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Are there non-terrible Thousand Sons books in 40K?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Regular Dakkanaut




I’ve read the important 30k ones and really liked those, and the Ahriman trilogy was pretty great and establishes that Ahriman himself is a badass, but then I read War of the Fang and that was depressing as hell. Like the part where a single rune priest takes out most of the Thousand Sons sorcerers because they just aren’t strong enough. And then Magnus gets into a fight with a dreadnought and LOSES. Loses so badly that he starts crying. So I’m wondering if there are any books out there in the 40K era where they’re not shown as just being incompetent. Or does Chaos just not do that sort of thing?
   
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dorset

Crackedgear wrote:
I’ve read the important 30k ones and really liked those, and the Ahriman trilogy was pretty great and establishes that Ahriman himself is a badass, but then I read War of the Fang and that was depressing as hell. Like the part where a single rune priest takes out most of the Thousand Sons sorcerers because they just aren’t strong enough. And then Magnus gets into a fight with a dreadnought and LOSES. Loses so badly that he starts crying. So I’m wondering if there are any books out there in the 40K era where they’re not shown as just being incompetent. Or does Chaos just not do that sort of thing?


short answer, no, not really. Once they jump over to Team Evil they are heavily infected with Designated Antagonist Syndrome and basically exist to make the Heros Look Strong, when he beats them. same with most of the other traitor Legions, they go full Saturday morning cartoon villain once they get their 8 pointed stars.


the problem is they stop being viewpoint characters. in the Heresy, we are shown the Legion form within, and we have thousand sons characters that are the protagonist of those books and sections of other books that we are allowed to root for, so they are Intelligent, Cool People, whereas in 40k they are only ever the "evil wizard" archtype (or "mindless golems") to be defeated by the Hero, so they are less intelligent, and certianly Not Cool

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/08 21:47:24


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Pretty much any book where the faction you like isn't the protagonist they're pathetically stupid. The Ultramarines Omnibus has very good Iron Warriors/generic Chaos followers but apart from that, I'm struggling to think of anything.
   
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Battleship Captain




Yes and no. Ahriman remains the protagonist in his trilogy, but he is also "competent villain" in Atlas Infernal, which I recommend if you like Ahriman.

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Ive remembered Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Black Legion books today. They're more a view of the Eye of Terror during the Legion Wars and then the 1st Black Crusade but they have some excellent Tsons characters.
   
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Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Can someone tell me, I haven't read the lore, but are there actual ASTARTES inside the Tsons armor? Or is it just animated suits of armor? Like, what actually happened to them to make them all dust people?
   
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Slaanesh Chosen Marine Riding a Fiend




Australia

ADB's Black Legion series (Talon of Horus + Black Legion) has a main character who is formerly of the Thousand Sons, and lots of Thousand Sons flavour throughout, that will probably tickle your fancy as well

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/09 20:24:20


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Lisbon, Portugal

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can someone tell me, I haven't read the lore, but are there actual ASTARTES inside the Tsons armor? Or is it just animated suits of armor? Like, what actually happened to them to make them all dust people?


The Rubric Marines are all dust.
The Sorcerers are living beings - either new ones or the same from the 30k period. Many of them undergo mutations and are represented by the Exalted Sorcerer mini. Others are more stable, like Ahriman and the Aspiring Sorcerers.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/09 20:36:59


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 Vector Strike wrote:
Others are more stable, like Ahriman

Ahriman is actually very mutated (he literally has a howling vortex where his face should be), but remains entirely unaware of this.

A little bit of righteous anger now and then is good, actually. Don't trust a person who never gets angry. 
   
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Port Carmine

 Marshal Loss wrote:
ADB's Black Legion series (Talon of Horus + Black Legion) has a main character who is formerly of the Thousand Sons, and lots of Thousand Sons flavour throughout, that will probably tickle your fancy as well


To be fair, the OP asked for "non-terrible". I normally love ADB's stuff, but Talon of Horus was shockingly bad.

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Nah, Talon was brilliant. Black Legion was better but Talon showed a thing that's been unexplored and I think it did it well. The fact the main character has a Yugi-Oh deck is the icing on the cake.
   
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In My Lab

 Gert wrote:
Nah, Talon was brilliant. Black Legion was better but Talon showed a thing that's been unexplored and I think it did it well. The fact the main character has a Yugi-Oh deck is the icing on the cake.
Come again?

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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can someone tell me, I haven't read the lore, but are there actual ASTARTES inside the Tsons armor? Or is it just animated suits of armor? Like, what actually happened to them to make them all dust people?


Short version is that all Thousand Sons were in danger of spontaneously mutating into something horrible at any time. Ahriman tried to cure the entire legion at once casting a spell called the rubric. It worked a little too well, reducing most of the legion to dust with their souls or whatever trapped inside their power armor. The squad leaders are all the ones who didn’t get turned into dust, so they order the empty suits around.
   
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I'd love to elaborate but its one of the best scenes in the book and I'd rather not spoil it. I believe they made it a paper back so you don't need to buy a £16 hardback to read it.
   
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Port Carmine

In fact, you could probably find it second hand on ebay for a price more appropriate for 'bad fanfic'.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/04/10 12:35:49


VAIROSEAN LIVES! 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Crackedgear wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can someone tell me, I haven't read the lore, but are there actual ASTARTES inside the Tsons armor? Or is it just animated suits of armor? Like, what actually happened to them to make them all dust people?


Short version is that all Thousand Sons were in danger of spontaneously mutating into something horrible at any time. Ahriman tried to cure the entire legion at once casting a spell called the rubric. It worked a little too well, reducing most of the legion to dust with their souls or whatever trapped inside their power armor. The squad leaders are all the ones who didn’t get turned into dust, so they order the empty suits around.


It wasn’t specific roles who weren’t affected.
But any with psychic talents.

Those turned to dust were marines with little or no psychic abilities.
   
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Danny76 wrote:
Crackedgear wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can someone tell me, I haven't read the lore, but are there actual ASTARTES inside the Tsons armor? Or is it just animated suits of armor? Like, what actually happened to them to make them all dust people?


Short version is that all Thousand Sons were in danger of spontaneously mutating into something horrible at any time. Ahriman tried to cure the entire legion at once casting a spell called the rubric. It worked a little too well, reducing most of the legion to dust with their souls or whatever trapped inside their power armor. The squad leaders are all the ones who didn’t get turned into dust, so they order the empty suits around.


It wasn’t specific roles who weren’t affected.
But any with psychic talents.

Those turned to dust were marines with little or no psychic abilities.


Which is weird because isn’t the whole legion psychic? I don’t think I’ve seen any mention of non-psychic members.

Edit: going by the 30k rules, each unit must pick an arcana and receive the appropriate bonus, and also if anyone gets wounded from perils, then the entire army has to make pinning checks.

Also, I didn’t mean that squad leaders were unaffected, I meant the ones who were unaffected became the squad leaders.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/04/15 20:03:02


 
   
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Different levels of psychic. Powerful Psykers got boosted basically by stealing the power off of the less powerful.
   
 
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