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This may have been covered elswhere, but would it be feasible to run a group of loyalist Thousand-Suns-esque marines as a proxy in 40k? I love the look, iconography and fluff-feel of pre-heresy TS, but I'm not sure which codex to use to most accurately make this work. Would it be too far fetched to represent a warband that was deployed away from Próspero during the Heresy, but refuses to bend the knee to Tzeentch? Perhaps even a renegade group who is shunned by the Empire at best, but regards the CSM Thousand Sons in much the same way the DA regard the Fallen? I would really love to proxy some BA to make this work with tactical squads and an Osiron/Librarian dreadnoughtt leading the charge, but on the tabletop I might need GK to make the whole psychic fluff show through. Any thoughts on the potential backstory or on how to make it work legally in-game?

There is no 100% know non chaos thousand sons
But they have had hints that blood Ravens may be

Grey Knights are often hinted and hedged at.

As usual, no one can stop you from building whatever army you want. But as your question is actually whether your idea make sense in the established setting, as opposed to fanfiction - no, it would not. Unlike the other soon-to-be-Chaos legions, the Thousand Sons were declared excommunicate traitorous. There were no "loyalists" and "traitors" - they all believed they were loyal and they were all branded as traitors and Magnus whisked away all of the survivors to Propsero. Even assuming there were some absent squads, the only Imperial formations that might find room for them are the DW (as Blackshields). (The would not pass the GK purity test, IMO.) They would be attacked on sight otherwise.

 Manchu wrote:
As usual, no one can stop you from building whatever army you want. But as your question is actually whether your idea make sense in the established setting, as opposed to fanfiction - no, it would not. Unlike the other soon-to-be-Chaos legions, the Thousand Sons were declared excommunicate traitorous. There were no "loyalists" and "traitors" - they all believed they were loyal and they were all branded as traitors and Magnus whisked away all of the survivors to Propsero. Even assuming there were some absent squads, the only Imperial formations that might find room for them are the DW (as Blackshields). (The would not pass the GK purity test, IMO.) They would be attacked on sight otherwise.

Yeah that makes sense; I think the distinction I'm trying to make is that they're not a successor chapter like the Blood Ravens, but rather a band of Thousand Sons that reject Chaos regardless of whether or not the Imperium tolerates them - They are free to be at odds with other imperial armies that view them as traitors. Rules-wise, I'm trying to determine how to build a legal list from an existing codex that can be used to represent this force, a la Codex Grey Knights or the Librarian Dread from Codex Blood Angels.

The specific problem the 1kSons face there is there flesh change issue. They can hate Chaos but rejecting it was never really an option.

 Manchu wrote:
The specific problem the 1kSons face there is there flesh change issue. They can hate Chaos but rejecting it was never really an option.

yeah they where basicly trapped by Tzeetch a good deal before the heresy even began

 Manchu wrote:
The specific problem the 1kSons face there is there flesh change issue. They can hate Chaos but rejecting it was never really an option.

Wasn't that 'deal' of sorts struck solely by Magnus though, and unwittingly at that? Wouldn't the rank and file troops be largely untouched as Magnus sacrificed his eye? Just trying to avoid the 'Rubric' eventuality here

The flaw was not caused by the bargain Magnus struck - it was temporarily assuaged by that bargain.

 Manchu wrote:
The flaw was not caused by the bargain Magnus struck - it was temporarily assuaged by that bargain.

Yeah it was a means to prevent the flesh change, but just to confirm, it was only temporary? So do those TS not converted to dust still run the risk of being mutated? And if not, then what would make this hypothetical warband in a different position? If safety from the change is dependent on Tzeentch, then why was it still an issue during the fall of Prospero and immediately after, when Magnus truly fell to chaos.

So when Magnus united with his Legion, the flesh change was already a terrible problem. It only got worse when they relocated to Propsero - maybe because the Emperor had been holding it back before then, maybe because they started using psychic abilities more and more freely - probably both. So Magnus, unwittingly or not, struck a bargain with Tzeentch to stave it off. This more or less worked (but not really, Russ himself witnessed an incident of flesh change on campaign and was appropriatley forever after totally grossed out by the XV) until Magnus whisked the survivors away from Propsero to Sortiarius. Unsurprisingly, all bets were off inside the Eye. Here's where Ahriman stepped in with the Rubric.

The reason that the Sons are all either Rubricae or Sorcerers is that those who don't explode into vile Chaos Spawn become immensely powerful psykers. The flesh change appears to be directly connected to the flaw in the geneseed of the XV that made psychic ability so prevalent among their ranks. The trouble being, I suppose, not every mind is actually cut out for psyker status - the ones who were, apparently, less adapted would be physically overcome by the Warp power surging into them when they channeled their powers. IMO the XV actually had no more true psykers (humans further along a certain evolutionary path) than any other Legion - it's just that their geneseed forced even non-psykers to "receive" Warp energy ... and the results were tragic, especially given that use of these powers was considered honorable and prestigious among the XV as opposed to taboo (at best), as among the SW, DG, and RG.

Ah I see; guess I'll just have to sit content with my own narrative then... rules-wise, I'm thinking BA Libby Dread with Tactical squads allied to GK for some psychic Khopresh goodness.

Unfortunately, the Legions that ended up following one of the Chaos Gods pretty much have no way out. The Gods had their claws in from an early stage. Fulgrim's desire for perfection that was passed onto his legion. Mortarian tried to resist, but I doubt coming to rest on the planet he did was an accident, and thus shaped him and his legion. Angron and his warriors nails, that made him to predisposed to Khorne. The Thousand Sons had the issue of Flesh Change and a desire to know secrets from its earliest days. The other traitor legions at least had to choose to go down the route of Chaos, and each did for their own reasons, but they had a choice. We saw how both the White Scars and Blood Angels were tested and choose the Imperium and the Emperor. I suspect all the Legions were tested in this way at some point.

Yeah that's just a real bummer though; desperately want to run the scheme and feel of a TS army just can't invest in a whole 30k army...

Would be pretty cool if GW released Shadow War lists for the Legions. 30k skirmish would move HH models for sure.

There is a Night Lords book called, "Lord of the Night" where the main character, Zso Sahaal flees into the warp after Curzes assassination. His ship crash lands in the 40k setting and he "wakes up" not knowing anything of the last 10k years. You could use that background as an explanation and it would be canon. Fighting loyalists? Say the 1k Sons wake up and are fired upon. Traitors? They wake up, intercept Vox traffic and after learning current events attack them. It's lazy mans backstory but it's a start. I don't know how to tie BA into it but just say, again, lazy mans writing, the BAs are actually Alpha legion. That will work because no one knows what the hell theyre up to anyway.

You can make it work. I play Night Lords but use a SM Codex. I don't like the idea of chaos worshipping viii legion so I don't do it. Plus I like attack bikes

 SolidOakie wrote:
There is a Night Lords book called, "Lord of the Night" where the main character, Zso Sahaal flees into the warp after Curzes assassination. His ship crash lands in the 40k setting and he "wakes up" not knowing anything of the last 10k years. You could use that background as an explanation and it would be canon. Fighting loyalists? Say the 1k Sons wake up and are fired upon. Traitors? They wake up, intercept Vox traffic and after learning current events attack them. It's lazy mans backstory but it's a start. I don't know how to tie BA into it but just say, again, lazy mans writing, the BAs are actually Alpha legion. That will work because no one knows what the hell theyre up to anyway.

You can make it work. I play Night Lords but use a SM Codex. I don't like the idea of chaos worshipping viii legion so I don't do it. Plus I like attack bikes

Yeah I think I'll just have to stretch the backstory a bit and use a few codices to make it work; at least 40k is flexible when it comes to that kind of worldbuilding

Depending on what in particular you like about the pre-heresy Thousand Sons, you could homebrew a chapter that does the things you like while being technically different enough that the similarities could be a coincidence: Large number of psykers. Deep red armour. Values knowledge. Unknown founding and genefather. Large number of ancient relics. Heraldry based off one of the thousand sons cults. Yep, Blood Ravens look like a good guide on how to make a thousand sons-based loyalist chapter. All they need is a large stockpile of pre-heresy armour and a willingness to break codex uniform regulations.

As for rules, might need to wait until 8th drops to see what you have to work with.

Yeah I'll do some digging and see what I can do. I sense a new project coming on...

As it seems the blood ravens are based off the corvidae, the divinatory cult, try and do another cult like the pyrae or the athaeneans (pyromancers and telekinetics respectively).

 john27 wrote:
As it seems the blood ravens are based off the corvidae, the divinatory cult, try and do another cult like the pyrae or the athaeneans (pyromancers and telekinetics respectively).

Good idea!! I'll be sure to post some updates when it gets off the ground.

 john27 wrote:
As it seems the blood ravens are based off the corvidae, the divinatory cult, try and do another cult like the pyrae or the athaeneans (pyromancers and telekinetics respectively).

Yeah, this is probably the fluff-est way of doing it. Make a chapter that has the same colours and scheme, but make it super related to one of the cults.