Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Black Legion codex supplement makes a brief mention of Sons of the Cyclops, a Tzeentch worshipping Black Legion warband that includes its own rubric marines. This sounds pretty cool, so I've converted some Rubric Marines to make them less 'thousand-sonsy' by giving them helmets from raptors and warp talons. They look pretty cool.

Where would Sons of the Cyclops have got their rubric marines though? Would they be thousand sons who've left their legion?

And if so, could they change their helmets without their dusty life forces escaping?

I think the number one thing is to go with how you want to interpret it.

The Black Legion supplement mentions many marines of the old legions joining the new Black Legion. It is tradition to burn off old paintwork and markings as your allegiances now lie to Abaddon and his legion.

From this it would be fair to assume (at least some of ) the Sons of the Cyclops rubricae are those belonging to defected Thousand Sons Sorcerors.

You'll notice in the chaos codex many of the Thousand Sons are painted black / with Horus marks.

I don't think they'd need to change the entire helmet, they might just change the ornamentation.

There is a story where another Thousand Son's warband called the brotherhood of dust tries to kill Ahriman. Ahriman is able to use his power and knowledge of the rubric to seize control of their sorcerers Rubicae.

This suggests to me that any Chaos sorcerer with the prerequisite knowledge and power can control the Rubric marines. As destroying them is very difficult I can imagine a scenario where a defeated Thousand Sons warband is absorbed by the Black Legion along with it's Rubric marines.
It is just unlikely that a sorcerer outside the Thousand Sons would have the necessary knowledge of the rubric.

The novel Talon of Horus covers the early years of the Sons of the Cyclops.

Basically they are Thousands sons who join Abaddon.

Chaos is well chaotic. You can make up any sort of fluff you want. The rubric marines might be actual thousand sons who are controled by a sorcerer who changed his allegence
The rubric marines might have been created in a different way, from non Tson marines in a different ritual than ahriman
They might not be rubric marines but magically animated suits of armor
They might be daemonically possesed suits of armor.

There seems to be some suggestions that Sorcerers can use magic to change the appearance of the Rubrics. So my guess is they will look however you want. Several different cabals have different primary colors, almost all of them not the original red. I can't imagine the Sorcerers sitting around with cans of spray paint making the changes.

Ravingbantha wrote:
There seems to be some suggestions that Sorcerers can use magic to change the appearance of the Rubrics. So my guess is they will look however you want. Several different cabals have different primary colors, almost all of them not the original red. I can't imagine the Sorcerers sitting around with cans of spray paint making the changes.

That's why they make the Rubrics do the painting.