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The signature deal with the 1k Sons is that they are all about secret knowledge and space magic, but what fraction of the legion was actually psychic?

IIRC, the Rubric only affected the marines that did not have any psychic talent. Unfortunately I don't know whether or not it has been stated how many of the Thousand Sons were unaffected by the Rubric.

They had more psykers than the other legions, but not by a huge margin. Most of them were still non-psykers.

i thought that they all had some kind of psychic ability. Of course not all were librarian status, but all thousand sons were capable of becoming sorcerers.

No. They were just like any other Legion, just with a higher percentage of psykers. The weaker psykers suffered from mutations (at the hands of Chaos), while the stronger ones got stronger. Eventually, after the Heresy, Arhiman cast the Rubric, which turned all the non-psykers into automatons to prevent mutations from completely destroying the Legion. The idea that all Thousand Sons were psykers is probably a myth trumped up by Thousand Sons players who wanted to use the Grey Knight rules as counts-as. One of the guys in our gaming group plays Thousand Sons, has read all the novels, etc, and he hates it when players make a counts-as Grey Knight army for their Thousand Sons.

Well the battle of the Fang had 600 rubrics and 200 psykers, so if that ratio could be extrapolated all the way back to the origins of the chapter, 1 in every 4 has enough psychic power to be weaponized. As for how many thousand sons have more simple psychic powers, I'd imagine most did.

EDIT: Simple psychic powers include stuff like reading auras, levitation of small items like books, and being able to light candles with your mind. All done, of course, with great focus and meditation. Generally not stuff that can be done under pressure.

 DarkLink wrote:
No. They were just like any other Legion, just with a higher percentage of psykers. The weaker psykers suffered from mutations (at the hands of Chaos), while the stronger ones got stronger. Eventually, after the Heresy, Arhiman cast the Rubric, which turned all the non-psykers into automatons to prevent mutations from completely destroying the Legion. The idea that all Thousand Sons were psykers is probably a myth trumped up by Thousand Sons players who wanted to use the Grey Knight rules as counts-as. One of the guys in our gaming group plays Thousand Sons, has read all the novels, etc, and he hates it when players make a counts-as Grey Knight army for their Thousand Sons.

Many Thousand son neophytes gained psyker powers as soon as they were implanted with the Thousand son gene seed so they had ALOT more then most. Also their primarch and 1st company commander / chief librarian are some of the most powerful psykers of all. I don't see why your friend would hate players using the grey knight codex to play thousand sons, i think that is in my ownest opinion very cool.

 Vespid wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
No. They were just like any other Legion, just with a higher percentage of psykers. The weaker psykers suffered from mutations (at the hands of Chaos), while the stronger ones got stronger. Eventually, after the Heresy, Arhiman cast the Rubric, which turned all the non-psykers into automatons to prevent mutations from completely destroying the Legion. The idea that all Thousand Sons were psykers is probably a myth trumped up by Thousand Sons players who wanted to use the Grey Knight rules as counts-as. One of the guys in our gaming group plays Thousand Sons, has read all the novels, etc, and he hates it when players make a counts-as Grey Knight army for their Thousand Sons.

Many Thousand son neophytes gained psyker powers as soon as they were implanted with the Thousand son gene seed so they had ALOT more then most. Also their primarch and 1st company commander / chief librarian are some of the most powerful psykers of all. I don't see why your friend would hate players using the grey knight codex to play thousand sons, i think that is in my ownest opinion very cool.

because that's not how 10k sons works. as evidance by the rules. they're basicly an army where every sergent would be a psyker, not a small elite brotherhood of psykers

Note that that's post rubric.

Rubricae are basically automatons - there are sorcerors acting as every squad leader because you need to be a psyker to command them, and there have been examples (in black library fiction) of a single psyker leading a formation of far more than nine rubricae. That doesn't necessarly mean that every sergeant in the heresy era was a psyker. Note, for example, that it's stated that the Sekhmet, Magnus' bodyguard were both members of the Scarab Occult - the 1st company, and also members of the various psyker cults; the one doesn't necessarily mean the other for anyone except the Sekhmet.

They did have more than other legions, but they also used them more, and the ones they had were more gifted, so it became more noticable. We know, for example that battles were fought under telepathic co-ordination, but two or three telepaths of librarian level co-ordinating can do a hell of a lot.

I'd have put the number more like 3-4 psykers per line company, and maybe a dozen or so weaker psykers (i.e. not with combat-relevant 'gifts')

 Orblivion wrote:
IIRC, the Rubric only affected the marines that did not have any psychic talent. Unfortunately I don't know whether or not it has been stated how many of the Thousand Sons were unaffected by the Rubric.

Even Marines without psychic potential were affected.

 DarkLink wrote:
No. They were just like any other Legion, just with a higher percentage of psykers. The weaker psykers suffered from mutations (at the hands of Chaos), while the stronger ones got stronger. Eventually, after the Heresy, Arhiman cast the Rubric, which turned all the non-psykers into automatons to prevent mutations from completely destroying the Legion. The idea that all Thousand Sons were psykers is probably a myth trumped up by Thousand Sons players who wanted to use the Grey Knight rules as counts-as. One of the guys in our gaming group plays Thousand Sons, has read all the novels, etc, and he hates it when players make a counts-as Grey Knight army for their Thousand Sons.

the thousand sons were much more Genetically inclined to be pyskers just due to their dna already. A large portion of them were psykers and belonging to the different cults/school of magic within the thousand sons.

 changerofways wrote:
Well the battle of the Fang had 600 rubrics and 200 psykers, so if that ratio could be extrapolated all the way back to the origins of the chapter, 1 in every 4 has enough psychic power to be weaponized. As for how many thousand sons have more simple psychic powers, I'd imagine most did.
.

Some number of librarian-level psykers were killed by the rubric.

"Those of the Thousand Sons with sorcerous powers had either survived, and had their knowledge and powers
greatly augmented, or they had been utterly destroyed. The battle brethren whose powers had been slight or
non-existent had been changed. Their armour was sealed shut as if every clasp and joint had been welded together. " - chaos codex 1995

So I suppose if your method is otherwise accurate that your estimate would be low.

pelicaniforce wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Well the battle of the Fang had 600 rubrics and 200 psykers, so if that ratio could be extrapolated all the way back to the origins of the chapter, 1 in every 4 has enough psychic power to be weaponized. As for how many thousand sons have more simple psychic powers, I'd imagine most did.
.

Some number of librarian-level psykers were killed by the rubric.

"Those of the Thousand Sons with sorcerous powers had either survived, and had their knowledge and powers
greatly augmented, or they had been utterly destroyed. The battle brethren whose powers had been slight or
non-existent had been changed. Their armour was sealed shut as if every clasp and joint had been welded together. " - chaos codex 1995

So I suppose if your method is otherwise accurate that your estimate would be low.

Actually, that would be one in three. Your math's off. And, what with the some of them being destroyed, I'd say that it's closer to three Psykers to every five non-Psyker.

 dusara217 wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Well the battle of the Fang had 600 rubrics and 200 psykers, so if that ratio could be extrapolated all the way back to the origins of the chapter, 1 in every 4 has enough psychic power to be weaponized. As for how many thousand sons have more simple psychic powers, I'd imagine most did.
.

Some number of librarian-level psykers were killed by the rubric.

"Those of the Thousand Sons with sorcerous powers had either survived, and had their knowledge and powers
greatly augmented, or they had been utterly destroyed. The battle brethren whose powers had been slight or
non-existent had been changed. Their armour was sealed shut as if every clasp and joint had been welded together. " - chaos codex 1995

So I suppose if your method is otherwise accurate that your estimate would be low.

Actually, that would be one in three. Your math's off. And, what with the some of them being destroyed, I'd say that it's closer to three Psykers to every five non-Psyker.

You quoted the wrong guy, but 1 in 4 is correct. 600 plus 200 is 800, 200 out of 800 is 1 out of 4.

So if not all were Psykers than what happened to all the Thousand Sons that stayed with Magnus? I am going to assume that a lot of them are still Rubric Marines and that there is Thousand Son Sorcerers controlling them. And then this makes me wonder if one could really build a CSM army that is the Thousand Sons.

Yes, and in not too many points... if you stick to one faction. As far as I'm aware, all of the Magnusite Thousand Sons attended the Battle of the Fang - so the Thousad Sons 'legion' consists of 200 psykers and 600 Rubricae.

That said, that leaves some two hundred 'rogue' Thousand Sons left in Ahriman's faction or out on their own. Ahriman's faction was then bolstered by a horde of Tzeentchian psykers and their retinues after he pulled his finger out and went looking for the Athenaeum, also known as the Book of Magnus.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, and in not too many points... if you stick to one faction. As far as I'm aware, all of the Magnusite Thousand Sons attended the Battle of the Fang - so the Thousad Sons 'legion' consists of 200 psykers and 600 Rubricae.

That said, that leaves some two hundred 'rogue' Thousand Sons left in Ahriman's faction or out on their own. Ahriman's faction was then bolstered by a horde of Tzeentchian psykers and their retinues after he pulled his finger out and went looking for the Athenaeum, also known as the Book of Magnus.

Well, on a quick aside because I have always wanted to have a Thousand Sons army, what would that mean for building CSM based of the Thousand Sons besides taking the special Rubric Marines and their Sorcerers because by that account, it sounds like they wouldn't be build like a "normal" CSM band with Chaos Marines, and all the toys Chaos gets. You could be a Tzeentch themed CSM army with the Thousand Sons element but not like you could have a pure Thousand Sons army and have it match fluff. I hope that made sense.

 Envihon wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, and in not too many points... if you stick to one faction. As far as I'm aware, all of the Magnusite Thousand Sons attended the Battle of the Fang - so the Thousad Sons 'legion' consists of 200 psykers and 600 Rubricae.

That said, that leaves some two hundred 'rogue' Thousand Sons left in Ahriman's faction or out on their own. Ahriman's faction was then bolstered by a horde of Tzeentchian psykers and their retinues after he pulled his finger out and went looking for the Athenaeum, also known as the Book of Magnus.

Well, on a quick aside because I have always wanted to have a Thousand Sons army, what would that mean for building CSM based of the Thousand Sons besides taking the special Rubric Marines and their Sorcerers because by that account, it sounds like they wouldn't be build like a "normal" CSM band with Chaos Marines, and all the toys Chaos gets. You could be a Tzeentch themed CSM army with the Thousand Sons element but not like you could have a pure Thousand Sons army and have it match fluff. I hope that made sense.

A "pure Thousand Sons army" would be the XV legion, that'd be 30k you be looking for'! But for a Thousand Sons warband, they'd likely use mortal troops to make up for their (relatively) small numbers -- It'd be loads of Cultists for troops, Rubric as Elites, and I'm really am not sure about heavies and FA.

On the other hand, IA13 should have something better, but AFAIK there's no way to make Rubric troop choices, so you are still stuck with a non-pure thousand sons army.

You can take thousand sons as troops if you take a sorceror of tzeentch

 lcmiracle wrote:

 Envihon wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, and in not too many points... if you stick to one faction. As far as I'm aware, all of the Magnusite Thousand Sons attended the Battle of the Fang - so the Thousad Sons 'legion' consists of 200 psykers and 600 Rubricae.

That said, that leaves some two hundred 'rogue' Thousand Sons left in Ahriman's faction or out on their own. Ahriman's faction was then bolstered by a horde of Tzeentchian psykers and their retinues after he pulled his finger out and went looking for the Athenaeum, also known as the Book of Magnus.

Well, on a quick aside because I have always wanted to have a Thousand Sons army, what would that mean for building CSM based of the Thousand Sons besides taking the special Rubric Marines and their Sorcerers because by that account, it sounds like they wouldn't be build like a "normal" CSM band with Chaos Marines, and all the toys Chaos gets. You could be a Tzeentch themed CSM army with the Thousand Sons element but not like you could have a pure Thousand Sons army and have it match fluff. I hope that made sense.

A "pure Thousand Sons army" would be the XV legion, that'd be 30k you be looking for'! But for a Thousand Sons warband, they'd likely use mortal troops to make up for their (relatively) small numbers -- It'd be loads of Cultists for troops, Rubric as Elites, and I'm really am not sure about heavies and FA.

On the other hand, IA13 should have something better, but AFAIK there's no way to make Rubric troop choices, so you are still stuck with a non-pure thousand sons army.

Chaos Sorcerers with the MoT make 1k Sons troops, but there are a lot of things wrong with doing that:

+MoT on sorcerers forces them to generate powers out of his discipline, which rather ironically, is quite possibly, the worst psychic table in the game.

+1k Sons cost 300 points base for 5 guys. This would not be an issue in theory if they actually had upgrades to make them more of a high investment- high pay-off unit, but there are no upgrade options available for the mini Sorcerer (who, by having MoT must generate his ONLY power from the Discipline of Tzeench. See above) so the only way to upgrade a 1k Sons unit would be with more guys, but that's ungodly expensive.

+So, the closest to viable strategy with a mono Tzeench/ Thousand Sons CSM list would be to take MSUs of Sons in rhinos and form a mobile gunline type thing, but literally everything does that better. The unit on the page before 1k Sons does it better, the unit on the page after 1k Sons does it better.



In theory,you could take a couple ML 3 Sorcerers/ Ahriman and some cultist blobs backed up by some, but not many 1K Sons in Rhinos, but what would that achieve, exactly?

a pure thousand sons army could also use a LOT of deamon engines as well/

And there is the one of the reasons why I never picked up CSM. Why does it seem like everything has to be Nurgle to be good in CSM?

Because the guys at GW have decided that most chaos players are unhealthy, overweight basement-dwellers who live in basements, and think there's no point putting effort into anything said GUOs won't either a) identify with (nurgle) or b) sleep with (slaanesh).

I actually have some good luck with a pure '1k son' army, although I do dual-CAD to get Ahriman, a Sorcerer (divination), a sorcerous Warpsmith (scrolls) and a Daemon Princess of Tzeentch... which usually leaves me with a very small army that relies on Slow and Purposeful units getting into close combat to kill vehicles.

Orblivion wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Well the battle of the Fang had 600 rubrics and 200 psykers, so if that ratio could be extrapolated all the way back to the origins of the chapter, 1 in every 4 has enough psychic power to be weaponized. As for how many thousand sons have more simple psychic powers, I'd imagine most did.
.

Some number of librarian-level psykers were killed by the rubric.

"Those of the Thousand Sons with sorcerous powers had either survived, and had their knowledge and powers
greatly augmented, or they had been utterly destroyed. The battle brethren whose powers had been slight or
non-existent had been changed. Their armour was sealed shut as if every clasp and joint had been welded together. " - chaos codex 1995

So I suppose if your method is otherwise accurate that your estimate would be low.

Actually, that would be one in three. Your math's off. And, what with the some of them being destroyed, I'd say that it's closer to three Psykers to every five non-Psyker.

You quoted the wrong guy, but 1 in 4 is correct. 600 plus 200 is 800, 200 out of 800 is 1 out of 4.

You don't add them together. You have a 600:200 ratio. Simplify that by dividing by 100 to get 6:2. Divide by 2 you get 3:1. Therefore, you have one Psyker for every non-Psyker. Holy frack, I actually used Geometry. Never thought I'd see the day...

Furyou Miko wrote:Yes, and in not too many points... if you stick to one faction. As far as I'm aware, all of the Magnusite Thousand Sons attended the Battle of the Fang - so the Thousad Sons 'legion' consists of 200 psykers and 600 Rubricae.

That said, that leaves some two hundred 'rogue' Thousand Sons left in Ahriman's faction or out on their own. Ahriman's faction was then bolstered by a horde of Tzeentchian psykers and their retinues after he pulled his finger out and went looking for the Athenaeum, also known as the Book of Magnus.

Well, there are more than just Ahriman and Magnus's factions. You have the ones who follow Magnus, the ones who follow Ahriman, and then the dozens (if not hundreds) of other 1k Sons warbands led by other Sorcerers.

A 4:1 ratio is the same as saying 1 for every 4, which is very different from saying 1 IN every 4. 1 in 4 means that if the total is 4, 1 will be a psyker, meaning 3 of them are not. That means 1 in 4, and 3:1 are both correct.

If you look at he rules. i would imagine that 1 in 10 was a psyker. that is the ration of sgts to rubric marines.

Thousand Sons come in mobs of 4 to 19.

1 in 10 splits that spread nicely

I say its like grey knights were all have alittle but every 10th one is a full blown psyker I believe the HH book A thousand sons supports this in a battle scene where every thousand son seemed to use a psychic branch (branch was selected by which minor cult you were in and each squad seemed to be made out of members from one specific cult)

Orblivion wrote:A 4:1 ratio is the same as saying 1 for every 4, which is very different from saying 1 IN every 4. 1 in 4 means that if the total is 4, 1 will be a psyker, meaning 3 of them are not. That means 1 in 4, and 3:1 are both correct.

lol, sorry I misread that

tmo38 wrote:I say its like grey knights were all have alittle but every 10th one is a full blown psyker I believe the HH book A thousand sons supports this in a battle scene where every thousand son seemed to use a psychic branch (branch was selected by which minor cult you were in and each squad seemed to be made out of members from one specific cult)

This. All of 1k Sons had Psychic Powers, but not all could be full-blown Librarians because of WEAKNESS