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I know that Ahriman and his band of merry men are colored the current blue and gold color scheme, but did the rest of the Thousand Sons legion also color their armor that way too? Or are they still using the red and white color scheme?

 gnoise wrote:
I know that Ahriman and his band of merry men are colored the current blue and gold color scheme, but did the rest of the Thousand Sons legion also color their armor that way too? Or are they still using the red and white color scheme?

Who are the rest of the Tsons? The ones who stayed loyal were incorporated into new chapters. Most of the ones that fell to Chaos went with Ahriman. Magnus dont need no armor and can probably change his color any time he wants. The rest of the legion that didnt follow Ahriman were scattered and joined other warbands. I suppose some of them might still have their preheresy mostly red armor.

The rest of the TSons have Red Armor and serve Magnus, only Ahriman's warband wears blue.

I guess I was referring to the ones still serving Magnus. Thanks for point that out for me!

The only ones with the pre-heresy red/gold armor would be pre-heresy psykers that stayed loyal.

Good luck finding any of those because that's what the wolves were sent to destroy and those are who were most angry and blood-thirsty and most of them went on rampages before turning into spawn or being overcome by the warp in other ways.

And if you read the burning of Prospero you'd see that the chance that any on planet thousand sons went loyal is zero. Keep in mind that Magnus had almost all if not all thousand sons on Prospero at this time.

So my final judgement is that if you can find a pre-heresy sorcerer who was off-planet during the BoP, who wasn't overcome by grief and shame and didn't kill himself and served the emperor for the last 10K years, then you'll have a 41K character with red/gold armor. The rest are blue/gold.

 changerofways wrote:
The only ones with the pre-heresy red/gold armor would be pre-heresy psykers that stayed loyal.

Good luck finding any of those because that's what the wolves were sent to destroy and those are who were most angry and blood-thirsty and most of them went on rampages before turning into spawn or being overcome by the warp in other ways.

And if you read the burning of Prospero you'd see that the chance that any on planet thousand sons went loyal is zero. Keep in mind that Magnus had almost all if not all thousand sons on Prospero at this time.

So my final judgement is that if you can find a pre-heresy sorcerer who was off-planet during the BoP, who wasn't overcome by grief and shame and didn't kill himself and served the emperor for the last 10K years, then you'll have a 41K character with red/gold armor. The rest are blue/gold.

Only Ahriman's group is Blue/Gold, the rest of the Thousand Sons are Red/Gold. It's talked about in Ahriman: Exile.

Yeah Changer Of Ways, your post is fairly incorrect. There were more than a handful of survivors of Prospero, while most of the Thousand Sons were on Prospero and teleported to the warp with Magnus, there was a not insignificant number of them off-planet, between the Prospero defense fleet which he sent away before the Wolves arrived (which had quite a few Marines on board) and Thousand Sons Marines serving in other areas. Several of these arrived on Terra with Nathaniel Garro after the flight of the Eisenstein.

Also, evidently, Magnus's marines retain the red and gold while Ahrimans crew went blue.

There's also the (INCREDIBLY strongly hinted but not canon) idea that the Blood Ravens are Tsons successors.

But as the other posters have said, Ahriman's lot are Blue and gold (which looks horrific if you ask me) and Magnus' chumps are....I'm not sure actually, but I would assume that they're still incorporating red into their plate, as Maggy is still known as the red giant?

I think.

Maybe.

Wait, the original color scheme for the Tsons were red/gold? I thought it was red/white?

It is Red/White, but with gold decorations. That, along with the blue/gold scheme, seems to have gotten some people confused. As far as what colors the non-Ahriman aligned Tsons use, the fluff is a bit inconsistent. The codices have always portrayed all post heresy Tsons as blue/gold, but apparently Ahriman: Exile claims that the group with Magnus still wear Red/White. Even if that's not the case, there could easily be other breakaway warbands that use the old Red/White (in honor of Prospero, perhaps?). Was a reason ever given for the color change?

 fallinq wrote:
It is Red/White, but with gold decorations. That, along with the blue/gold scheme, seems to have gotten some people confused. As far as what colors the non-Ahriman aligned Tsons use, the fluff is a bit inconsistent. The codices have always portrayed all post heresy Tsons as blue/gold, but apparently Ahriman: Exile claims that the group with Magnus still wear Red/White. Even if that's not the case, there could easily be other breakaway warbands that use the old Red/White (in honor of Prospero, perhaps?). Was a reason ever given for the color change?

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

I mean there werent many Tsons to begin with, a lot of them died on prospero, a lot of them went to follow Ahriman and now Magnus seems FAR more interested in doing his own thing, like all the daemon primarchs, to have many people following him.

 changerofways wrote:
The only ones with the pre-heresy red/gold armor would be pre-heresy psykers that stayed loyal.

Good luck finding any of those because that's what the wolves were sent to destroy and those are who were most angry and blood-thirsty and most of them went on rampages before turning into spawn or being overcome by the warp in other ways.

And if you read the burning of Prospero you'd see that the chance that any on planet thousand sons went loyal is zero. Keep in mind that Magnus had almost all if not all thousand sons on Prospero at this time.

So my final judgement is that if you can find a pre-heresy sorcerer who was off-planet during the BoP, who wasn't overcome by grief and shame and didn't kill himself and served the emperor for the last 10K years, then you'll have a 41K character with red/gold armor. The rest are blue/gold.

All the Tsons were on Prospero IIRC due to the Nikea Council, and yes most of them sort of exploded, turned into spawn or fled into the warp with Magnus the Red.

No, not all T Sons were on Prospero, just the majority of them.

 Exergy wrote:

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

Quite a few, actually. The Planet of the Sorcerers, which is Magnus's new pad and is considered to be the Tsons new "home base", is the only fluff confirmed source of new Tsons recruits. The Tsons on the Planet of the Sorcerers grab up any male psykers from the human population, making them serve as their thrall sorcerers. When a thrall sorcerer serves well enough, he gets to upgrade to a full on Tsons Chaos Sorcerer. Ahriman's gang has to nab psykers wherever they can, and is mostly just the same group that left with him after he cast the Rubric. The fluff is vague on Rubric Marines, but it seems like they're either functionally immortal and can be resurrected through rituals, or the Tsons perform the Rubric of Ahriman on captured marines, making new Rubric Marines who are enslaved to their Tsons masters (the second one is my own head canon, because I think it's awesome). Either way, Magnus's gang can probably boast the most Chaos Sorcerers of all the Tsons warbands.

 Exergy wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
It is Red/White, but with gold decorations. That, along with the blue/gold scheme, seems to have gotten some people confused. As far as what colors the non-Ahriman aligned Tsons use, the fluff is a bit inconsistent. The codices have always portrayed all post heresy Tsons as blue/gold, but apparently Ahriman: Exile claims that the group with Magnus still wear Red/White. Even if that's not the case, there could easily be other breakaway warbands that use the old Red/White (in honor of Prospero, perhaps?). Was a reason ever given for the color change?

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

I mean there werent many Tsons to begin with, a lot of them died on prospero, a lot of them went to follow Ahriman and now Magnus seems FAR more interested in doing his own thing, like all the daemon primarchs, to have many people following him.

Magnus has almost the entire legion of 100,000 serving him, however, only 10,000 of them are actually alive or sentient.

 fallinq wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

Quite a few, actually. The Planet of the Sorcerers, which is Magnus's new pad and is considered to be the Tsons new "home base", is the only fluff confirmed source of new Tsons recruits. The Tsons on the Planet of the Sorcerers grab up any male psykers from the human population, making them serve as their thrall sorcerers. When a thrall sorcerer serves well enough, he gets to upgrade to a full on Tsons Chaos Sorcerer. Ahriman's gang has to nab psykers wherever they can, and is mostly just the same group that left with him after he cast the Rubric. The fluff is vague on Rubric Marines, but it seems like they're either functionally immortal and can be resurrected through rituals, or the Tsons perform the Rubric of Ahriman on captured marines, making new Rubric Marines who are enslaved to their Tsons masters (the second one is my own head canon, because I think it's awesome). Either way, Magnus's gang can probably boast the most Chaos Sorcerers of all the Tsons warbands.

Dude I so just pictured a guy on one knee as a bunch of sorcerers surround him carting the rubric.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
It is Red/White, but with gold decorations. That, along with the blue/gold scheme, seems to have gotten some people confused. As far as what colors the non-Ahriman aligned Tsons use, the fluff is a bit inconsistent. The codices have always portrayed all post heresy Tsons as blue/gold, but apparently Ahriman: Exile claims that the group with Magnus still wear Red/White. Even if that's not the case, there could easily be other breakaway warbands that use the old Red/White (in honor of Prospero, perhaps?). Was a reason ever given for the color change?

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

I mean there werent many Tsons to begin with, a lot of them died on prospero, a lot of them went to follow Ahriman and now Magnus seems FAR more interested in doing his own thing, like all the daemon primarchs, to have many people following him.

Magnus has almost the entire legion of 100,000 serving him, however, only 10,000 of them are actually alive or sentient.

Were there ever that many in the legion?
I mean they were always one of the least numerous legions but they took heavy casualties at Prospero and then any of them not psykers were turned to dust...
I'd be shocked if there were more than a few thousand actual Thousand Sons left alive at this point.

I'm sure that they repleneished their numbers between the HH and the 41st Millenium. I wouldn't guess in the ttens of thousands, but maybe somewhere around six or seven thousand I would believe. But does the cloning of Chaos Space Marines also copy the psyker part of them too?

 gnoise wrote:
I'm sure that they repleneished their numbers between the HH and the 41st Millenium. I wouldn't guess in the ttens of thousands, but maybe somewhere around six or seven thousand I would believe. But does the cloning of Chaos Space Marines also copy the psyker part of them too?

Yes.

 gnoise wrote:
I'm sure that they repleneished their numbers between the HH and the 41st Millenium. I wouldn't guess in the ttens of thousands, but maybe somewhere around six or seven thousand I would believe. But does the cloning of Chaos Space Marines also copy the psyker part of them too?

How?
They have no geneseed to do it with anymore and no real expertise in that area.
Renegades would be the only option and it seems unlikely they would get that many SM renegades joining them. (I'm sure they get a bunch i just don't think it'd be enough)

 purplefood wrote:

 gnoise wrote:
I'm sure that they repleneished their numbers between the HH and the 41st Millenium. I wouldn't guess in the ttens of thousands, but maybe somewhere around six or seven thousand I would believe. But does the cloning of Chaos Space Marines also copy the psyker part of them too?

How?
They have no geneseed to do it with anymore and no real expertise in that area.
Renegades would be the only option and it seems unlikely they would get that many SM renegades joining them. (I'm sure they get a bunch i just don't think it'd be enough)

No geneseed? For the Rubric Marines sure, but geneseed could be harvested from Tsons Sorcerers as easily as any other marine. Thrall sorcerers getting upgraded to Thousand Sons Sorcerers is canon. Being such fans of knowledge, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Tsons knew how to perform the procedure themselves.

Just go with your favourite. Tzeentch is quite whimsical...

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
The only ones with the pre-heresy red/gold armor would be pre-heresy psykers that stayed loyal.

Good luck finding any of those because that's what the wolves were sent to destroy and those are who were most angry and blood-thirsty and most of them went on rampages before turning into spawn or being overcome by the warp in other ways.

And if you read the burning of Prospero you'd see that the chance that any on planet thousand sons went loyal is zero. Keep in mind that Magnus had almost all if not all thousand sons on Prospero at this time.

So my final judgement is that if you can find a pre-heresy sorcerer who was off-planet during the BoP, who wasn't overcome by grief and shame and didn't kill himself and served the emperor for the last 10K years, then you'll have a 41K character with red/gold armor. The rest are blue/gold.

All the Tsons were on Prospero IIRC due to the Nikea Council, and yes most of them sort of exploded, turned into spawn or fled into the warp with Magnus the Red.

That is incorrect. Remember this is a legion, there were tens of thousands. A handful (still in the hundreds to a thousand+) could be garrisoned at terra, serving time in other legions, or spending time on conquered planets.

In the new Scars book...



The Space Wolves had other things on there hands afterwards than to hunt a few thousand sons. Those that did survive and were loyal will have been hushed up and inducted elsewhere. As stated bfore there are rumours that their geneseed was used for the Blood Ravens so some must have been around to instigate that.

 fallinq wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 gnoise wrote:
I'm sure that they repleneished their numbers between the HH and the 41st Millenium. I wouldn't guess in the tens of thousands, but maybe somewhere around six or seven thousand I would believe. But does the cloning of Chaos Space Marines also copy the psyker part of them too?

How?
They have no geneseed to do it with anymore and no real expertise in that area.
Renegades would be the only option and it seems unlikely they would get that many SM renegades joining them. (I'm sure they get a bunch i just don't think it'd be enough)

No geneseed? For the Rubric Marines sure, but geneseed could be harvested from Tsons Sorcerers as easily as any other marine. Thrall sorcerers getting upgraded to Thousand Sons Sorcerers is canon. Being such fans of knowledge, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Tsons knew how to perform the procedure themselves.

And how many Sorcerers are there left?
Assuming they had an astonishing rate of psykers in their legion and ended up with 25% of their legion (A notably small legion at that) as sorcerers they still have very few members remaining.
They would have had very few sorcerers left after Prospero and the Battle of Terra. Those that survived the whole shebang and made it to the Eye were likely few and far between.
Even with recruitment, which the Sons seem unlikely to regularly do given their particular relationship with power (I.E. all for me and none for you) they can't have too many living members left.
There's also the matter of the flesh change which assuming Ahriman's spell works over time then any non-psyker is for it as soon as he gets implanted.

According to that trail of thought, the Thousand Sons should have been long since destroyed just through attrition alone between the 31st and 41st Millennium.

I remember reading about how the Loyalist SM Chapters do a emergency gene-seed farming when their Chapter is dangerously low in numbers. It wouldn't be strange if CSM did the same, especially if it's undermanned Legion/Warband like the TS. And it's not like a SM has only one gene-seed/progenoids in them, there are two so if whatever mutations haven't completely ruined the pair then they can slowly but steadily rebuild their Legion if they just focused on that. It's not like every single TS is completely focused on increasing their own strength, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a small group that is dedicated to just that.

If there is anything I got wrong with my information, go ahead and point it out. Especially the gene-seed harvesting, I remember reading about it but I can't remember where I read it from.

Rubric Marines don't require (or even have) geneseed. If one gets destroyed, a Sorcerer just yanks it back out of the Warp at some point in the future, probably through that thread of probability in which said Rubric Marine survived.

 purplefood wrote:

Spoiler:

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
It is Red/White, but with gold decorations. That, along with the blue/gold scheme, seems to have gotten some people confused. As far as what colors the non-Ahriman aligned Tsons use, the fluff is a bit inconsistent. The codices have always portrayed all post heresy Tsons as blue/gold, but apparently Ahriman: Exile claims that the group with Magnus still wear Red/White. Even if that's not the case, there could easily be other breakaway warbands that use the old Red/White (in honor of Prospero, perhaps?). Was a reason ever given for the color change?

how many Tsons serve Magnus anyway?

I mean there werent many Tsons to begin with, a lot of them died on prospero, a lot of them went to follow Ahriman and now Magnus seems FAR more interested in doing his own thing, like all the daemon primarchs, to have many people following him.

Magnus has almost the entire legion of 100,000 serving him, however, only 10,000 of them are actually alive or sentient.

Were there ever that many in the legion?
I mean they were always one of the least numerous legions but they took heavy casualties at Prospero and then any of them not psykers were turned to dust...
I'd be shocked if there were more than a few thousand actual Thousand Sons left alive at this point.

No, not even close to 100,000 total. They lost 873 at Kamenka Troika, nearly a full Fellowship, and as a result were reduced from 10 Fellowships to 9. So, peak strength for the TS seems to have been about 10,000 Astartes.

 Psienesis wrote:
Rubric Marines don't require (or even have) geneseed. If one gets destroyed, a Sorcerer just yanks it back out of the Warp at some point in the future, probably through that thread of probability in which said Rubric Marine survived.

I'm not really counting Rubric Marines... They're kinda not really alive anymore...
That being said there are sorcerers still around and it's not like they were active for the entire 10,000 years after the heresy (Or that they even experienced those 10,000 years) so attrition wouldn't have been the same issue for them as it was the adeptus astartes. Sorcerers also have a nasty habit of escaping so even when they lose they'd still survive.

The Legion Number of 10,000 from A Thousand Sons has been retconed to 100,000. The reason there are so many Sorcerers still alive is because they are very hard to kill and can come back to life at the behest of there God or Primach or if there powerful enough, they can bring themselves back with magic. The Sons also don't fight as much as other legions and when they do it's usually a battle in their favor.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
The Legion Number of 10,000 from A Thousand Sons has been retconed to 100,000. The reason there are so many Sorcerers still alive is because they are very hard to kill and can come back to life at the behest of there God or Primach or if there powerful enough, they can bring themselves back with magic. The Sons also don't fight as much as other legions and when they do it's usually a battle in their favor.

Source?

It seems absolutely ludicrous that the Legion which was always touted as the smallest due to geneseed instability is suddenly larger than the Raven Guard and the Salamanders