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I'm making a fluff army of thousand sons, and other then the obvious stuff, what stuff would thousand sons have access to/use.

Head cannon is my commander is sent by tzeentch to assist Ahriman, who logically doesn't trust him and sends him off to a newly conquered world by the imperium to rescue a chaos relics, mostly hoping he and his appearance will die.

I really like the idea of the forge fiend done in thousand sons colors and possibly with some added Egyptian touches. Thousand sons kinda avoid vehicles as a whole but i feel this would be a gift from tzeentch as opposed to something from pre hetesy or stolen.

Chaos spawn would have a cruel irony to ally with them same with possessed but I feel like wrap talons would actually make sense to be part of the traitor thousand sons legions due to their psychic assaulting focus and of course sorcerers as HQs. I would also be partial to an allied detachment of demons of T.

Well, i've played fluffy chaos lists with possessed.
A power-lusting Tzeench cult - ~40-60 cultists, some of them with autoguns
Led by charismatic yet insane leader - Dark apostle [MoT, gift of mutation]
They were noticed and contacted by an aspiring 1000 son's sorcerror - Chaos sorcerror [MoT, Ml3, Sigil of corruption,Spell familliar, gift of mutation])
With his automatron bodyguards - ~6-7 rubrics with aspiring sorcerror [meltabombs, gift of mutation] in a rhino [havoc launcher]
And with Sorcerror's guidance and some chaos-worthy deeds they finally started to recieve 'gifts from a God of Change' - 2 squads of 9 Possessed + Possessed Champion [2 gifts of mutation on each champ].

Yep, there were much more cultists in the first place but ascendance to the state of mutated possessed is deadly even for space marines, not telling about regular humans.

That's the fluff part. The funny thing is that i managed to win a tau guy with a forgeworld riptide - the one with 4 large blasts and a dark angel player with landraider redeemer. But in that game i took a squad of generic marines in a rhino + more cultists instead of one possessed squad and the csm's aspiring champ rolled +1 bs for his gift of mutation and with a help of it managed to hit rolling a 2 and explode a venerable landraider redeemer with his multi-melta - the only one i had...and Possessed slaughtered vanguard vets but his chaplain was passing a 4++ save during 7 phases of close combat in a challenge against a sorc and eventually killed a sorc that had a 3++ rerollable thanks to the 'morale support' of possessed but than was wounded by a possessed champ and finished off by an apostle...Tzeench laughed hard that game.

The Forge World riptide is significantly less scary to Thousand Sons than it is to regular Marine armies, lol.

In Ahriman: Exile, Warp Talons are used as assassins by a rival Thousand Sons sorcerer from the anti-Magnusite faction, but other than that its pretty much all rogue marines, cultists and the occasional rubric or sorcerer.

Personally, I like the idea of Daemon Engines and summoned Daemons in Thousand Sons armies - things that they can call into being via magic rather than recruiting manually.

It's significantly more scary than regular ones for 1k sons cause it doesn't care bout their 4++ killing them like regular marines that cost 2 times more + sorc tax.

The Thousand Sons generally portrayed in the fluff are Ahriman and his exiles, who hated mutation and wanted to get rid of it at any cost. So there'd be no daemons, spawn, possessed, anything like that. No big vehicles like land raiders or thunderhawks, or plentiful supplies given that they're renegades with no reliable access to arms and ammunition. Composition would generally be Ahriman, an inner circle of Sorcerers, a core contingent of Thousand Sons automatons, and then a bunch of cultists, wannabe sorcerers, renegade psykers, and other expendables.

Now all the other Thousand Sons that didn't side with Ahriman and stuck with their dad on the planet of sorcerers? Those guys you can go whole hog with. Daemons, mutants, and anything else. They're full on devil-worshiping Chaos Sorcerers with no qualms about the warp and none of Ahriman's morals. Throw everything you want in there.

I always thought Obliterators belonged in TS armies. Probably not modelled the way they come from GW, but as some kind of big scarab thing with lots of guns.

I'd bring some MoT terminators. Represents the old rubric termies which are at least meta-fluffy. Plus, armed with combi-meltas they fix basically all the problems of 1ksons.

Three units of 1ksons, 2 big units of terminators and a pair of sorcerers and you'd have something pretty decent that's also reasonably fluffy.

Especially if you brought ahriman for the infiltration. You could deploy virtually nothing at the beginning of the game, and then, once your opponent is set up, infiltrate your 1ksons to counter his deployment and still get first turn. Sounds tzeentchy to me.

Would thousand sons have havocs and raptors? I would assume so, but I'm not fully acquainted with their lore, only a portion through the book. For all I know their legion didn't have any.

leivve wrote:
Would thousand sons have havocs and raptors? I would assume so, but I'm not fully acquainted with their lore, only a portion through the book. For all I know their legion didn't have any.

Raptors usually were from the Raptor cults, mostly mercenaries so they could have them.

I'm not so sure on Havocs, but Rubric heavy squads doesn't seem like it'd be out of the realm of possibility.

Presumably they were laid out in standard legion form before they went heretics, so they would make use of standard units still today. If they had assault marines before the heresy, they'd have raptors now, and if they had devestators and preds before, they'd still have them now.

The only things I'd try and shy away from (other than possessed) are the new warpsmith stuff. Mutating demons into flesh into machines doesn't sound very 1ksons, given their stance on mutation and flesh in general.

koooaei wrote:It's significantly more scary than regular ones for 1k sons cause it doesn't care bout their 4++ killing them like regular marines that cost 2 times more + sorc tax.

The Forge World riptide ignores invulnerable saves? That sounds wrong to me. I though it just spammed AP3 blast markers.

leivve wrote:Would thousand sons have havocs and raptors? I would assume so, but I'm not fully acquainted with their lore, only a portion through the book. For all I know their legion didn't have any.

Raptors and Havocs would both come under the mantle of "allies from other legions or renegades". All of the Thousand Sons - all of them, the entire Legion - are either Sorcerers or Rubric Marines.

Now, you could model a Havoc squad as sorcerers, and making different spellcaster poses to represent different heavy weapons could be fun (maybe something with different patterns/colours of coruscating energy), but they wouldn't be "Thousand Sons Havocs" in the traditional sense.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

koooaei wrote:It's significantly more scary than regular ones for 1k sons cause it doesn't care bout their 4++ killing them like regular marines that cost 2 times more + sorc tax.

The Forge World riptide ignores invulnerable saves? That sounds wrong to me. I though it just spammed AP3 blast markers.

leivve wrote:Would thousand sons have havocs and raptors? I would assume so, but I'm not fully acquainted with their lore, only a portion through the book. For all I know their legion didn't have any.

Raptors and Havocs would both come under the mantle of "allies from other legions or renegades". All of the Thousand Sons - all of them, the entire Legion - are either Sorcerers or Rubric Marines.

Now, you could model a Havoc squad as sorcerers, and making different spellcaster poses to represent different heavy weapons could be fun (maybe something with different patterns/colours of coruscating energy), but they wouldn't be "Thousand Sons Havocs" in the traditional sense.

Is there anything in the fluff that says "every rubric marine carries only his trusty bolter" or is that an assumption made based on the rubric marine from the codex?
The rubric marine concept, fluffwise, is that their bodies are dust and they are basically automatons in their suits. But why can't there be differently armed ones? Any reason why the sorcerer lord wouldn't be all like "here. Take this lascannon."
Were there no Terminators on the planet when Ahriman opened that particular can of worms? They'd be rubric'ed too.

There used to be Rubric Terminators, but the logic behind the no-heavy-weapons thing is that the Rubrics aren't really with it enough to use heavy weapons. The Sorcerer basically has to micro-manage them to do stuff as simple as reloading, so...

 Furyou Miko wrote:

The Forge World riptide ignores invulnerable saves? That sounds wrong to me. I though it just spammed AP3 blast markers.

It was nerfed so now it only shoots (not even spams) AP4 blasts. So Rubrics and Marines die equally fast to it, which is to say not very fast at all.

Well, I'm glad I'm a nerd for their aesthetic, not their fluff.
I'm building a 1k sons CSM army at the moment, but I really couldn't care less about their fluffy inability to bring anything bigger than a bolter.

I'm even making Centurions into Thousand Sons Obliterators because I seem to be one of the very few that find the Centurions absolutely bad ass.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I always thought Obliterators belonged in TS armies. Probably not modelled the way they come from GW, but as some kind of big scarab thing with lots of guns.

Me too, except I always thought it would be cool to model them as out of control pyrae sorcerers. The different weapon choices would just represent their different pyrokinetic abilities.

Furyou Miko wrote:the logic behind the no-heavy-weapons thing is that the Rubrics aren't really with it enough to use heavy weapons. The Sorcerer basically has to micro-manage them to do stuff as simple as reloading, so...

I don't buy it. Reloading an autocannon isn't going to be significantly more difficult than reloading a bolter.

Unless the entire legion happened to only be armed with bolters at the moment they flipped, that means either that they continued to use their special wargear after the event, or else the sorcerers went around and took away everyone's weapons (and somehow got terminators into power armor), which doesn't really make sense (and I can't think of any fluff off the top of my head that would justify it, either).

The fact that rubric terminators used to have their own rules set rather implies the existence of rubric terminators. Just because they don't have special rules anymore doesn't necessarily mean they've been retconned (There's still a guardsman Marbo, for example, hiding somewhere).

 Purifier wrote:
Well, I'm glad I'm a nerd for their aesthetic, not their fluff.
I'm building a 1k sons CSM army at the moment, but I really couldn't care less about their fluffy inability to bring anything bigger than a bolter.

I'm even making Centurions into Thousand Sons Obliterators because I seem to be one of the very few that find the Centurions absolutely bad ass.

I wouldn't quite say it's that bad. The biggest problem would likely be maintenance. Bolters are complex and even with sorcery it might be difficult to keep up every last bolter at top shape when wielded by automatons but imagine trying to keep a non daemonic plasma gun or a non daemonic melta gun up to it? As per their fighting skills, I wouldn't quite say its that bad. The fluff mentions that even without a sorcerer they can move if in battles but a sorcerer orders them on what to do for proper clarity. I could see a small group of KSons that broke off and stay to themselves largely not wishing for such heavy weapons (although I'd argue they might like to build several different incantations on bullets but that runs into Sternguard) but I'd argue some of the more mobilized forces would bring weapons that are not bolters. Humorously this conversation has led to me pausing to ask why Inferno bolts? Just ap3 bullets. It'd be interesting if the difference was in the effects of the bullets in all honesty. Problem of course being that's Sternguard's shtick. Then again... that didn't stop the Centurion assault and shooting from coming into existence

Rubric havocs would be fine with a sorceror in charge imo because yeah, there's not much difference between aiming a bolter and aiming a heavy bolter. Rubrics aren't completely mindless after all iirc. Rubric raptors would not work as that would be beyond the sorcs ability to control effectively I'd say. Jump pack movement too fast and dedicated melee combat too hectic.

 Yonan wrote:
Rubric havocs would be fine with a sorceror in charge imo because yeah, there's not much difference between aiming a bolter and aiming a heavy bolter. Rubrics aren't completely mindless after all iirc. Rubric raptors would not work as that would be beyond the sorcs ability to control effectively I'd say. Jump pack movement too fast and dedicated melee combat too hectic.

Madness! They would be uncommon of course but a few of the most dedicated would stand for it. They are the ones that wish to be LoC, to gain wings and fly whilst cackling and shooting magic. Most KSon sorcerers find them very odd

I suppose also we've got to note that god warriors are not necessarily the gods themselves. World eaters hate psykers, not khorne, and 1ksons hate mutation, but tzeentch certainly doesn't.

Things that apply to a traitor legion don't necessarily apply to all followers of the deity and vice versa.

Ailaros wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:the logic behind the no-heavy-weapons thing is that the Rubrics aren't really with it enough to use heavy weapons. The Sorcerer basically has to micro-manage them to do stuff as simple as reloading, so...

I don't buy it. Reloading an autocannon isn't going to be significantly more difficult than reloading a bolter.

Unless the entire legion happened to only be armed with bolters at the moment they flipped, that means either that they continued to use their special wargear after the event, or else the sorcerers went around and took away everyone's weapons (and somehow got terminators into power armor), which doesn't really make sense (and I can't think of any fluff off the top of my head that would justify it, either).

The fact that rubric terminators used to have their own rules set rather implies the existence of rubric terminators. Just because they don't have special rules anymore doesn't necessarily mean they've been retconned (There's still a guardsman Marbo, for example, hiding somewhere).

Yes, reloading an AC isn't that much more complex than reloading a Bolter.

However, the Sorcerer is also trying to reload a bolter, and a lascannon, and a missile launcher at the same time as bullying the Warp into submission and retaining situational awareness.

Thousand sons are said to be an army that doesn't use a lot of mechanized stuff like vehicles, they only take the bare minimum (a couple of rhinos to get around at most).

However, when a thousand sons commander decides to get mechanized support, he'll rather take an exotic construct (Helbrutes, Forgefiends, maulerfiends, etc) than more tanks.
So as far as units go:
-Thousand sons with some Rhinos
- Helbrutes
- Forgefiends
- Maulerfiends
- Defilers
- Sorcerers
- Ahriman

 Badablack wrote:
The Thousand Sons generally portrayed in the fluff are Ahriman and his exiles, who hated mutation and wanted to get rid of it at any cost. So there'd be no daemons, spawn, possessed, anything like that. No big vehicles like land raiders or thunderhawks, or plentiful supplies given that they're renegades with no reliable access to arms and ammunition. Composition would generally be Ahriman, an inner circle of Sorcerers, a core contingent of Thousand Sons automatons, and then a bunch of cultists, wannabe sorcerers, renegade psykers, and other expendables.

Now all the other Thousand Sons that didn't side with Ahriman and stuck with their dad on the planet of sorcerers? Those guys you can go whole hog with. Daemons, mutants, and anything else. They're full on devil-worshiping Chaos Sorcerers with no qualms about the warp and none of Ahriman's morals. Throw everything you want in there.

I'm not sure at all that I'd say that. The cabal that Amon headed, which was taken over by Ahriman, was large, fleet based, and had Storm Eagles as well as many other craft, mentioned as both larger and smaller than a Storm Eagle. Which brings other questions to mind. Did the Legion's vehicles and equipment come through to the Planet of Sorcerers along with the Thousand Sons themselves? Did Amon, instead, capture them or receive them from other CSM warbands who rallied to his warband? Was Sycorax a ship which Amon gathered as he amassed power, or did some of the Thousand Sons fleet, sent away by Magnus, end up journeying into the Eye to rejoin their legion?

I'd say:

Avoid mutations/semi-demonic contraptions where possible.
Terminators and Havocs seem okay (they're both slow moving), but I would stay away from Raptors as it seems like the kind of thing requiring some initiative/high reaction speed.
Dreadnoughts should be fine to use, Defilers could also be justified as they're also bound inside their armour.
Tzeentch demons should be fine, as they aren't mutated in the manner a Marine would be.
Unmutated cultists should also fit fine. I'd suggest shooty ones over stabby ones, as that probably fits Tzeentch's style more.

IT also depends on what part of KSons. Some have accepted chaos a bit more, most will manipulate anybody, some abhor chaos, and some avoid it most of the time but use it when convenient.