore my mech guard to shreds. This made me realise that I need at least 2 as a single one would be brought down by focus fire, so I’ve been thinking of ideas to represent Dreadknights in my pre-heresy thousand sons.

I could go with the robots of the Pyrae like one featured in the Thousand Sons army that won best army at Throne Of Skulls. Or I could go extreme and use the torso from the war sphinx and create a huge warp entity with a thousand son warrior modelled on the base controlling it (or perhaps not), this would make the army more post heresy than pre-heresy as it‘s something they‘d likely use after they separation from the Imperium. I’d most likely model it with a ghost/genie like tail like the blue spirit I’ve shown in previous posts.



What do you think? Also any suggestions on how I can convert the thunder hammer to match the Egyptian like theme, so far I can only think of using the lion heads off the chaos tank sprue?

That test model is brilliant! Also, doing a ghost Dreadknight would be pretty badass. Like the one in the image above.

Good luck, this looks like an amazing project.

Just wanted to say REALLY like the work so far. Also like your use of so much artwork for inspiration and reference.

Wish more people would do this.

Here are just a couple ideas for your summoned or ghostly looking creeps...
(Paintjobs would need to be changed, obviously)
http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/anima-tactics/covel-neutral-faction.html

http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/anima-tactics/al-djinn.html
-Sorry if you've seen these already.

Ghost Dreadknight!!

For a TH, i dunno, you could use a normal hammer, but put an Ushabti head on the back instead of the aquila?

Are there going to be any of those nifty new(ish) Stormraven Gunships in your army
Oh, yeah, btw great job, too!

QUICK QUESTION?
I was working on my 1st squad leader today and they’re modelled by placing the iron armour torso on dark angel robed legs with a large scarab on the front plate, they’ll also have a thousand son Egyptian helmet. Anyway when I placed the main body on the base behind a base of a cracked pillar an idea occurred; the legs were leaning to the left so I’m thinking of posing him using his left arm to levitate the rubble from the pillar in front of him.

Now this would look cool if done right, but I was thinking perhaps I should model the warriors armed with Psycannons who are casting spells as squad leaders, after all they’ll be the last model I remove, there is not difference in stats and thousand sons often rose through ranks based on psychic power and skill. I'm also planning on converting each of my Psycannons casting a different type of cult power 1) A telekinetic hurling rocks 2) A Pyrokinetic with a fireball and 3) A Biomancer effecting his enemies from a far.

However I’m keen to hear what you guys think to this idea? How could I model the Justicar if the Psycannon warrior looks the best; have a banner on his backpack or have him not wearing a helmet? And more importantly will this cause too much confusion?

Actually the T-Sons were using spirits and psyker powers while loyal. This is what they were reprimanded for. I love the idea of a Necrosphinx Dreadknight or even a ghost one.

Well the Justicar just channels the psychic powers that boost up the squad. Whilst you would have the psycannon user channeling the destructive powers.

Perhaps model the justicar using some kind of enhancing spell on the unit?

love the idea of a ghost creature.

i would model no leader per say and have "specialists" since they have the same stat line, you could, like Foxtale mentioned, have the offensive psycanon "specialist" and the defensive justicar "specialist", each looking more unique then the other models but easily seen as focusing on a single role. you could argue they are both the leaders, each one protraying a different psychic attrubute to the squad.

srry about spelling mad tired

Love the Idea of a Dante Esque Ghost form! I do like the look of the new troops, any reason you are going with such a large base when it could to affect the way the army plays tourny wise?

Cutthroatcure wrote:any reason you are going with such a large base when it could to affect the way the army plays tourny wise?

They're actually counts-as GK Terminators, which need a 40mm base. Which will definitely need clarification before tourneys and such. You might need a little "Counts-as Guide Sheet" like the one you made for the Grot Rebellion army.

Joshh wrote:

Cutthroatcure wrote:any reason you are going with such a large base when it could to affect the way the army plays tourny wise?

They're actually counts-as GK Terminators, which need a 40mm base. Which will definitely need clarification before tourneys and such. You might need a little "Counts-as Guide Sheet" like the one you made for the Grot Rebellion army.

Ok cause they looked like troops and that is what was confusing me...Thanks for the clarification!

Well Protieus, it's taken me long enough to post here as RL has prevented me from doing much. As a keen 1kSons player (the blue dusty ones, not the nice red ones...) I feel I should critique your work.

Really nice finish on the test models and they definitely look the part. The red is well blended and the gold has been finished in a worn manner which adds to the overall aesthetic of the Thousand Sons.

On the dilemma of whether or not it would be confusing... As long as you clearly explain what the Psyker powers meant, as well as providing a guide similar to your other 'counts-as' armies, you should be fine. It seems like quite an interesting and innovative way of representing Psycannons.

STILL HERE
Just wanted you to know guys that this project is still going strong, I’ll soon have another 3 warriors done and after that I’ll complete the first squad with an incinerator sorcerer. Just need to find some dyrad heads for the tutelary which are proving hard to find.

However given how much hard work is involved with every model, especially the Teleporter packs and robes. I want to make sure that I won't recieve to much negative feedback to the artificer armour ‘counts as’ conversion theme, so I’ll be starting a poll on Warseer to ask people how they would react to an army of artificer armoured marines with a photo of the completed squad. Because the people on Warseer often give me the harshest critque and I just don’t want spend a week on each marine to be called lazy and be accused of converting for advantage purposes.

Also I’ve seen the new forgeworld pre-heresy dreadnought and I love it and considered using it as a Dreadknight stand in should my Necrosphinx conversion not work as I not ready to spend that amount of money of 3 dreadnoughts!

Well I better get back to work on Scarab Occult Warriors 2, 3 and 4. Till then here a photo of my dreadknight concept, I'm thinking of adding a huge cloak on to it to give it more size?

.

I would go with a clock.

The poll sounds like a good idea, but to be honest I don't think you should get any probs, if anyone asks just say you wanted to have more detailed bases, or that by making them termies you are actually portraying marines a lot more accurately.

PLAN B: FORBIDDEN FRUIT?
I’ve started work on the 2nd model’s base so with luck my Justicar model will be uploaded tomorrow. But the more effort I put into these models the more I’m concerned that the idea of saying their in artificer armour and are terminators will not work for the majority of players, I know I‘m already taking chances with none of the models having any ranged weapons modelled on them as they’re shooting attacks are magic bolts.

Because of this I have come up with an alternative Grey Knight Terminators conversion that actually uses GK Terminator bits, however the huge downside is that it uses a large number of non-gw bits…

Chapterhouse Studio’s Thousand Son Terminator pads,

Micro Art’s Steampunk robed legs that happen to be terminator sized,

& Scibor Miniature’s Egyptian Head Crests and small shields.

This could cause issues at Throne Of Skulls which I attend twice every year, plus other GW based tournaments. I guess I could get away with saying I green stuffed the robes. I guess if I go with the terminators I could always use forge world conversions as purifiers or interceptors.

Anyway I’m eager to hear your thoughts about this?

I have used Scibor, Chapterhouse, and the GW Terminators you are talking about for my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons




They work together well.

I though that the model had to be 50% GW and you could still use it in their tournaments?

veritechc wrote:I have used Scibor, Chapterhouse, and the GW Terminators you are talking about for my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons

Darn! I thought I was on to a winner there, I've seen lots of blue thousand sons terminators made from GKs and the helmet does match the old terminator helms so I decided to make a few improvements to those conversions but now I feel unoriginal. Not sure if I should go with that idea now since it now feels like I'm copying someone else's idea.

But it's nice to see that it works, I've heard mixed reviews about chapterhouse stuff, surprised you didn't use the small egyptian sheilds instead of the blank one?

Also the majority of the model has to be GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
THE SCARAB OCCULT VETERAN
Well that’s number two down, because I’m modelling the warrior armed with the specialist weapon as the sorcerer leading the squad I thought I’d make the Justicar look a bit different to the rest of the squad, mainly because of wound allocation.



I thought I’d try a more dramatic pose for this one and try and use the majority of the base, so I made him look like he’d just swung his halberd in a wide arc while charging forward. Like the last one he has both grenades and a bolt pistol modelled on him, in case his powers fail.

Now to get started on numbers 3 &4, however I'm still debating the alternative terminator conversion?

It looks good, this project seems to be consuming alot more time to do fewer models!

What's going on with the Veteran's left arm? I'm a little confused, could you get a shot from a different angle?

Otherwise, solid modeling and painting. Looks very nice - gotta love them Thousand Sons!

Great models!

I like that last one, the large bases really give you a lot of room to make some great poses and scenes.

GAMES WORKSHOP'S THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER?
I decided I'd go with the Terminator conversions cause it would give me more flexablity and it would be easier for my opponents visually. But because half the tournaments I attend our host by GW at Warhammer World I thought it best to run it by them first. I enquired about using just the robes for a deathwing army and sent them a picture of the robbed terminator and this is what they said...

Games Workshop Events Team wrote:I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to use those miniatures in one of our events. Essentially, if Games Workshop makes a model for something, we expect you guys to use it. Games Workshop makes Deathwing Terminators, so we would need you to use those.

This has made the situation even more annoying as this could also mean I can't use my artificer armour as well! I want to do an impressive looking Thousand Sons army but without breaking the bank and I don't want to ditch a 3rd project!

I honestly don't know what to do now cause I don't fancy building an army I can only use at my gaming club and tournaments at Maelstrom. Suggestions?

Proiteus wrote:GAMES WORKSHOP'S THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER?
I decided I'd go with the Terminator conversions cause it would give me more flexablity and it would be easier for my opponents visually. But because half the tournaments I attend our host by GW at Warhammer World I thought it best to run it by them first. I enquired about using just the robes for a deathwing army and sent them a picture of the robbed terminator and this is what they said...

Games Workshop Events Team wrote:I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to use those miniatures in one of our events. Essentially, if Games Workshop makes a model for something, we expect you guys to use it. Games Workshop makes Deathwing Terminators, so we would need you to use those.

This has made the situation even more annoying as this could also mean I can't use my artificer armour as well! I want to do an impressive looking Thousand Sons army but without breaking the bank and I don't want to ditch a 3rd project!

I honestly don't know what to do now cause I don't fancy building an army I can only use at my gaming club and tournaments at Maelstrom. Suggestions?

Wait they won't allow you to use your terminators with robed terminators and they say you need to use deathwing terminators? What?

Its lookin Awsome. I am always facinated to see what people do when they are workin with 1000 sons.
Its funny... I didnt even realise who it was who crafted these. When do i get to see them on the gaming table dude. Great job.

Asherian Command wrote:Wait they won't allow you to use your terminators with robed terminators and they say you need to use deathwing terminators? What?

Basically i asked them if I could use 1 non GW part mainly Micro Art’s Steampunk robed legs that happen to be terminator sized using this person's conversion as an example.

Looks like a great project, you have the skills to give the thousand son's justice!

Sounds to me like GW is trying to squeeze every bit of money out of you! Honestly imho what you were told is complete garbage. So that means you cant make a counts as army?

Interesting. The same idea I had, even down to the bases from Dragonforge (which I've bought a large number of).

tony_nids_10 wrote:Sounds to me like GW is trying to squeeze every bit of money out of you! Honestly imho what you were told is complete garbage. So that means you cant make a counts as army?

You can, but only using GW bits is the real message. As mentioned in GW events guide's counts as rules which featured my grot guard as an example

I understand the thought behind it but at the same time it limits players that want to play in GW events. I think everyone wants to have an army that sticks out. Ok enough BS, honestly I just don't want to see you not finish this project I follow all of your army projects and I love to see them completed.

I think you shoudl go onward on this project, and if you really want to play in the GW torties, maybe find a way to not use bitz from other companies? Not that I agree with that rule.

Sneak the model into there, or try and find a way to add enough stuff to it made by GW...It only have to be 51% GW

Cutthroatcure wrote:It only have to be 51% GW

That I'm afraid has changed cause the event guide states; "All models and their components must be produced by Citadel Miniatures, Forgeworld or Warhammer Forge" So Games Workshop offical events are out of the question, but I'm told I'll be able to use them at less offical store tournaments providing I use the 'i did it with green stuff' cover up.

Proiteus wrote:

Cutthroatcure wrote:It only have to be 51% GW

That I'm afraid has changed cause the event guide states; "All models and their components must be produced by Citadel Miniatures, Forgeworld or Warhammer Forge" So Games Workshop offical events are out of the question, but I'm told I'll be able to use them at less offical store tournaments providing I use the 'i did it with green stuff' cover up.

That smells a little fishy. Is it possible to use the GK Termi legs and just Greenstuff the robes?

I was just going to say if you said you made the robes out of GS, then you can use them in GW events. It would be cheaper to do it that way as well.

GiraffeX wrote:I was just going to say if you said you made the robes out of GS, then you can use them in GW events. It would be cheaper to do it that way as well.

You make that sound so easy, making the tabbards for the power armoured warriors is one thing but making robed legs for terminators is on a whole different skill level. Mine will likely come out like so many other green stuffed robes and look flat and not at all like fabric. I've found a picture of a squad of deathwing terminators using the bits I plan to use and they look so much better than anything I could hope to achieve, I'll be covering those belts with pouches and other bits.

NOTE; THESE ARE NOT MINE, THEY'RE OFF ANOTHER PERSON'S LOG OFF WARSEER

Great Sons, man. The first-ever painted figure and the dynamic 1K son look great... but that's a real bummer about not being able to use ANY outside parts at all...

I really hope you do finish this project- those terminators are looking really good- where are the robed legs from? Non-GW, I'm guessing... but they have a really sweet look overall.

-Remi

No now GW parts! looks like GW just made sure that I will not be playing in any of their events. Thank the Emperor that the independent tournaments are much better than the GW ones anyway!

I say make your man barbies any way you want! That's what I do.

To be honest, I don't really like those robed legs. They look far too tall and the end result is a stretched out termie with a tiny top.

Foxtale wrote:To be honest, I don't really like those robed legs. They look far too tall and the end result is a stretched out termie with a tiny top.

Actually, they just look like truescale marines. Yeah, the width-to-height ratio is different. But it looks good to me. In fact, that looks like a nice shortcut to TS, the hard part of which is usually the legs. Thanks for forwarding the inspiration!

Foxtale wrote:To be honest, I don't really like those robed legs. They look far too tall and the end result is a stretched out termie with a tiny top.

With you on this one...not a fan of those legs

Damn nice mate! If I missed or not, I cant see Ahriman, did you made him or?

Great start - The standard GW marine size is showing it's inherent flaws to my eyes, no matter what, but you've done well to catch the Thousand Sons feel and imagery.

Foxtale wrote:To be honest, I don't really like those robed legs. They look far too tall and the end result is a stretched out termie with a tiny top.

To be honest I too have my doubts about if it can work or not, all I can say is I'm reserving judgement till I've completed the first terminator model.

You have done magic in the past so I am quite curious to see what you can do with someone that did not catch my eye right off the bat : D

DREADKNIGHTS AS PRE-HERESY DREADNOUGHTS?
I’ve been considering alternative Dreadknight conversions to the large warp entity cause lets face it, it might look cool but there is nothing in the fluff that supports it.


So I was considering converting Dreadknights into pre-heresy dreads when forgeworld brought out this delicious kit!



It’s certainly big enough for the job and it’s supported fluffwise as those dreadnoughts were much stronger and more powerful than the current ones, add a sword and a incinerator weapon and I have a potential Dreadknight stand in? Only problem is I need to equip my dreadknights with personal Teleporters for my army to have some mobility and I’m pretty sure pre-heresy dreads didn’t have that ability.

@Proiteus: But who's to say that a Thousand Sons Psyker couldn't teleport a Dreadnought where it was needed. Perhaps even a psyker entombed within said Dreadnought?

'Course, I'd also been thinking about using my Ronin Magnus the Red model as a "counts as" Dreadknight. Perhaps reflecting some fragment of Magnus' power in his "warrior" mode? It's a good excuse to use the model anyway...

Valete,

JohnS

Yeah that was the original plan to have Magnus representing a Dreadknight, but a single dreadknight would die on the first turn from focus fire.

That is a pretty sick model, and I can see where you are coming from fluff wise!

Definitely go with that model. It is quite pretty. But yeah, personal teleporter equates to sorcerous powers.

PICKING UP THE PACE!
Another Thousand Son Warrior off the line, and another just round the corner. Sadly thou I'm not going to use that staff as these guys are likely to be armed with force swords in the interceptor role in the actual army.


Also got some better pictures of the 2nd warrior as my secondary photography lights cables had been chewed through by my housemate's rabbit and I finally go round to getting some replacements today.


Because they're now going to be interceptors or basic GK, haven't decided I'll likely wait till I transfer them on to 25mm bases before doing the sorcerer. This is due to the my plans to add effects to his base to better represent the magical projectile acting as the psycannon. With luck I'll get the hammer armed warrior done before the terminator parts arrive cause I'm very keen to see if the terminator conversion can work?

Some great models here, awsome work all around.

Those are looking really beautiful.

Loving the basework, did you do them yourself? And if so, how did you make them?

Just saw that your photo was picked up by GW and posted onto their facebook page. So I did what I should have. The second comment on the photo is a link to your blog.

Your watcher from afar,

Chowderhead

Congrats Man...Even the big GW is catching on to your good work!

QUICK UPDATE
The grey knight terminator parts arrived today so I got a glimpse of the models that will make up my army. The top of the arms needed to be filed down to fit the chapterhouse studio shoulder pads but it's not a problem, I’m also thinking of using the power armour helm instead of the terminator version as it looks to angular for my liking.

I’ve also decided to not include the wrist mounted storm bolter as it’s not fluff supported so I’ll be going with my magical bolts explanation however I model a few of them with hand held storm bolters.

Now all I’ve got to do is wait for the micro art robes to arrive and then I can assemble the model and upload it. & boy are these guys going to be big, the torso is nearly twice the width of a standard marine and the legs will give it more height.

Still working on the list, I’m considering starting off with a Draigowing with Magnus as Draigo and Ahriman as the librarian only needs around 20 models so I can play a few games with it while I work on the other parts of the army.

Hopefully the rest of the parts will arrive later this week, till then.

Hey Proiteus,
I like your idea about those psychic/magic bolts, and I was thinking that you could make a brass-colored handheld weapon that looks like brass knuckles, except with glowing lightning bolt blades on the top and bottom. Just a thought.

sweet...

THE GIANTS OF PROSPERO
Given on how my artificer armour idea wasn’t going to work I decided to focus on converting terminator armour, I had already come up with some ideas on how I could do it with the legs being the only problem then I saw the micro art studio legs and everything fitted into place.

I also used a pair of chapterhouse shoulder pads I had ordered during my night lords project out of curiosity and the Scibor Scarab Shield to replace the storm bolter plus a few other bits. I went with the power armoured helm because I prefer it to the angular terminator version.



I was extremely pleased with the finished model not only does he look great but he’s massive to the point where he could be considered a true scale marine, just look at him next to the black reach marine. I’m now looking forward to seeing my squads towering over other models in close combat.
I was going to model tutelaries on the special weapon users but I think that would make the model a bit too high and therefore hard to transport, but I’ll wait till I’ve modelled the first Psycannon warrior to see if they needed.

Now I’ve just got to wait for the green stuff to dry and I can get started on the painting.

Awesome idea; I was impressed fighting a pre-heresy Death Guard last week... and now this thread inspired me more! I've been bitz hunting all day to try and find things I can create my own 1k sons outta Awesome work!

I have one word for you since I am currently rereading Thousand Sons
Tutilaries
Use Inquisition chuerub models as the base for them

I love the giant termie! it's so cute (JK)!
put small cloth bits hanging from his shoulders, and he's all done!

I love the model you have put together! I also love that base, did you make that or find it some where online or in a store?

Cutthroatcure wrote:I love the model you have put together! I also love that base, did you make that or find it some where online or in a store?

google dragonforge resin bases and you'll find a nice selection of bases to choose from.

GOD PAINTING WHITE HARD! After 3 hours of work the front is okay but the back is a mess and I've yet to get to highlighting it with skull white.

If it proves too difficult, especially since I need to paint at least 20 I'll paint them purple instead. I'd prefer white but I don't want it to ruin the model?

That is a great model. Where did you get the Scarab on his Chest?

I would suggest to green stuff over the Inquisition writing on his armor.

Can't wait to see him painted.

veritechc wrote:

I would suggest to green stuff over the Inquisition writing on his armor.

I don't know about that, since he is pre-heresy the basic idea of all the chapters was to destroy the fallen so in a way it still kinda works well.

WOW!

That is one of THE BEST space marine models I have ever seen. He looks impressive enough to be an HQ choice in his own right, and with an entire squad of those guys...

Just wow. Just looking at that model makes me want to copy you.

I think you may want to look into buying some pieces from Lego for your Storm Shields, Just Saying

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=pharaohs+quest+lego&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS442US442&tbm=isch&tbnid=_9Feu8IDapQI_M:&imgrefurl=http://www.customminifig.co.uk/lego-scorpion-pyramid-set-7327/&docid=0BvhzH5eG-NVaM&w=800&h=600&ei=NoM0TuTSE4280AGj78mdDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=479&page=1&tbnh=98&tbnw=139&start=0&ndsp=65&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0&tx=90&ty=62&biw=1920&bih=1017

Right Protieus, i only do extensive criticism, when
A: the modeller/creator is clearly accomplished and can obviously accept/welcomes criticism and will disregard/action it only if it is valid.
or
B: when the poster is arrogant.

You are definitely A.
Soooo.......

I have gotta say that i do not like the terminator. I love the PAGKs so was disappointed.

My problems are as follows:
- Those robed legs are IMO hideous! I can maybe see them working on a TS power armoured guy but they make a terminator look like one of those dumb PP models with the tiny legs. (spoilered pic below)
- TAGK torso is a bad pick. If you want the awesome hulking presence of that (rightly) beloved piece of artwork you need to go with a regular 'Hunchback' termi torso.
- PAGK head is to big, the new PAGK have heads nearly as oversized as their Stormbolters. On your model it further dispells the impression of 'Hulking Brute' that the artwork conveys.
- IMO the plainer heresy shoulderpads Scribor do would look a bit nicer. Those chapter house are too wide, further creating the look of a PP model.

Perkustin wrote:My problems are as follows:
- Those robed legs are IMO hideous! I can maybe see them working on a TS power armoured guy but they make a terminator look like one of those dumb PP models with the tiny legs. (spoilered pic below)
- TAGK torso is a bad pick. If you want the awesome hulking presence of that (rightly) beloved piece of artwork you need to go with a regular 'Hunchback' termi torso.
- PAGK head is to big, the new PAGK have heads nearly as oversized as their Stormbolters. On your model it further dispells the impression of 'Hulking Brute' that the artwork conveys.
- IMO the plainer heresy shoulderpads Scribor do would look a bit nicer. Those chapter house are too wide, further creating the look of a PP model.

Thanks for the constructive criticism, I considered each of your points regarding the model...

- I don't believe the legs are half as bad as that model you refered to, mainly because you can see the bulk of the legs behind the cloth like the dark angel robes compared to the PP ones.
- I'll try it with a terminator torso, thou it's easier said than done as I don't have the skill nesscary to convert the iconic neckguard.
- the idea was to paint the top part of the helmet red and lower part gold in attempt to capture the neckguards of Magnus' bodyguard in the artwork. Thou I am considering using chaos warrior helms from fantasy with the horns filed off.
- Most pre-heresy shoulder pads are wide, the scibor shoulder pads don't really scream pre-heresy terminators, the better alternative is Maxmini's shoulder pads. I'll wait and see how the first painted model comes out first.

Does anyone else thing the conversion might look better with the space marine terminator torso?

I disagree. I've never liked the Space Marine Termie torso. The GK one, on the other hand, gives the model a regal pose as opposed to being a hunchback.

I personally Like the way the model came out and think it looks unique and very different from the SM that are out giving it that Magnus the Red is different from his fellow primarchs and so are his warriors


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Did you get to see those Shields I threw up there for you?

When I looked at the picture of the GK Terminator, I actually thought it was a Tru-scale marine. The proportions, are well, too proportional for what I think of when talking about terminators.

I have used the Maxmini shoulderpads on my terminators, along with their Steam Knight heads and I think it looks BA. Not sure if they will go with the look you want though.

I was thinking how much I liked that model actually. I personally am not a fan at all of how traditional terminators look and I think this is a wonderful alternative

I think he looks really good.

Can't say if the shoulder pads are too big or not, they stand out because they are metal. I think we would need to see a painted or primed model to be able to fully tell.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS?
Well as with all my projects I need to consider the army’s appearance and how the units will look next to each other and as always I’ll be grateful to hear your thoughts on each of them…

No 1; Terminators Or True Scale Marines?
As Perkustin pointed out the new Scarab Occult warrior looks nothing like a pre-heresy terminator, but to be honest I’m not much a fan of hunchbacked terminator armour. Also when I finished creating this guy my first thoughts were ‘damn I’ve made a true scale marine’.

I had plan to include the FW Iron Armour conversions as interceptors to add some variety (& agility) to the army, the downside is they’re only a bit bigger than the standard marine on the right so they would destroy all illusion of this being a true-scale marine army and could even look odd.



So should I have these terminators be true scale marines in artificer armour (like I had planned originally but these guys are big enough to do it). Or just say it’s specially designed terminator armour for the thousand sons’ Scarab Occult and field interceptors and other power armoured units?

No 2; Ghosts Of Prospero?
When running a deep striking terminator force you need a psychic beacon on the board asap to get the +1 to reserve rolls, this means either a 55pt Inquisitor that hides in terrain or Mordrak.
Mordrak is cool but I’m having trouble deciding on what to represent the ghost knights with. I’ve considered a group of powerful tutelaries that have materialised to fight for their master, problem is this sounds a bit weird as tutelaries weren’t at all like that in the book. Or go with the basic look and create some ghostly looking versions of the standard scarab occult warriors perhaps adding skull heads and lots of battle damage, it could even be like the Mordrak fluff only instead of Huron Blackheart they want revenge on the space wolves.

No 3; Back Up Weapons?
One last small thing; Even thou the thousand sons can yield powerful projectiles they always carry a their weapons which I’ve done for the first 3 with holstered bolt pistols, problem is how can I model holstered storm bolters? I guess if I go with the true scale marines I can use holstered ork sluggas for bolt pistols but I like to know if anyone has ideas for modelling the unused storm bolters?

As always I'll be grateful for any feedback on these issues.

From the moment I read the codex, I envisioned Mordrak's ghost Knights as the noble souls of the dead marines. So how they looked in their prime. I figured the easiest way to represent them would be by creating normal terminators, and then painting them white undercoat and green wash (though any other wash will get the same ethereal look). So the spirits of the terminators in their armour, rather than the dead skeletal warriors.

Looks great. I like the appearance of those shoulder pads.

Foxtale wrote:From the moment I read the codex, I envisioned Mordrak's ghost Knights as the noble souls of the dead marines. So how they looked in their prime. I figured the easiest way to represent them would be by creating normal terminators, and then painting them white undercoat and green wash (though any other wash will get the same ethereal look). So the spirits of the terminators in their armour, rather than the dead skeletal warriors.

Too boring for my liking, to be honest I think I'll take Mordrak but only as an independent character for his first turn strike and +1 to reserve rolls. I'll might create two tularies/warp entities for the ghost knights he might summon when he takes a wound thou.

ARM YOURSELVES!
Originally I had planned to focus this army purely on the magic, magical bolts for storm bolters, powerful spells for special weapons and huge spirits for Dreadknights. I’ve decided to drop this concept and return to basics as ironically enough Ahriman states in the book...

“We are Astartes first, psykers second”

So with that in mind I’ve decided to make a few changes…

Special Weapons will be represented by Reaper Autocannons for Psycannons and Heavy Flamers for Incinerators, instead of powerful spells being cast with the aid of tutelaries. However I still plan to feature them in the army as each independent character will have personalised one, plus I’ll make some for objective markers or servo skulls.

1 or 2 warriors in each squad will be equipped with a storm bolter (hand held not wrist mounted).

Dreadknights are out of the question now, it feels more like I’m trying to come up with a way to field a powerful and competitive unit instead of trying to be accurate with the fluff so I’ll be fielding venerable dreads instead. I do look forward to picking the brains of the forgeworld team to see what other upgrades are in store for the new pre-heresy dread kit at Gamesday next month.

Also I’ve decided not to come empty handed this time and thought I’d upload a picture of the painted upper body of the terminator I’ve been working on all week. I decided to vanish the scarabs instead of continue struggling to add reflection lines, however I feel I need to highlight them more before vanishing them like the one on the front plate which is a bit too dark.

What do you think?

Also I’m slowly getting the hang of painting white robes, but I’m probably going to still have to repaint a few of them.

It's looking fantastic!

Thanks

Foxtale wrote:It's looking fantastic!

Motion seconded, that looks incredible dude!! i hope you do get to finish this project. im in awe!

PROJECT UPDATE!
Just a quick project update, just to let you know this project is still going. I’m finally getting the hang of painting white and how thin I need the paint to be so with luck I’ll have that first model up soon, but not till I’m happy with it thou.

Here’s a list of a few changes and concepts I’m considering at the moment as always I’m grateful for any feedback that is given…

Tutelaries
Sadly I’ve decided to drop the concept of tutelaries representing special weapons for actual weapons so Reaper Autocannons as Psycannons and Heavy Flamers as Incinerators. However I still plan to use them as objective markers as their biggest use in the novel was allowing the thousands sons to scout the battlefield unnoticed.

Interceptor Squads
I’m looking to field some interceptors as I need some mobility in the army and it will allow me to field the iron armour conversion alongside my terminators.
Problem is they’re best suited to ranged support so I’m trying to think how best to represent their Psybolt storm bolters and Psycannons since I’m no longer keen on the all of the marines using psychic bolts and spells. Some of my terminators will be armed with actual storm bolters but I’m not sure how to represent this on the power armoured warriors? So far my best idea is to arm them with the pre-heresy boltguns from FW and have they’re swords holstered in scabbards.

Quick edit; I've just come across this cool looking bolt pistol variant which I think has the potential to be a great 'counts as' storm bolter, which is better than empty hands hurling magic bolts.



Hidden Ones
I’ve been reading some detailed fluff on the 40k wiki sight and the 1k sons scouts (a.k.a the hidden ones) were often fielded as espionage agents. Often using their psychic powers to brainwash the agent into being completely unaware of his mission. So I was thinking would it be great to have a hidden one as a callidus assassin so once the thousand sons sent the psychic signal the agent would pounce.
I think it would be cool as I could model a variety of agents for different races (with the exception of daemons, necrons and Tyranids) that had been captured and then altered mentally and psychically before being released. What do you think?

HQ Choices
I’ve got two commander conversions planned nicknamed ‘the phoenix king’ a master of the pyrae and ’little magnus’ a master of the raptora (and Mordrak count as) still trying to think of a good way to convert Cortex for when I want to field Prospero thall wizard squads?

Deadline
The set deadline I aim to have this army ready for is the Caledonian Uprising tournament at ‘Maelstrom’ in January next year.



ONE MORE THING...
I was thinking of getting the heavy bolter arms with my pre-heresy dread to convert them into autocannons, but after seeing this image just now and the size of the ammo drums I'm thinking it maybe better to use the slimmer assault cannon arm as a base for converting the autocannon weapons? Then again I'm sure I could replace them, so which arm do you think would look better; The heavy bolter with small ammo drums and autocannon barrels (shortened) or the assault cannon arms with the barrel replaced with twin full length autocannon barrels?

Heavy bolter all the way!

I think the Heavy Bolter has a better base and a much bulkier look for a rifle dread. Also, it seems like it would be a LOT harder to make the Assault Cannon into an Autocannon than vice-versa. Are you still going to include Magnus the Red in your army? I was converting one myself for a while in Terminator scale, and something similar would make a good Draigo or Mordrak

I think you should make the autocannon look similar to the lascannons. It might be alot of work, but if you turn the heavy bolters 90 degrees, so the ammo drums were underneath, and set them back a bit, then add longer barrels, it would lok wicked. If you just add longer barrels to the heavy bolters it will look off balance.


Great blog!!!

Archmagos_Amadeus wrote: Are you still going to include Magnus the Red in your army? I was converting one myself for a while in Terminator scale, and something similar would make a good Draigo or Mordrak

Little Magnus
I considered him at first but let's face it no character in the 40k could represent Magnus as we are talking about a character that can kill titans!

Instead I plan to field something different: In ‘Horus Rising’ one of the captains is the splitting image of the Primarch and is nicknamed ‘little Horus’ and is rarely called by his real name. So I plan to make a little Magnus, using a space wolf head, and giving him a suit of armour with horns. I’m also thinking of making his weapon exchangeable between a curved sword and a crystal hammer (for when I want to use Mordrak)



Omen Pattern Bolters
As I mentioned in my previous post I was struggling to think of a way to represent storm bolters on my interceptors without using actual storm bolters or ‘invisible magical bolts’. Luckily I came across the ‘Omen pattern boltgun’ converted by Wolfs16 but while he used scout pistols I plan to use the forge world Umbra Ferrox bolter and replace the barrel.

Problem is the scout binoculars from the land speeder storm kit which is the critical part is proving hard to find, so far I’ve only found it on eBay but need to buy the scout passenger with it.
.

A very cool conversion! I just used the bitz that I had lying around and since I have 3 Landspeeder Storms in my army, I had quite a few of those! Not sure how many you were planning on making, but you can find the Scout Accessories on eBay pretty easily.

I'll have to look through this thread later, but from what I can see, it looks really good!

Every time I see that picture of Magnus, I can't help but think of using an OK bull as the base, cut and sculpted to make him not look like a fatty. I believe that there is an OK bit that is a large stone hammer to fit your crystal hammer idea.

Damn am i jealous, i wanted to do this but never actually did anything . I look forward to seeing more though, as for dreadknights...well, Magnus encountered the cultures of other planets and didn't want to destroy them or their libraries so maybe he was able to save some scrap of tech and used it to make large dreadnoughts?

PROGRESS!
The first squad is nearing completion just need the small shields to arrive which should be tomorrow, after which I’ll upload the 4 newest warriors. I’ll also be placing a order to forgeworld as well for the dreads, iron armour and boltguns to collect at Gamesday.
I’ve also finally settled on a list that consists of…

A Grand Master,
20 Terminators,
10 Interceptors,
& 2 Dreads

This all needs to be completed in time for the Caledonian Uprising tournament in the 3rd week of January, it’s a bit of a risky deadline but if I should fail to meet the 20 terminator mark I’ll settle for 15 with an ‘Hidden One’ assassin & upgrade to venerable dreads.
So hopefully production will pick up by the end of the month, till then behold my first reaper Autocannon warrior!

Also special thanks to everyone who helped donate scout bitz for the omen class bolters.

That's looking very noble. Normally true-scale looks a bit odd, but yours are looking very nice. The shoulderpads fit in well to the scale.

I yearn to see this painted.

AN ARMY OF GIANTS!!!
Today the final parts arrived for my Scarab Occult terminators so I glued & bluetaced the rest of the squad together.



I decided early on to scrap the invisible magic bolts for actual weapons so I’ve brought several of the SM commander’s storm bolter which was the easiest to convert. However rather than trying to remove the awkward mould line on the top detail I got rid of it and was going to replace it with a bolter sight from the tactical box set, but instead I made my own sights using the parts of the interceptor teleporter packs instead.
The Justicar is a simple variant using a thousand son helmet, I was going to add a banner but you would hardly see it behind the large head crest.
My favourite thou is the hammer, I love seeing thunder hammers in Dawn Of War and Space Marine as you really feel the impacts. So I decided to copy the animation when the force commander raises it in the air then brings it down on an enemy from DOW.
Finally there’s the reaper Autocannon which will represent my Psycannons, I got rid of the skull and added a eagles wing to the side to make it less chaos themed, I also swapped a halberd to the left hand.

I’m looking forward to seeing one of my squads charge for the first time as they completely dwarf standard models, just look at their size compared to the black reach marine. The dreadnoughts will be quite big as well so this will be an army of giants!

I'd like to hope it's just the blu-tak, but the ones on the outside look really tall with really thin waists. Perhaps it's because the shoulderpads are so wide. Still, I'd lower them down a little.

The thunder hammer looks FANTASTIC! Really dynamic.

Your justicar variant works really well to distinguish him. A crest was all it needed. And his pose looks really nice too.

The one on the left looks a little static by comparison.

It's amazing looking back on the start of this project and seeing how far it's come.

Amazing man...They look soooooo good!

I LOVE THOSE TERMIES.

L
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T
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Hope you don't mind, but I am going to borrow the idea of using those legs if that's alright haha.

Beautiful work man, spot on excellent for what you're going for.

AMAZING!! Very awesome terminators! love the shoulderpads and the legs make them look nice and big... like they should be!

The Scarab Terminator looks really good. I have an entire army based of of Regular Thousand Sons marines.

Them true scale termies look amazing. Where did you get the legs from? I'm rubbish with making robes from green stuff and i want some true scale marines.

LITTLE MAGNUS?
The project goes well, sadly because I'm spending a week painting each pair of models and the white robes are taking a lot of time to master it maybe a while before you see a full squad painted.

But if I keep up this pace the army will be complete in time for the tournament in January. Meanwhile I've been taking breaks to do a bit of conversion work for other units, one of which is my alternative commander 'little Magnus'.

I think it's daft to try and represent a Primarch stat wise, Magnus would be able to unleash firepower similar to a titan. So I decided to create a captain nicknamed 'little Magnus' due to his resemblance to the Primarch. I had hoped to convert him from the grey knights like my first commander but while messing around with the bitz yesterday I discovered the arms, shoulder pads and head looked out of proportion so I decided to look elsewhere and found this model.

True I won’t be able to use it in GW stores but I think he’d make a great Draigo counts as with storm shield in one hand?

is that a new scibor ive never seen it before

The work your doing is awesome, it sad that GW started 40k with you make the model you can play it ie the grav tank out of a underarm roll-on, and now is oh dear the chap in workshop cant make gak that why you got 15+ years model for ork buggy and wartrak / srochas. or any other codex their working on 1/2 done.

amazing job i want to use that same conversion on my crusaders!

The terminators are looking excellent Proiteus, love the size they are massive.

TUTELARIES OBJECTIVE MARKER IDEAS
The tutelaries were a main part of the pre-heresy thousand sons and were often referred to in the Horus Heresy book as every powerful sorcerer had one, they were warp entities that allowed the thousand sons to scout areas and enhance their powers.
I had plan to use them to fill the 40mm bases when I was planning to use artificer armoured count as terminators at the start of the project, however I’m sure you will agree my terminators don’t require anything to fill their bases.

Anyway I now plan to use them as objective markers with one for each cult, each on a 25mm base as I discovered with the grots 40mm scenic bases are hard to transport. The form of a tutelary depends on the master so here are my ideas so far note they all be painted a ethereal and ghostly blue.

Raptora: Telekinetic
I hoping to convert a feral orc from fantasy with two large gauntlets and a visor from the dark eldar war engine. Hopefully it will portray the strength that I’m after.



Pyrae: Pyrokinetic
2 ideas for this one. First was to convert a vampire counts’ ghoul into a small fire sprit painting the hairs on it’s back and arms as glowing yellow flames and modelling it with a ghost like tail. 2nd was to use the small Dragon from the Dreadfleet boxed set and have some fire modelled on the base. Which one do you think I should go with?



Pavoni: Biochemical Manipulation
My first idea was to model a floating snake of some sorts as it‘s seemed suitable, sadly the best idea involved using the tomb king stalkers and replacing their arms with the wings from the blood angel sanguinary guard. A great idea but far too big. So can anyone else suggest a different model or method.
An alternative idea is to model the sprit healer from world of warcraft using either deamonette or wood elf parts.



Corvidae: Precognition & Atheneans: Telepaths
I’ve had several ideas that are suitable for both of these cults…

My first choice for a tutelary was the new plastic wraith but with bare hands wreathing fate and whispering the paths of the future to it’s master, or alternative reading the mind of an enemy or controlling them like some dark puppet master.
A single Razorwing model; For Corvidae; flying the depths of the warp in search of the future also it is the cult’s symbol. For Atheneans; flying over the battlefield scanning the minds of the enemy and delivering long distance psychic messages.
So which cult do you think these tutelaries should belong to and represent?



Also I had though of creating some sort of floating eye but that I couldn’t figure out how to make that work.

Anyway I’d be grateful for any feedback or suggestions relating to my tutelaries objective markers?

I shall offer my advice, which has been influenced by my brother who has read A Thousand Sons countless times.

For the Raptora Tutelary, that idea is pretty neat and it epitomises their telekinetic abilities.

For the Pyrae Tutelary, the Ghoul King from the Vampire Counts Zombie Dragon would be perfect, with some flames modelled on it. It just so happens I have a spare one of those...

I'm not so sure for the Pavoni, but the winged snake still seems to be a better idea. If it is unviable then a converted female wood elf would look great with wings.

Since Ahirman's Tutelary was a raven (my brother told me this), it would make sense to use the Razorwing model as the Corvadie Tutelary.

And... I think the Atheneans Tutelary should be your suggestion of the Cairn Wraith.

THE SEARCH FOR A HOLY SWORD OF FIRE!
Given how many people were kind enough to send me their scout bits in order for me to create my omen bolters for my interceptors, thanks again guys. I thought I might as well try and ask if anyone knows someone with a spare plastic flame sword from the balrog kit?

I plan to have my Pyrae captain wielding it as it's a fitting weapon for a giant terminator, however I've got the heavy metal one which will make the model unbalanced so I thought I'd ask if anyone could help me find a plastic one which is lighter and easier to model?

2nd SQUAD ASSEMBLED (MOSTLY)
Well I’ve just completed the assembly of the 2nd squad. The 2 handed halberd won’t hold together with blue tac for the photo and the I’m desperately searching for dark angel helmet wings to convert the remaining reaper Autocannon to be like the first one. So here the other warriors from that squad, remember I’ll be adding grenades, pouches and other bits round the belts when they are finished.


So far I’m happy with the warriors with the hammer and sword, but while it seemed like a good idea at the time I’m not sure if the squad leader reading the tome works as he looks a little… idle? Perhaps having him holding his staff up will make it look a bit better?
Also anyone got 3 sets of Dark Angel helmet wings to spare cause can't find any online?

Looking ace! Can you slap some paint on a test mini so we can see what the final product will look like?

I also used those Microart legs for my pre-heresy TS, I really like the added height they give.

The book reading termie is my favourite!

silveryfox wrote:The book reading termie is my favourite!

So you don't think he'll looks too static at the moment given he's be on a battlefield?

Not at all. I like the idea that in the midst of this swirling combat there is this one guy with power swirling around him, intoning from a book.

Of course, if you change your thought pattern and imagine the book is a White Dwarf, the mini gets a whole new (and hilarious) meaning.

I'm not too sold on the helmet you've used for the guy on the right.

Foxtale wrote:I'm not too sold on the helmet you've used for the guy on the right.

What helmet? Thats a bare head with a gas mask!

haha im personaly loving your pre heresy guys and i like to look at this thread often

Proiteus wrote:

Foxtale wrote:I'm not too sold on the helmet you've used for the guy on the right.

What helmet? Thats a bare head with a gas mask!

That's what I meant!

It does look rather Chaosy though.

ARMY OF GIANTS; A WARRIOR OF IRON
Well finally got the chance to trade my Contemptor Dreads in for much nicer Relic versions and after a bit of work today it was completed.



Aside the basic bits such as putting a scarab over the Aquila and a nice head crest on the helmet I converted the heavy bolters to Autocannons. I shorted down the IG Heavy weapon team Autocannons because I felt they would have looked odd if I had kept them at their original length.
Another edition was 2 strong magnets to make the arms exchangeable, now they weren’t wide enough so I brought some plastic tubing the same width as the arms to put them in and thanks to the Dread‘s size this hasn‘t effected the model too much.

NEW WARGEAR OMEN CLASS BOLTGUNS
Thanks to Wolfs16's ‘Omen pattern boltgun conversion I finally have a weapon to equip my Interceptors to represent their storm bolters. The Omen Class Bolter's light weight allows marines to hold them one handed or two handed for improved accuracy whilst it's duel barrels and large clip allow for increased rate of fire.

Now the only question is will I make the January 21st Deadline!!

Both of those are goo-inducing. Any link to the Omen-pattern boltgun tutorial? EDIT: Derp. Missed it.

Nice work dude! May I ask where the scarab thingy is from on the from of the contemptor? Omen class boltgun is very cool indeed!

Any chance for a tut on that boltgun, all i see in that link is a pic, and i would love to know how you made yours!!

wow thats a great dread nice job pro

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Any chance for a tut on that boltgun, all i see in that link is a pic, and i would love to know how you made yours!!

The Omen Boltgun is nothing more than the forge world Umbra Ferrox bolter with the barrel replaced with binoculars from the land speeder storm kit.

Lol, fair enough! Looks good though, will have to try it

Man this looks amazing so far, I'm almost up to that book so it should have a bigger impact but can't wait to see how the rest turn out.

Really cool stuff, I have always dreamed of an pre-heresy thousand sons army. Just havent had the balls to go for it.

wow thats an awsome look for bolters, i might have to steal that at some point

BROTHER KARGORI RETURNS TO THE FRAY!
Behold the glory of the Thousand Sons dreadnought! A full week and half’s work but without doubt worth it in the end. I’m still planning some additional work such as a name on the script perhaps name it after a dread from the Horus Heresy art book; Kargori.
It’s nice to see the scarab replacement and heavy bolter to Autocannons conversion worked out. I did consider adding water effects to the base but many people believed it would ruin it.



Anyway this will certainly keep me motivated, now to continue work with the terminators and the white robes that I keep putting off but will need to be done in the end!

Sonuvabitch....I need to make some now, because those are WAY too cool!

nice job on that dread, i was waiting for that

Brilliant Proiteus, he looks incredibly mean, the scarab detail is seamless, as are the ACs

You should be proud!

Incredible work dude! This army is really shaping up to be something special!

I take it that you have seen the new Necron weapons, I will probably be getting some for my own 1K Sons when I get the chance!

Keep up the great work Proiteus!

THE ZANATORIAN MACHINE CULT ARMY IS NOW ON SALE
Some of you may have seen one of my previous project logs which was The Zanatorian Machine Cult It was an army of fully converted mechanicus robots under the control of a renegade tech magos that used the daemon codex rules.
Now the Zanatorians were one of my favourite projects to work on, however I don't have the money to buy the materials needed to turn them into a working necron army.
But I love them too much to have them sit around the house gathering dust so I’m looking to sell them to a good owner.

Click on the image below to go to the for sale thread...



But let me just say this; while the Zanatorian Machine Cult maybe gone, Their robots may still return in future projects?

Sorry for you having to loose such an awsome army

Amazing job here!

Oh, come on man... Stop being so f-%#!/-ing awesome! Great looking army!

THE ZANATORIANS SELL OR REBUILD.... HOW ABOUT BOTH!?!
Some of you might know I’ve decided to try and sell my Zanatorian Machine Cult Robot army but I’ve recently come up with an idea to reinvent them in a fluff friendly way so I can still use some of my favourite conversions from that army. Which is a Legio Cybernetica attachment for the Thousand Sons as the legion’s use of robots is often mentioned in the novel.

Of course I'll be looking to field them in two ways first off as Henchmen; warrior acolytes with carapace armour and servitors. I’ll most likely field some footslogging units of 8-10 warriors with storm bolters and a monkey (tech adept) to provide some long range support.
I'm thinking of using the Iron Guard robot for the acolytes but with bolters instead of gauss blasters and with the paint scheme from the book so metallic blue with gold trim.



Sadly while I’ve taken to this idea there is a small problem; Which is I only have 12 unpainted epic knight models left from the ones I collected which was hard enough to obtain. Another option would be to re-equip and repaint the Iron Guard robots should the Zanatorians fail to sell, but I’m worried they’ll lose detail if given another coat of paint.

The 2nd way is for the larger robots to represent basic dreadnoughts using nothing more suitable than the old space crusade robots, which is exactly how I pictured the robots used on Shrike.



Throw Cotreaz in there and I could possible feild a small 1000pt Legio Cybernetica army!

So what do you think to the idea?

I had actually thought you could use them as 1K sons robots myself! I personally think it is a great idea, like you said, they are mentioned quite a bit in the book (just finished it last night!) Both ideas sound pretty good though the Iron Guard are my choice as they look better suited for the army.

Though if you do go through with this, I expect a very cool looking titan to accompany them!

Anymore comments about the robot allies as I've just found 2 untouched space crusade dreads on ebay for £10 each so I'm curious to know if I should sink money into this idea?
Also any of you got any epic knight titans to sell?

Im an AdMech fan, so any robots are good robots imo! Fits nicely in Pre heresy terms as well. If you like the idea , go for it dude!

Purple power or simple green. That way you don't have to paint over old paintjobs.

i love admech, and i think it would bring up an interesting addition to your army to have some admech themed as a force fighting alongside your thousand sons! and the henchmen units allow for some crazy combos that could lead to units with whatever you really want in it for your countas

Sageheart wrote:i love admech, and i think it would bring up an interesting addition to your army to have some admech themed as a force fighting alongside your thousand sons! and the henchmen units allow for some crazy combos that could lead to units with whatever you really want in it for your countas

Then feel free to contribute to my request for suggestions on how I should field my Legio Cybernetica Allies; HERE?

Awsome, I do say that water effects on the Dreads case would add so serenity to the chaos. Looking forwards to more. Subbed.

SOME MORE RANGED SUPPORT!
Well I’ve taken a break from the terminators and decided to build some more interceptors, and was reminded of how frustrating it is to get those tabards made plus attach the energy cells on the backpack!
Along with some more omen class Boltguns I’ve also converted the Psycannon into an Autocannon. The sergeant is going to have the snake from the top of the staff from the first set of standard marines mounted on his rod so I can replace it with a thunder hammer to make the squad leader look like techmarine.



Now to get painting!

Nice stuff!Your work continues to impress. Where are the little crest bitz from? I have been looking for something like that for a while now!

That's fantastic. I really love the Psycannon-to-autocannon look on that last marine.

Great work!

Proiteus wrote:

Oh my god oh my GOD I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid and I've never seen one painted. This is amazing.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:Oh my god oh my GOD I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid and I've never seen one painted. This is amazing.

It will be even more impressive when I get mine completed.

THE RUINS OF TIZCA
Cause this army is looking to be my best work, I’m thinking of creating a display board for it. I'm thinking about using the ruins of Tizca based of the resin bases I'm using.

The main area is a titled courtyard with a walkway that leads up some stairs between two statues (likely the 1k son sorcerer model or lions) to a raised level separated by a dried up flower bed. Here they’ll be two ruined buildings from the LOTR gondor city set that I‘ll make removable.



Terminators and HQ will go in the courtyard, whilst the dreadnoughts, assassin and interceptors will be displayed on the raised platforms. I aim to make the board without slots so I can use it for the different lists such as my future Pryae & Legio Cybernetica army.

Well what do you think?

I think that's an awesome idea! Especially the part about it not having slots. I like the boards some people have done with specific places for everyone, but that is pretty much the only place those pieces can go, and the only army that is going to use that board. I like having options!

Cool idea! You could use the GW lions of Chrace (High Elves) for the statues, should be the perfect size...

THIS ARMY COULD DO WITH SOME TITANS?
I've been thinking of alternative lists for my 1k sons, one of which is based around having 3 loaded land raiders! However buying 3 forgeworld pre-heresy land raiders is WAAAY TOO EXPENSIVE AT £255/$399!!!
So I'm thinking of perhaps converting a unit of 3 Knight titans with a conversion similar to this one I found...



Not only is this cheaper, but also gives me the ablity to take the Redeemer or Crusader variants as well by making the weapons exchangable. I'll likely use the teleporter homer excuse for their transport capacity like all the players who use this conversion.

Could be fun to convert, what do you think?

ALSO QUICK QUESTION?
Regarding using the old space crusade dreads for my conqueror robots; I'm still unsure if I should use the whole model and have them all with the same pose like the pic below? Or use sentinel legs to give them more posing options?

Everything is so damn awesome!

The legs of the crusader robots come off pretty easy actually. You can clip the feet out and repose them fairly easy on a new base if you like.

I love me some titans! Sounds like a good plan you have there and it still fits in with the fluff. I would stick with the original legs but just reposition them to make them more dynamic.

Commander Cain wrote:I love me some titans! Sounds like a good plan you have there and it still fits in with the fluff. I would stick with the original legs but just reposition them to make them more dynamic.

^^ This ^^. Seconded!

Commander Cain wrote:I would stick with the original legs but just reposition them to make them more dynamic.

How? Because while the legs & feet are seperate they are locked in that postion?

Score and snap, score and snap.

Just kidding. But you could cut them with either a hobby knife or small saw. The feet would have to be cut off right at the base. I'm not saying it's easy. Just that you should try it!

What Mr. Jake said! I think a jewelers saw will be your friend in this case. It is just that these models are so different to any other imperial machine that they would look a little odd with sentinel legs. Of course, you could always try scratch-building some new feet but that could be a little tricky!

The feet do have to be cut off the base, I used a little six inch hack saw then cleaned it up with knife and file. The legs are just square pegs. You can make the square eight sided with the knife, then that gives you lots of options for stepping and flexibility. The coup de grace would be if you are better than I at green stuff you can cut that knee joint and shift it a little bit.

PROGRESS!
Only 3 more to go and the interceptors will be fully completed. I decided to make the thunder hammer into a staff like weapon as the original looked too brutish for a thousand son in power armour. The Omen class bolters are also coming out well.



I’ve also been working on a group of bare heads to go on some of the thousand sons and I’m pleased with how they’ve come out. Especially since flesh has always been an obstacle for me but thanks to a lesson from a friend I was able to reach the quality I was after.



Regarding the snake staff; it felt a waste to not use it after replacing it with a hammer so I instead mounted on the dark angel arm for the squad leader instead.

Now if I can only get 3 more terminators and the Hidden One agent that is my Vindicare assassin done by the end of the month I’ll be set to make my deadline. Still dreading painting the white robes as I had enough trouble painting the small ones on these guys but I am improving.

Love the Cobra Staff

Nice! You continue to impress!

AN ALLIANCE OF PROSPERO
Before I begin work on my next batch of terminators I was thinking it was time to share some ideas I've recently had regarding the 1k Son's allies.
One of the best benefits of using the Grey Knight codex was being able to field the many allies and axillaries the 1k sons employed during the great crusade. Mainly the Prospero Spire Guard & Legio Cybernetica.

The Legio Cybernetica
These guys are easy, Use venerable dreadnoughts for the thousand sons and then 3 standard dreadnoughts for Cybernetica robots. I liked the small robotic henchmen idea at first however most Mechanicus robots were usually twice the size of an Astartes so I don‘t think this idea will work at the moment.

The Prospero Spire Guard
This is by far the simplest to incorporate into the army list, sacrificing the Interceptors and Vindicare I can take Coteaz and X3 Henchmen Squads, these are made up of 7 Warrior Acolytes (3 with Meltaguns) and 2 Psykers in a rhino. This gives me three mobile flexible support units that can be deployed for anti-horde or anti-tank something the terminators and dreads lack.

Modelling wise the spire guard will be converted using the high elf archer legs and guard torso, but with the pig iron helmet shown on the red armoured models below, they’ll be painted with red robes and gold armour.



Their transport vehicles will be the chapterhouse chimera because I love the look of that model. However since I can’t afford chimeras and have instead gone with rhinos the weapons will be removed and I‘ll mount either the storm bolter turret or searchlight where the turret goes. I’m aiming to make it look like a fast response vehicle similar to the GDI APC from C&C 3.
After all surely the different factions of the early Imperium would have their own military transports before the chimera became common?



The Psykers will likely be modelled a bit differently so they fit in with the rest of the squad or be converted from the empire wizards.

Which leaves Coteaz, who I don’t know how to model; a techpriest would have been best but if the Legio Cybernetica isn’t in the army he‘ll look out of place. So far the only idea I’ve had is to buy and convert an old Solar Macharius model.



Any other suggestions for a character who would look good alongside the 1k sons and spire guard?

Nice work.

Well you need not worry on the transport front. During the Great Crusade the Rhino APC was the standard infantry transport for both the Legio Astartes and the Imperial Army regiments attached to the expeditionary fleets.
The Imperial Army also fielded Land Raiders during this period, on the scale of entire armored divisions. So fielding your spireguard with rhinos and raiders would not pose a problem.

Solid ideas! I would love to see both Of these groups included in the army. I always envisioned the spire guard to be a very regal looking force, more for show than war. Perhaps a good character woul be the Master of the Fleet guy ( the one in my profile pic) He a sense of formality that looks rather fitting. Saying that though, the Macharius model also looks perfect for the job!

ALL IN AN EVENING'S WORK!
Well another evening’s work and another 3 terminators completed and ready to paint. Remember that the belts bulked out with pouches, grenades and other items after they are completed. After posing the 2nd Justicar with the book I felt I needed to go back and create a more interesting pose for the 1st Justicar, so I’ll replace the torso of the guy in the middle after it’s painted with the 1st squad leader’s with the 1k sons style helmet.



Now back to painting!

TWAS DA NIGHT BEFORE WAAAGH!
It's that time of year again so it's time to break out the xmas squig on my logs.



This week also started off fantastically with my Zanatorian Machine Cult army being sold for £340!

So Merry Christmas Everyone!

Mmm, Christmas squig for breakfast!

Good job on selling the machine cult, can't wait to see what you get up to with these new funds!

Merry Christmas to you to


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Terminators look fantastic also!

THEY LURK IN THE SHADOWS!
Taking a break from my 4th batch of terminators, I decided to convert my 2 Hidden One agents. The hidden ones were the Thousand Sons scout Auxilia, but acted more as espionage agents gathering intelligence for the legion using a variety of sinister methods.
With this in mind I created these two; the one of the left is the basic hidden one operative to represent an ‘inquisitor’ in smaller point games. The one on the right is to represent my Vindicare assassin so I converted him from the scout special character to make him look like he was the most skilled of all the hidden one agents. I also decided to convert the rifle as the scout one seemed too small for something that will puncture land raiders.

Now I just need to finish the terminators, then I can paint these two and then it's onto the task of... the white robes!!!

(sorry for the quality of the 2nd image, my 2nd camera ran out of juice)

Great as always, Proiteus!

they look good, i like the sniper one alot

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
The Thousand Sons are by far the most interesting of all the legions, it’s just a shame the Thousand Sons today are so boring to play in the chaos codex. A perfect example would be the Hidden Ones who were made up of the Thousand Sons’ scouts and would operate as spies and espionage agents, some programmed using telepathy so well they were unaware of their mission. So here are my 2 agents…

Basic Agent
I created this guy to represent an Inquisitor in smaller point games for my HQ and I’m very pleased with how his paint job went. I decided to give them both battle scratches as they will have likely been out in the field for long periods of time before linking up with the main force, hence the camera and comm on his armour.



Elite Agent
I also converted my Vindicare into a hidden one veteran and he was fun to paint. Only downside is because he is a metal model I needed to give him a coat of vanish to avoid chipping however despite only giving him a quick spray of GW Ardcoat he’s still a bit too shiny for my liking.



Well that it’s for Hidden Ones for the moment, I might make a Callidus assassin in future either as a hidden one or convert sleeper agents 1 for each army (that can be captured and programed).

Now to decide on what to do next while I work on the white robes maybe the 2nd Dreadnought thou I'm 1 autocannon short or maybe the thousand sons captain?

Hey, to help with the metal models, I usually gloss coat to prevent chipping, and then I follow that with a coat or three of a matte varnish to remove the gloss. Prevents them from chipping and keeps the shine away!

those guys look awsome! how did you make that sniper?

Love the army...makes me kind of sad because I had this exact thought a few days ago, and now I realize it wasn't an original thought.

Still, keep up the good work, your modeling skills are impressive!

Edit:

Rogue Wolves wrote:those guys look awsome! how did you make that sniper?

Its converted from Telion, the Space Marine Scout Sergent.

They look lovely, ut this is the main flaw with the whole GW idea behind SM scouts...They're meant to do covert operation sota things, yet they wear brightly coloured armour! Never understood that.

Still love your stuff Proiteus!

Exceptional work! Consider me subscribed!



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I'm interested to see what you end up doing with the space crusade titans

Looks Great, I really like the way the termies are turning out and the paint on your "Hidden Ones" really matches your army...also I don't see to much of a shine from your photos

Keep it up

THE WHITE RAGE!
I’ve spend the last two weeks trying to master painting the white robes and it just isn’t working! What’s frustrating is the rest of the work will be rendered pointless if I don’t get it right as the robes will make or break the models.
The tabards were one thing but full robes are proving to be a much tougher challenge, so I ask…

“Can anyone link me a good painting tutorial for white robes?”

“Also given the size is it possible to use an airbrush to do it, cause if so I‘ll throw down the cash to use one?”

I’ve considered some alternatives but I’m not sure purple would look right and black would make them look too much like blood angels. So I’d be grateful for any help with this.


A suitable picture given the situation.

BITZ WANTED
Another thing I could use a hand with are some bitz I’m after so I can complete my next 2 conversions which aren‘t available at any bits stores at the moment. So if you have any of these bits PM me and let me know.

Imperial Guard Autocannons (For the 2nd Dread)
Empire Flagellant Touches (for my Pyrae Captain)

I airbrush a lot. I would say that it is definately possible to do with an airbrush, but it is not easy. It'll take you a little while to get used to the airbrush, and then getting it right so that you don't over spray into the recesses while still achieving the gradient you are looking for is tough. If you do go that route, I would suggest a higher end airbrush for the job you're looking for as well. I think it would be easier however to get about 4 shades of white/off white and base coat the darkest color, and succesively dry brush lighter shades of white on top, starting with a heavy dry brush and progress to a very fine dry brush with the absolute color in the end. You'll probably have to either have very close shaes to start, or mix 50/50 of each variant of white you use which would give you 7 shades all together. A little tedious, but it "SHOULD" work for you.

Funny you should be at the white robes stage now proiteus, I myself was painting some white robes on my own Sons today! My technique is pretty simple, Astronomican grey base coat, then, using the feathering technique, I gradually build up layers with codex grey, fortress grey and of course, skull white! I painted the apothecary in a similar way to this, should be pics of him on my blog.

Thinking back to old Dakka blogs, I seem to recall that Iflana, Sigur and Hits the spot have all done some pretty amazing work using whites, check them out!

A NEW PLAN, A BETTER PLAN?
Due to my slow progress with learning how to paint white robes I decided it was time to consider the alternative, as I’ve mentioned before the only other colour than would suit them was purple similar to the sorcerer on the novel’s front cover. So after an evening of painting I ended up with this…



To be honest I didn’t expect it could work so well, I think the purple makes him look even more mystic and blends well with the rest of the model. I painted some gold icons round the rim but the dust effect covered most of them up, thou I likely add some gold trim to better highlight the robe seam. Armywise having the Scarab Occult terminators wearing purple robes and scarabs compared to the basic troop's white tabards and markings could make them look very elite?

I’m still debating trying it with white. Anyway I’m anxious to hear feedback regarding the robe’s colour so let me know what you think on if it works or not?

well i think this looks cool, if the robe was white it would give me a blood angley feel (possibly) and this is more egyptian. dust looks great, and so does the gold trim, although i think you should continue it up on the sides of some part of the robe (like in the little picture in you title under the pic)

Wow! Purple robes look fantastic on him, at first I had my doubts but I think you have really pulled it off well, it makes him look very regal and powerful.

I am really enjoying your updates recently. With us two having such similar blogs that we are working on at the moment I feel that I should say that you are one of the several reasons why I chose to start my own Thousand Sons, while it was not the only reason, your work has certainly encouraged me to keep going with my own project. My thanks for being such an inspirational and creative dakkite!

Keep up the good work!

Cain

I much prefer the purple, you never quite got the white down imo.

Robe looks great, you definitely nailed it.

Commander Cain wrote:Wow! Purple robes look fantastic on him, at first I had my doubts but I think you have really pulled it off well, it makes him look very regal and powerful.

I am really enjoying your updates recently. With us two having such similar blogs that we are working on at the moment I feel that I should say that you are one of the several reasons why I chose to start my own Thousand Sons, while it was not the only reason, your work has certainly encouraged me to keep going with my own project. My thanks for being such an inspirational and creative dakkite!

Keep up the good work!

Cain

It seems a popular idea, at the moment. I was stumbling around Lexicanum the other day and had the idea to create a Thousand Sons Pre-Heresy army...only a bit stifled now that I see at least 4 independent blogs dedicated to this exact fact, lol.

You should start an army of them Hologram! It is always nice to see different ways that someone interprets the same army. There are also a couple of big bits companies coming out with Egyptian style marine stuff so the time has never been better!

I honestly like the Purple much more then the white...Purple FTW

I like the purple not only for how well it suites the mini's but the symbolism behind the colour aswell. It makes them look and feel very royal. Great stuff!

Commander Cain wrote:You should start an army of them Hologram! It is always nice to see different ways that someone interprets the same army. There are also a couple of big bits companies coming out with Egyptian style marine stuff so the time has never been better!

I just got in 6 custom Terminator Torsos yesterday afternoon, shipped from ebay. Just need a few legs and I'll start my own. Right now I'm running with Codex: ShinyMarines, probably will do a Draigobuild until I can get some extra cash influx and make some Power Armor Marines.

The question now is how to get permission to use these terminators at Throne Of Skulls. Because despite having 3 GW managers' approval there are a lot of players who believe the judges will ban the army for it's non GW parts.

So I intend to run the models pass the event team via email. But should I say the robes were done by a friend using green stuff and plasticard, or not mention them and just say Im asking about the use of the shoulder pads?

What do you think?

Not mention them, Don't ask don't tell....

I wouldn't mention the robes, and I wouldn't lie. There aren't many companies who make robed legs, so depending on the persons interest in the hobby, they will most likely know nothing about 3rd party companies, or they will know enough to recognize something like that. The person looking might not care enough to ask, but if you throw up a blatant lie without being challenged in the first place, s/he might call your bs and just shut you down on the spot.

damnthevalley wrote:I wouldn't mention the robes, and I wouldn't lie. There aren't many companies who make robed legs, so depending on the persons interest in the hobby, they will most likely know nothing about 3rd party companies, or they will know enough to recognize something like that. The person looking might not care enough to ask, but if you throw up a blatant lie without being challenged in the first place, s/he might call your bs and just shut you down on the spot.

I agree

plus in many GW events i attend, the model only has to be 50% GW to be deemed "legal"

I love the fact that tournaments take such a crazy stance on the composition of the plastic models that people have to approach it like a gay military member in the "Don't ask - Don't Tell" days.

Just make sure you're 100% comfortable with the possibility of being DQ'd, and at least take solace in the fact that your models look completely badass.

Well the pads are obviously 3rd party bits due to them all being identical ( love them btw, Chapterhouse right?). I would probably run it past the guys who decide this stuff, that way you can be sure they will allow it. The legs could very well be a work of GS do you are safe in that area.

Well, I disagree that the legs could be GS'd. There are only 5 different sculpts on those, so if you run a Draigo list, it will be noticable on a half way close look. And some of the poses with the legs even stand out to the point to where you remember them. I have about 30 Termies with those legs, and it's fairly easy to pick that up when you have 10+ near each other. I think your best bet is still to just ask, don't throw everything on the table with what is and isn't GW product, but don't lie at all either.

Curse you, you make me want to continue my own Pre-heresy Thousand sons project!

Awesome work!

TO ARMS!
The interceptors are pretty much complete except for the sergeant who has Dark Angel robed legs so is taking longer to finish. I left the one who was dramatically posed out of the picture because he just doesn’t look right.



Also someone asked how one of the terminators looked next to the interceptors, so here’s a picture. I think they go well together...



THE FINAL DEADLINE!
This project has taken longer than expected I originally planned for a tournament in January then one in February, this time I’m aiming for my club’s annual tournament on the 24th of March. Even though I’m busy moving house I only have ‘Little Magnus’ and a 2nd dreadnought to go so my chances are high I will make this deadline. I plan to finish off the terminator robes during a week away to see my family that way I only need to take small selection of paints with me to complete them.

"Soon we shall reveal ourselves to the space wolves, at last we will have revenge!"

Everything's looking stunning, mate! Hope you can finish up by the deadline.

LITTLE MAGNUS
When doing a pre-heresy army trying to represent the Primarch is a hopeless task as there is nothing in the rules that can do them justice. Magnus The Red is the same and perhaps even more given that he took down two xenos titans by himself in the novel.

So after finding the ideal model on Scibor Minaitures I decided to convert a ‘Little Magnus’ based off ‘Little Horus Aximand’ in Horus Rising who is one of the Luna Wolves captains who’s splitting image of the Primarch earned him the nickname ‘little Horus’ which he was often called by. This way I feel I can get away with fielding a Magnus look a like in my army.



I added the chest plate horns and replaced the damaged small shields that went over the arms with eagle wings from an imperial Aquila symbol, the arms look horrible underneath so really needed something to cover them up. I also asked a friend to increase the hairline with greenstuff. Normally I would have tired it myself but with a £16 minature I thought it best to have a expert do it rather than risk ruining the model. I'm sure a little help won't hurt and besides I'll likely be replacing him with a Ahriman conversion later as a Librarian has a lot more use in an advancing gunline of terminators than a grand master, that and unlike 'little magnus' I can use him in a GW store.

Anyway he'll be the last model I'll paint as I can play a few smaller games after I complete the 2nd dreadnoughts and finish the terminators I'll paint him up in time for him to lead the army on the 24th.

That sword/halberd is incredibly badass.

Y'know, what, the whole model is incredibly badass. Great choice of model, and I'm sure your paint will do it justice.

wow he looks perfect, and nice idea for the Little Magnus!

I love that model...Very Nice!

MORE BIG GUNS
I’ve completed my 2nd dreadnought however I had originally planned to have him going up the ruined base but the legs just won’t go together after I glued them so I rotated the base instead. Like the first one the weapons are exchangeable so when the model is glued together I can rotate the left weapon to be facing upwards a bit more.


I had planned only to have 2 Venerable Dreads but I’ve decided to downgrade them to basic ones and invest in a 3rd, so after their first tournament I’ll be building a 3rd dread with a close combat arm and multi melta.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!
With 25 days to go the pressure is on to meet the deadline, sadly I’ll be moving house this week so I won’t have a much time to work on the army! However I have the following week off work so I’ll spend a lot of time during then to get the dreadnought and terminators finished, then a week to paint up little Magnus hopefully leaving me 1 week to spare.

Anyway let me know what you think to the pose?

THE LEGIO CYBERNETICA PREPARES FOR WAR!
Given how much my recent flat move and new HD TV has depleted my finances it’s unlikely I will be investing in a 3rd £45 Contemptor Dreadnought. Instead I will be ordering the multi-melta and fist weapon for my first dread and building two Legio Cybernetica robots to represent my rifle dreads.

As mentioned before I will be using the old space crusade dreadnoughts as they are how I pictured the robots mentioned in the Thousand Sons novel, but armed with autocannons much like this conversion I found earlier in the week created by Minus



I'm currently experimenting with my own twin Autocannon weapon design and will be using the feet from a killa kan as the original feet are attached to the base and are impossible to remove (well) so it can be placed on a resin base.

However there are two questions I’d like feedback on please…

1. The robots in the book are described as blue and gold should I paint the blue metallic in remembrance to my old robot army, or given how it's hard to add depth to most metallics should I use basic paints and paint them a dark blue so I can use the blending technique on the flat services?

2. Should I keep those legs or replace them with armoured sentinel legs so I don’t have two robots in the exact same pose?

As always I'm grateful for any feedback you can provide.

i say, paint int basic blues, and use sentinal legs

Wow, how did I miss this thread before? Absolutely beautiful collection of models, I don't know where to start really!

I can't imagine them not being allowed to be used in the tournament. A friend of mine used loads of non-GW bits for a pre-heresy army, and his stuff even got put on display in Warhammer World

THE LAST STRETCH!
8 days to go before the Thousand sons’ first tournament, which I’m determined to meet as this project has taken far longer than I would had expected as I started this project round this time last year after I finished reading a thousand sons in Febuary!
As such I missed my first deadline which was back in January then another tournament in February. However sadly because I’ve just moved house I’m running a bit behind so this next week will see a lot of time spent painting the final models.

However the 2nd dreadnought and strike squad sergeant have been completed and the last three terminators have been assembled and I’ve starting painting them. But I’ve still got ‘Mini Magnus’ to complete and the remaining 14 terminator robes which I will be painting while I visit my family for the next 4 days since I only really need the two purple paints and the wash to complete them.

I will try and free up the time to upload pictures of them but it’s likely I’ll be too busy as I will be using all my free time to complete the army in time for the tournament.



SUPPORT PROSPERO?
I’d be grateful for any help regarding these two subjects guys…
First does anyone have any Autocannons from the imperial guard sentinel kit I could buy for my upcoming 6th Fellowship Cataphract robots as I need another set of 4?
& Secondly can anyone post some links to a selection of magical symbols that I can paint on the trim of the robes like the first one? (not too complex)



Now, back to painting!!!!

Good to see you posting again! Best of luck with the move and getting the painting done in time! I'm looking forward to seeing all your boys completed, especially the Contemptornought.

Oh, as for runes and stuff - try a google image search for magic rune fonts or something similar. I've found looking for fonts tends to give you entire sets of matching symbols. Here's some I found in a coupla minutes - dunno if they're exactly what you're after, but hey, might give you some ideas at least.

THE THOUSAND SONS UNLEASHED!
Well my army took to the field in a small local tournament today and I walked away with 2 victories and 2 enemy forces wiped out but lost in the 3rd round against a horde of fast moving, AP packing Dark Eldar. Overall a fantastic day given it was my first 3 games with the army, which looks fantastic when all together.

The terminators still require a few finishing touches such as battle damage and their belts’ pouches, grenades and scripture as I needed the time to complete ‘Mini Magnus’ for today.
I’ll start photographing the completed units tomorrow and the terminator squads later in the week when they are finished.

It’s nice to finally see a year’s work on the board at last!

I believe I have a set of four Sentinel Autocannons, but I'm in the US. If no-one else steps up, PM me!

Grats on the wins! Looking forward to seeing your whole army together!

Glad to hear about the wins! Can't wait to see this army all finished

The symbols Skits posted look super cool I would certainly use something like them if I were you.