Thousand Sons painted!

I've gone and painted all my Thousand Sons! Now my Rubric Marines are all fully painted! The only thing I have left to do is the transfer sheet, which I'll do tomorrow after painting my Hellforged Dreadnoughts and Havocs and Chaos Lord and Warpsmith.

Wait, what? I'm talking about Thousand Sons, right? Where did I get a Chaos Lord, Warpsmith and Havocs from?

Fully painted Rubric Marines. Wait, why are there metal Karskins? Well, I figured that since I was using super glue, I might as well glue the power packs onto my Karskins.

Well, a week ago or so, didn't I mention the backstory for the Sons of Shadow? The Sons of Shadow are a Thousand Sons warband operating autonomously and semi-independently of the Thousand Sons Legion (though they still answer to Magnus and have to obey him). They were formerly a Loyalist Chapter, the Shadow Seekers, who like to...uh, seek knowledge. They are also full of Librarians, and are one of those Chapters that use a huge number of psykers. Libarius Conclave? The Shadow Seekers are full of Librarians! Unfortunately, the demise of their Chapter came about when they fought the Death Guard. Prior to that, they were already getting into trouble with accusations of tech-heresy because of their collection and manufacture of sentient automata and artificial intelligence. Hence the Dreadnoughts. Anyway, the Inquisition wanted to get rid of them, but you don't just order the destruction of the Adeptus Astartes. Instead, one Inquisitor had a plan to lure the Shadow Seekers into a direct conflict with a massive Death Guard force so that they would wipe each other out, sacrificing not just the Shadow Seekers Chapter but also countless Imperial Guardsmen in the process. Needless to say, the Death Guard decimated the Shadow Seekers, who sustained massive casualties. Worse was a new plague that, well, plagued the Chapter, reducing most of their number into comatose near-corpses ravaged by rot and disease despite their superhuman or transhuman immune system.

Thousand Sons with Alpha Legion reinforcements

Fortunately, before the Shadow Seekers and their Astra Militarum allies were completed annihilated, help arrived in the unlikely form of the Thousand Sons. Ahzek Ahriman just happened to chance by, seeking some Eldar artifact in the planet (Ynnari-related), and they came into conflict with the Death Guard, who thought they were here to get in their way. Remember that the Death Guard has quite the enmity with the Thousand Sons, especially since the Council of Nikea. Anyway, the Thousand Sons and the Shadow Seekers Librarians, with the assistance of the surviving Astra Militarum regiments, defeated the Death Guard with sorcery and potent psychic powers, driving them away. And the rest, as we say, is history. Even though Ahriman couldn't care less, the Shadow Seekers swore loyalty to him for saving them, and the Librarians learned from him. Much like Astreaos did in the Ahriman Collection. One of the Librarians, in an attempt to save his diseased-riddled Chapter, accidentally cast the Rubric and reduced his sick Brothers into dust...so now they're basically Rubric Marines with a different paint scheme.

Chaos Lord with combi-plasma and chainsword, another Chaos Lord with combi-plasma and chainsword (doubles as Havoc Sergeant), Chosen/Havoc with plasma gun, Havoc Sergeant with boltgun, Warpsmith

The surviving non-psyker, non-Librarian members of the Chapter were then organized into Havocs teams, since they were mostly Devastators operating at long range and thus didn't suffer the potent effects of Nurgle's plague. So they continued their long-range, heavy support role with massive firepower (lascannons). The techmarines continued being techmarines (or Warpsmiths) since they were more machine than human, and continued to control the automata. Stuff like that. The psykers and Librarians all became Thousand Sons Sorcerers, while the non-psykers maintained a separate organization and continued to wage warfare from the shadows as they always did. The surviving Astra Militarum regiments followed the Shadow Seekers after being abandoned by the Imperium and betrayed by the Inquisition, and these form the bulk of the Sons of Shadow's mortal troops, bringing artillery, Leman Russ tanks and hordes of infantry to do the jobs the elite transhuman soldiers of the Adeptus Astartes (or Heretic Astartes) couldn't. These form the newly recruited ranks of the Prosperine Spireguard, or the Prosperine Shadowguard, an exclusive mortal army whose loyalty is to the Sons of Shadow.

Havocs with lascannons

So this is basically my list:

Thousand Sons Battalion

Ahzek Ahriman

Daemon Prince of Tzeeentch

Exalted Sorcerer on disc with two power swords

5 Rubric Marines

5 Rubric Marines

10 Rubric Marines with warpflamers

5 Scarab Occult Terminators

Alpha Legion Battalion

Chaos Lord with combi-plasma

Warpsmith

10 Cultists with flamer (Traitor Guardsmen)

10 Cultists with flamer (Traitor Guardsmen)

10 Cultists with flamer (Traitor Guardsmen)

Havocs with 4 lascannons, Sergeant with combi-plasma

Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought

I also have a Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought, a Thousand Sons Rhino and an Exalted Sorcerer on foot that I can swap into the list sometimes. I'll probably build my Mutalith Vortex eventually and buy a pair of Maulerfiends for the buffs. In such a case, I'll swap the Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought out for the Mutalith Vortex and Maulerfiends to get a full Thousand Sons list, but that might be a little difficult. We'll see. I also have an alternative list where I replace the Alpha Legion Battalion with a Renegades and Heretics list to represent the Prosperine Spireguard or Prosperine Shadowguard. So something like this:

Thousand Sons Battalion

Ahzek Ahriman

Daemon Prince of Tzeeentch

5 Rubric Marines

5 Rubric Marines

10 Rubric Marines with warpflamers

5 Scarab Occult Terminators

Thousand Sons Battalion

Exalted Sorcerer on disc with two power swords

Exalted Sorcerer on foot

10 Cultists (Traitor Guardsmen)

10 Cultists (Traitor Guardsmen)

10 Cultists (Traitor Guardsmen)

Renegades and Heretics Spearhead Detachment

Renegade Commander

Leman Russ main battle tank with lascannon and heavy flamers

Basilisk

Basilisk

Renegade heavy weapons squad with 6 mortars

Havocs with lascannons and cables finally super glued to them.

Alternatively, I could replace the 2 Basilisks with a Leman Russ Executioner tank with plasma cannons and lascannon and give flamers to each of the Cultists/Traitor Guardsmen squads. There you go, a Thousand Sons list with Prosperine Spireguard allies.

Oh, and some stuff before I go. I hate working with resin. It's the most difficult thing to glue together. Even if you wash it. I absolutely hate resin. I might never buy Forge World stuff again.

Some views on Thousand Sons, now that I've played a couple of games with them. I love how they play, I love using psychic powers. Now I know there are a few very outspoken whiners such as Thousand-Son-Sorcerer on Dakka Dakka and a bunch of others who complain about Thousand Sons not being Thousand Sons, relying on weird hyperbole and twisting facts to fit their agenda (such as lying about the cost of Tzaangors or whatever). You don't need Tzaangors to run a viable Thousand Sons list. As you can see, my lists don't rely on Tzaangors at all, no matter whether I'm playing a pure Thousand Sons list or not. Instead, I use Cultists to capture backfield objectives. The strength in Thousand Sons lies not in Tzaangors or hordes, but in psychic sorcerery. No, seriously. If your only "viable" strategy of playing Thousand Sons is to Deep Strike 30 Tzaangors and spam the Cycle of Slaughter Stratagem, then you might as well play Chaos Daemons with a Bloodletter bomb instead. Or Alpha Legion Khorne Berzerkers. Or Tyranids. There are plenty of other armies that do the melee bomb a lot better than Thousand Sons, and if your only competitive list of Thousand Sons is just 30 Tzaangors and Cycle of Slaughter, I think you should pick another army. If you insist on this hyperbole, then go join Thousand-Son-Sorcerer on Dakka Dakka...who has made a fool out of himself - how many Thousand Sons lists do you see in tournaments featuring the Tzaangor bomb? He must be feeling pretty stupid after all that hyperbolic whining.

Rather, the strength in Thousand Sons lies in their psychic mastery. Take a look at the list that was unbeaten in Best Coast Pairings, reported by the Bell of Lost Souls 2 weeks ago. You'll see that the Thousand Sons list that won the largest event in that week didn't feature any Tzaangors at all. Instead, it brought 3 Thousand Sons Sorcerers including Ahzek Ahriman. Funnily enough, Thousand Sons wasn't the main army but Alpha Legion was, which brought a Chaos Lord, a Sorcerer, Cultists, Havocs and Obliterators. Oh, and a Renegades and Heretics Spearhead Detachment spamming Basilisks! Another Thousand Sons list paired them with Black Legion and had Ahriman buddying up with Abbadon the Despoiler, but didn't feature many Tzaangors. If you look at most of the Thousand Sons lists, they are built not on Tzaangors but lots and lots of psykers. And not even Tzaangor Shaman but Sorcerers, Ahriman, Sorcerers in Terminator Armor and Daemon Princes of Tzeentch. The top Thousand Sons lists lay heavy emphasis on the psychic potential of the army, and the backbone of the lists are Sorcerers, and rightly so. Okay, maybe it sucks that most Thousand Sons lists don't take Rubric Marines or Scarab Occult Terminators, but it has to be pointed out that the Sorcerers are the ones being taken, not Tzaangors. Which fits the fluff, since the Thousand Sons is all about Sorcerers. So much for pushing the Codex: Tzaangor or Codex: Tzeentch Daemonkin, am I right?

From personal experience, the Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators are pretty durable in casual games. I can't say the same for any competitive setting since I don't play in tournaments, but in the past 2 games so far, my Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators earn back their points and do extremely well against similar Marine Equivalent armies such as Space Marines. I think they also do well against Custodes but I need to play against an Adeptus Custodes army to find out. I don't know how they'll fare against top tier armies or competitive lists, but I might never know. However, in normal games, they are pretty durable with their All is Dust rule and my opponent has to dedicate a lot of firepower to take them down. In my first game, 2 full Rubric Marine squads survived. In my second game, my opponent was forced to direct more firepower toward them and hence neglected my Hellforged Dreadnoughts, which ripped him apart, and my Scarab Occult Terminators survived, taking only a single wound. Yeah, it takes a lot of firepower to bring these guys down, and if your opponent does shoot at them, he's not shooting at your other threats like your Hellforged Dreadnoughts or Maulerfiends or whatever. Funnily enough, in both games, 2 full Cultist squads also survived (well, in the 2nd game, 1 of the 2 surviving squads took 1 casualty or so). Not because they are as durable as the Rubric Marines - an Inceptor squad wiped one squad out in the second game, and the Baneblade also killed another in the first game. But because my opponent was directing so much firepower into my Rubric Marines, he couldn't shoot my Traitor Guardsmen. Like I said, Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators have their place.

But the most fun part was the psychic phase. Sure, I did perils sometimes, but bringing 2 Battalions provided me with a lot of Command Points, even if I spent 3 of them on bringing 2 Artifacts. Command Re-rolls and Gaze of Fate really help a lot. So don't worry about perils - it's statistically unlikely to happen. I did get a couple in the first game, but I spent my surplus of Command Points to re-roll them, and didn't get any in my second game. So rather than worrying about perils, just do what you need and keep that Command Point handy for a re-roll. But having Ahriman and the Exalted Sorcerer fly around casting Doombolt, Smite, Death hex and other awesome spells and mounting mortal wounds on the opponent is hella fun. Makes me wish I could take more Sorcerers. I'm kind of hesitant to drop my 4th HQ (Exalted Sorcerer on foot) for an Alpha Legion because he's just that fun to play with, using Smite and all that! And Temporal Manipulation is awesome! Diabolic Strength is also fun! In any case, the psychic phase is where the Thousand Sons shine, and this truly is where the strength of a Thousand Sons list lies in. Not the damned Tzaangors (so quit your whining, Thousand Sons Sorcerer and others), but the Sorcerers and their psychic spells. People take Supreme Command Detachments of Thousand Sons just to get access to these awesome psykers, not Battalions of Tzaangors. Because the top players truly know where the real potential of Thousand Sons lie. In their psychic abilities, not a melee horde bomb.

It's a bit sad that my Daemon Prince of Tzeentch always died before my 2nd turn, but I guess it's because he's that much of a threat that my opponent had to focus everything on him. Heh. But in just 1 turn he deals massive, massive damage, destroying an Ironclad Dreadnought in game 1, and just doing lots of damage in game 2 before he died. Well, maybe he'll have better luck next time, but we'll see!

Anyway, I hope to play more with my new Thousand Sons army and I'll let you know if I get more games or opinions on how they play. For now, all I can really say is focus on the pyschic phase and they'll never disappoint you!