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.

What you describe is an important dichotomy that is always important to keep in mind for Chaos corruption; the mental versus the physical.

On one side we have the pure honest temptations and bribes of Chaos. This is the sort of stuff they mean when they say no Grey Knight or Sister of Battle or Custodian or whatever has ever fallen to Chaos.

On the other extreme end of the spectrum we have a Chaos Sorcerer pointing at you and turning you into a betentacled insane mess with a spell. Very very few things in the setting are immune to this sort of thing, not even the likes of Necrons. Blanks can resist many forms of it, but drop Jurgen the Blank into a warp rift and he'll find that his resistance has limits.

Despite their physical resilience, due to their harrowing, mind-mutilating psycho-indoctrination the Space Marines seem more vulnerable to the latter type. This is shown well in the Abyssal Crusade which saw nearly 30 Chapters turn to Chaos at once.

Just as a side note, I am reminded of a blood bowl comic/story/thing I read where there was a cult of nurgle that did... ehm.... things you would expect from slaanesh, as a way to spread disease.

The tl;dr is: yes, in 2002 all Tzeentch Marked space marines were "Thousand Sons Marines" (see: Rubric Marines & Sorcerers of Tzeentch).

//

The longer history that explains this:

In Rogue Trader, "Marks" did not exist (at first) as we would come to know them. They would be introduced (after a fashion) in Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990) as a component of creating a Chaos Champion. (The Mark of Tzeentch gave a Tzeentch Champion a random Magic Item and three random Chaos Attributes, aka mutations.). The book also had a list for Tzeentch Renegades which included an entry for Thousand Sons Marines. These were the Legionaries who were not skilled enough to become mighty Sorcerers, and who instead "concentrated the power of Chaos around them, so that other Wizard-Champions [sic] can benefit from their aura of energy." They had the same stat block as Traitor Marines (who could be taken in Thousand Sons armies, but were lorefully noted to be Night Lords, Word Bearers, etc) and the same equipment options, but had a special rule allowing any Tzeentch Wizard [sic] within 12" to gain +d6 magic/psychic points per turn.

In 2nd edition's 1996 Codex, the Marks of Tzeentch, Nurgle, Khorne, and Slaanesh were options for characters to take - you could not give a basic Chaos Space Marine a Mark of Tzeentch. This was also when the Rubric of Ahriman entered the lore, and the concept of a "Rubric Marine" (though they were still called "Thousand Sons Marines" at this point). In the Designer's Notes at the back of the Codex, Andy Chambers talks about the idea behind the four Cult Legions all being made up of their respective Cult Troops, and mentions: "It was easy to imagine that some of the most deranged and fanatical individuals from all of the Legions would dedicate themselves entirely to the Chaos Gods, and so Khorne Berzerkers, Plague Marines, Noise Marines, and Tzeentchian Sorcerers were spawned." Note that the Tzeentch "Cult Troop", such as it were, is the Sorcerer - not the Rubric Marines. While it's not explicitly said, I think that the idea was that an entire army of Sorcerers would be too weird, and so Rubric Marines were created to act as extensions of them. To be a "Tzeentch Marine" was to be a Sorcerer, and Sorcerers bulked out their numbers with magical automatons. (Who just happened to formerly be Marines.)

In 3rd edition's 1999 Codex the Mark of Chaos Undivided was reintroduced, and Marks remained something that characters (including Aspiring Champions) could take from the Armory - not something that you gave to units. If you had a unit of Chaos Space Marines, their Aspiring Champion could be given the Mark of Tzeentch (though it would have been useless, as in this Codex it let you auto-pass Psychic Tests...) but the unit itself could not be "Tzeentch Marines". If you wanted non-characters who were Marked by Tzeentch, you took Thousand Sons Marines.

It was this paradigm that the Index Astartes lists (and subsequent 2002 Codex) was operating in. Except now, for the first time, you could Mark units (though which units could take which Mark was restricted). Notably, however, they had removed the Cult Troops from the book and made the Mark turn a unit into it's Cult equivalent. (ie. A unit of Bikers with the Mark of Slaanesh were Noise Marines, with Warp Scream and access to Sonic Weapons.) Anything Marked by Tzeentch was either a Sorcerer, or their Rubric'd thrall. There was (conceptually) no non-Wizard, non-Dusty "Tzeentch Marines".

In 4th's 2007 Codex, Cult Troops were returned to being their own unit entries, Marks no longer turned a model into a Cult unit, and now most units could take Icons to effectively give the unit a mark. (Though pedantically if the Icon Bearer died the unit lost the benefit, so arguably this is still a case of a unit not being Marked.)

In 6th's 2012 Codex, Cult Troops existed next to Marked non-Cult Troops; and this paradigm continued through to the 8th/2017 and 9th/2022 Codexes. The 10th/2025 Codex has removed Marks, except for in a single detachment.

//

I agree, that I like the idea of there being Marked Troops that are different from the Cult Troops, and that a Marked Warband like the Scourged should be very different from a Cult Legion like the the Thousand Sons - while still being devoted to the same patron. (Ditto for The Purge vs the Death Guard, The Brazen Beasts vs the World Eaters, the Flawless Host vs the Emperor's Children, etc, etc.)

However, this concept did not exist until the ~2007/2012 era. Before then (ie. in 2002), to be Marked was to be the Cult.

 ElEssEm wrote:

A bunch of awesome info

Thanks for that! It's good to know.