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I have a feeling this idea may have been suggested before, but I can't find where. So in lieu of locating the thread, I am asking dakka's collective wisdom: would using grey knights rules to represent a pre heresy thousand sons army be reasonable? Both are highly psychic, and have access to less than usual wargear and ideas. I appreciate that whenever a shiny new dex arrives, there is a temptation to make it fit old armies to update and revitalise them. However I would like to know whether, if you were playing against a well converted, well painted and themed thousand sons army, but with grey knights rules, what would you think? A gamer who just wants to tweak some new rules to their advantage or a reasonable attempt to make a limited csm dex entry into a playable army?

I wouldn't have any problem with it as long as it was, like you mentioned, well converted/painted. I'm fairly tempted to start using that codex as well just so I can spice it up once in a while. I usually play my marines as Black Templars or straight Space Marines, but the GK codex would give me the option to field terminators as troops and use the Storm Raven. A Broherhood Champion would function well as an Emperor's Champion (good for keeping the army Templar-themed).

I think it would be cool, usual Count As caveats apply though - you need to be clear what each unit is and not be exploting modelling for advantage ( so if you have counts as paladins they should be roughly the same size and be on the same size bases)

Well, the CSM-Dex was never intended to do pre-heresy of any kind. So this wouldn't be a natural go to.

Though I have no reason to object against well-done counts-as, it would IMO feel out of place fielding a pre-heresy army against 40K-armies (Necrons, Tyranids, Tau, even 40K-era Marine Chapters & Chaos Space Marines).

I appreciate that whenever a shiny new dex arrives, there is a temptation to make it fit old armies to update and revitalise them.

while this is true, the grey knights codex lends itself to much more reasonable counts as than most armies. Hmmmmm I might start a new thread about it.

1k Sons makes perfect sense with the GK codex. Force weapons, psychic powers all around.

I'd consider the Space Wolves Codex ( Haters gonna hate...), as they can have 4 HQ psykers with different abilities.

Plus, even with their tactical superiority or advanced firing procedures, I doubt a TS marine could fire a bolter to the level of efficiency of a storm bolter.
And there are not that many Heqa Staffs around to give every model a psychic melee weapon.



On the other hand, I see so many conversion options for GK's.. DreadKnight is the new Sphinx for the tomb kings... in fact a lot of Tomb Kings stuff for the egypt feeling...

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've got a few ideas as to what certain units would be equivalent to. Paladins and termies, well that could easily be an honour guard and regualr thousand sons termies. I think I would lean away from using dreadknights at all, as the stat line to me wouldnt match anything a "regular" pre heresy sm chapter would run. GK's have a specific reason for such a beast and I find it hard to justify having it versus say, a dreadnought.

I also think I would leave out storm ravens, as I didn't get a feel for that kind of warfare from reading the HH book. The abundance of psychic powers and force weapons fits IMO, as would psycannons etc.

A lack of long range firepower however, and the bias towards combat rather than shooting, that's the part I'm not sure about. I know that the idea of thousand sons as a shootier army is taken mostly from the CSM dex, not necessarily from the pre-heresy bit, but I don't know if that part fits or not.

Thoughts?

PS, couldn't sanction the idea of a SW dex for thousand sons. I know it seems a bit precious, but they're not exactly friends and to use one codex for the other just doesn't sit well with me, however practical the suggestion might be.

It's just a name.

Here's my Tau count as DE army. Here's my DE count as SMs army. Here's my SMs count as Necrons army. Here's my Necrons count as Tau army.

feth it! Here's my Tau count as IG army, fighting my IG count as Tau army.

I can't see the point. If you want to play a Grey Knights army, just play a Grey Knights army.

I'm planning a 1k-Sons Pyrus-Cult army using the Crowe-Purifier list. It's very doable and fluffly to boot.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's just a name.

Here's my Tau count as DE army. Here's my DE count as SMs army. Here's my SMs count as Necrons army. Here's my Necrons count as Tau army.

feth it! Here's my Tau count as IG army, fighting my IG count as Tau army.

I can't see the point. If you want to play a Grey Knights army, just play a Grey Knights army.

okay, go find me the: Codex: Demiurge, Codex: Squats, Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, Codex: Tallerian dog soldiers, Codex: rouge trader, Codex: salamanders, Codex: white scars, Codex: blood ravens, Codex: astral claws, and so on and so fourth.

It's one thing to proxy Tau with IG, but another to proxy a non existant codex with one that does exist.

I'm planning a 1k-Sons Pyrus-Cult army using the Crowe-Purifier list. It's very doable and fluffly to boot.

if by fluffy, you mean they are basically the same thing, in different colors, yeah.

To be honest with Mr KillKrazy, I do like the grey knights. But aesthetically, I don't like the colours. Its not like you can think up a successor chapter for them either, and grey knights don't come in well, pink, do they?

I do however see your point, and I'll tally your response on the side of: No.

Put me solidly in the "Yes" camp, with a few caveats.

The purpose of the fluff is not to serve as a dogmatic truth to be followed unwaveringly. The purpose of the fluff is to provide depth to the game - so that, instead of feeling like we're rolling dice to simulate our plastic men/monsters shooting pretend bullets at each other, we are able to suspend disbelief and envision the valiant heroes of <faction of choice> striking out against the vicious and hostile <opposing faction>.

The fluff, strictly speaking, does not matter in the actual context of a game of Warhammer 40,000, merely the rules themselves. Stories are (rather cunningly) portrayed in such a way that a certain amount of subjective bias in favor of the protagonists is obvious, but it is unclear quite how much, and the stories often conflict when told from different perspectives. This doesn't even mention the lack of logical consistency with the rules as they stand. For example, fluff-wise, my understanding of terminators is that they are walking around in tank-armor; game-wise, they can be one-shotted by guns that couldn't even glance AV10.

In the scope of the actual game on the tabletop, you're using the GK codex; the fact that they are painted TS colors is solely for your benefit. Your opponent's enjoyment of the background should be unaffected by your use of a counts-as army. You may still get a hard time from people who get some odd sense of superiority from their strict reverence of that background, but you can and should ignore them. Moreover, anyone who complains about you bandwagoning can and should be ignored as well. Complaints about "cheese" with a new codex are, in almost all cases, cries of anguish from people struggling with the shifting metagame. You should encourage them to become chess wargamers instead, as those rules are fairly static.

All of this is contingent on the assumption that you, as Phototoxin mentioned, fairly and clearly model the units and wargear for easy identification, and do not exploit modeling advantages. And, as always, the "rule of cool" applies.

Oh, and you have to post pictures on Dakka once your army is finished

Reanimator wrote:To be honest with Mr KillKrazy, I do like the grey knights. But aesthetically, I don't like the colours. Its not like you can think up a successor chapter for them either, and grey knights don't come in well, pink, do they?

I do however see your point, and I'll tally your response on the side of: No.

You can count me a yes.

Just say these are my Grey Knights which I painted pink (or whatever) because I wanted to.

This has been discussed before. I am looking for the post now.

Here it is: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/353770.page

I have also begun on the making of a Pre-heresy Thousand Sons army. Trying to finalize my list but looks like there will be a couple Stormravens and Terminators. I have also been gravitating to Inquisitor Coteaz. I love the fact I can make an entire army that are troops!

Lastly I have already made both the pre-heresy Thousand Sons symbol and a stylized scarab symbol.

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

Hope you enjoy

Reanimator wrote: I think I would lean away from using dreadknights at all, as the stat line to me wouldnt match anything a "regular" pre heresy sm chapter would run. GK's have a specific reason for such a beast and I find it hard to justify having it versus say, a dreadnought.

If you read the Horus Heresy novel about them, it does reveal that they use psychically controlled constructs that are reasonably similar to the dreadknight minus GK pilot and such.
It could be a pretty badass conversion if you were inclined to do it and would be almost without question a better looking model than the dreadknight anyways.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Reanimator wrote:To be honest with Mr KillKrazy, I do like the grey knights. But aesthetically, I don't like the colours. Its not like you can think up a successor chapter for them either, and grey knights don't come in well, pink, do they?

I do however see your point, and I'll tally your response on the side of: No.

You can count me a yes.

Just say these are my Grey Knights which I painted pink (or whatever) because I wanted to.

What about; 'These are my Grey Knights aesthetically styled to represent pre-heresy Thousand Sons?'

I love the idea. You could even make a Dreadknight that counts as Flesh Change monstrosity.

Atramentar wrote:If you read the Horus Heresy novel about them, it does reveal that they use psychically controlled constructs that are reasonably similar to the dreadknight minus GK pilot and such.
It could be a pretty badass conversion if you were inclined to do it and would be almost without question a better looking model than the dreadknight anyways.

Thank you for jogging my memory- that does sound familiar now that you mention it. A dreadknight/necrosphinx conversion could be interesting. Others have already suggested that such a kit might be good for a thousand sons daemon prince, so it could fit here too. Maybe.

I was also thinking last night, as to whether to include inquisition forces representing the spire guard, I seem to remember them being an imperial guard/PDF-esque unit associated with Prospero. I'd love to be more specific but my copy of thousand sons is not with me.