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I'm possibly looking to get back into 40k (I've tried twice before, but wandered back to Fantasy after buying a single box of models), and decided that if I'm going to keep myself on track, I'd have to have an army that will look absolutely stunning.

The first thing that comes to mind is a pre-heresy army. Problem is, I know very little about 40k past the basic lore.
So I have a few questions in regards to starting a Pre Heresy Thousand Sons army:

1. Which army would they work best with? Space Marines, or Chaos Space Marines?
2. Which units would be the most fluffy (I want a themed list, so if they didn't have it in pre-heresy times, I don't want to use it)
3. What would be the play style? I know 40k has a lot of psychic stuff now, so do they utilize a lot of that?
4. Which models/conversions bits would be most appropriate? I know the they have the Egyptian style, but browsing at the FW site, I have know idea which armour class I should be using.

My second option, if I had to choose any, would be Emperor's Children, so what would be the differences with them?

Any additional information that could help would be greatly appreciated as I really have no idea how to go about starting this.

Have you looked much at the Horus Heresy: Betrayal Armylist?

Not at all. Like I said, I have no clue as to where to begin. I simply know that I love the Egyptian look of the Pre Heresy Sons, and the red color scheme.

I would prefer to use a legal army list though, in case I want to play in a tournament, but I can definitely take a look at that since I expect to generally play friendly games.
Does it have separate lists for each legion? Or just a general Horus Heresy list?

Right now there is just one, albeit incredibly versatile, general "Legion" list, with the first four Legions having been featured in the first book, thus getting rules for their Primarch, a couple special characters, and a unique unit or two each.

Thousand Sons will get their "feature" in a book or two, most likely.

In my opinion, the HH list is one of the most fun armylists I've yet seen. It is versatile, has so much fun stuff to choose from, it plays fluffily, is well-balanced, and has some neat gimmicks that set it apart from basic SM lists.

I play HH Imperial Fists, and even without my Primarch and unique stuff, I thoroughly enjoy writing lists with it and sifting through the wealth of options.

Now, if that isn't your cup of tea, I suggest using Chaos Space Marines, favoring Sorcerors, Perhaps a Counts-as-Ahriman, some Thousand Son Squads, maybe a Land Raider or two, Havocs, and Big CSM squads.

One thing you can do is use the Codex: Space Marine rules and then get some FW models for the older types of power armor.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Infantry-and-Accessories?filter_reset=1

Betrayal is one general "Legion" army list, and then modifiers and special units for World Eaters, Emperor's Children, Death Guard and Sons of Horus. There are unfortunately no rules yet for Thousand Sons, nor are there likely to be for a while as the next book is for at least part of the Drop Site Massacre.

For a generally accepted army list, my recommendation after giving thought to it myself would be Chaos Space Marines. A commonly recommended option is Grey Knights, but I found that the standard equipment and Brotherhood of Psykers rule didn't fit for a heresy-era Sons army. While the Sons had proportionally more psykers than any other legion they certainly weren't all psykers, nor did they have ready access to equipment that would be at best experimental at the time (stormbolters and Force Weapons.)

So for Chaos Space Marines, obviously for HQ either Ahriman or Sorceror Lords. For everything else, you'd run the sort of units that you might find in a standard marine army, basic power armour, terminators, chosen, havocs, etc. For more exotic options, running Forgefiends, Maulerfiends or Defilers modelled as Legio Cybernetica robots (probably based off the Dreadknight model) strikes me as a good option. You probably wouldn't want to mark things, or use any obviously daemonic things (possessed, spawn, etc) without lots of thought as to how they'd work.

Thanks for the replies.

Which models in particular are the most fitting? I see a lot of different style power armours there, and I haven't the slightest idea of which one fits the time frame for Pre-heresy.
What would be the best fitting models for terminators? I'm also fine with using 3rd party companies, so no need to stick to 100% GW/FW.

I also see a lot of stuff done with what I think is Dark Angel models? Simply because of cloaks and what not, so not sure if the mix up in power armour will work.

MKII and MKIII Armor were around Pre-heresy.

Cataphractii were the predominant Terminator Armor back then.

As for cloaks, it always turns out better when you take some time and actually GS them.

Pre heresy thousand sons could be played from C:GK coz of all the psykers, but otherwise if you dont want to use betrayel i would say either use proper thousand sons from the C:CSM or play from vanilla marines and take a few librarians...

It sounds like I'd definitely be using the Betrayal rules, and only the CSM rules if and when I have to.

So could anyone possibly post a typical list that I would be using for Thousand Sons from the Betrayal book? I'd just like to get an idea of what models I'd have to get, etc.

I'm looking at going for 2k, and will definitely want it to be as themed and fluffy as possible, especially since it's most likely only for friendly game play.

Sounds like you have a good idea, I know right now most of the betrayal rules are not allowed in many tournaments, so you would just use C:SM for that and you may need to swap out a few models.

If I had the money to order from FW I would love to get a few squads of the old termie armor for my DA.

I don't believe I'll actually play in any tournaments since, to be completely honest, I'm not the biggest fan of 40k or sci-fi in general. But I have so many friends that want me to get back into that I figured I might as well do an army that I'll enjoy having on the table.

So more likely than not I'll almost never play in tournaments unless some mystifying spark occurs in me and I end up getting really competitive and falling in love with 40k!

But as long as it's themed and fluffy and looks cool, I'm happy!

Edit: I also mentioned that I would possibly interested in Emperor's Children, however, as compared to the Thousand Sons, I know absolutely nothing about their play style. So what exactly would that be?
Edit 2: After a bit of consideration as a whole, I think I'm now leaning towards Emperor's Children. So, echoing my above edit: What exactly is the play style for the Children? I know they were perfectionists and what not, but I have no idea if they leaned towards fast attack, or heavy, or anything else really.