Purge the Galaxy!

Let's get onto the Chaos hype train! All aboard the new Chaos hype train!

Well, as you know, Thousand Sons (and Death Guard) didn't get anything from Vigilus Ablaze. Sad, but I guess that's to be expected. However, there are a few stuff that I did like about Vigilus Ablaze, and the new units look awesome. One thing that caught my eye particularly, waas the Renegade Chapters. If you recall from the Ahriman Collection, Ahzek Ahriman recruited an unlikely band of Renegade Space Marines from a Renegade Chapter to his cause - the Librarian Astraeos and his battle-brothers. So I was thinking we can have more Renegade Chapters subordinating themselves to the Thousand Sons Legion even though they are not Rubric Marines and stuff.

Among the Renegade Traits, the most interesting one I found was the Purge. Their Bringers of Oblivion Renegade Trait combos very well with Thousand Sons, especially with Smite and stuff. Can you imagine Smiting and causing units to lose wounds during the psychic phase, and then unleashing a volley of heavy weaponry on them? That would be so cool!

So I was thinking of getting a Spearhead Detachment of Renegade Space Marines with the Bringers of Oblivion Renegade Trait. Okay, I know people will be complaining about the fluff. "Hey, the Purge is Nurgle! They will never ally or subordinate themselves to Thousand Sons! Screw you for min-maxing and being unfluffy!"

But wait, hold on. No one ever said that only the Purge can take the Bringers of Oblivion Renegade Trait. It's just like how my Draconian Armored regiment takes the Cadian Regimental Doctrine even though they are not strictly Cadians, and my Knights of House Yato takes the House Taranis Household Tradition even though they are from House Yato and not House Taranis proper. Before you starting shouting about unfluffiness and stuff, make sure you read Vigilus Ablaze properly. Right on page 196, under the RENEGADE TRAITS section, they clearly stipulated, "If your chosen Renegade Chapter does not have an associated Renegade Trait, you can instead pick the trait that you think best represents your army." That's right. You don't need to strictly pick Purge and only the Purge for the Bringers of Oblivion Renegade Trait. So if I have a homebrewed Chapter of Space Marines (let's call them the Sons of Ruin), I can choose whatever Renegade Trait I think most appropriate for them, and then give them the Mark of Tzeentch. Why Mark of Tzeentch? because Thousand Sons, duh. Well, I have another reason but I'll get into that later. Anyway, that's what I'm hoping to do with my Thousand Sons. Getting a Renegade Chapter to join their Legion, and as the Sons of Ruin, they excel in destruction and heavy weaponry.

So what exactly is in this army? We have the Warlord himself Ahriman (or some other Arch-Sorcerer who uses his rules), and a bunch of Exalted Sorcerers and Rubric Marines. I'm going to assume that the Obliterators cost 115 points each as opposed to 65 (there's no way in hell they are 65 points per model, the FAQ will be coming soon), so we'll work on that assumption. So what have we got here? We want to use the new models. Oh, and I have a couple of assault cannons that I can use for kitbashing.

Thousand Sons Battalion
Ahzek Ahriman
Exalted Sorcerer on disc with dual power swords
Rubric Marines (5 guys)
Rubric Marines (5 guys)
Rubric Marines (5 guys with warpflamers) (I don't care what people say, I don't care if they are a waste of points or rubbish, I'll bring them because they are Rubric Marines with warpflamers)

Thousand Sons Supreme Command Detachment
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch
Exalted Sorcerer on foot
Sorcerer in Terminator Armor
Scarab Occult Terminators

Sons of Ruin (Bringers of Oblivion Renegade Trait) Spearhead Detachment
Lord Discordant (because why the hell not?)
Havocs with 4 lascannons and 1 meltagun
Havocs with 4 reaper chaincannons and 1 meltagun
2 Obliterators

That's for a 2,000-point game, obviously. Yay. The Obliterators will Deep Strike with the Sorcerer in Terminator Armor and Scarab Occult Terminators, who will obviously pile on mortal wounds during the psychic phase. That means they get to re-roll all hit rolls against their wounded target. Heh. Nice. The Havocs with 4 reaper chaincannons - where am I going to get the other 2 reaper chain cannons from? That's where the assault cannons come in. I'll just kitbash them and glue the barrels into the heavy bolters, and voila! You get reaper chaincannons. Sort of. Otherwise I hope they give us an upgrade sprue because it's going to be annoying when you have to buy 4 boxes for just that weapon (and nobody in their right mind will do that).

Earlier I said something about making the Sons of Ruin Tzeentch. I thought that would be cool because I can use Chaos Familiar to swap one of the Sorcerer in Terminator Armor's psychic spell for Flickering Flames and cast it on the Obliterators to add 1 to their wound rolls. That would make them even more terrifying. Heh.

Anyway, a lot of this is subject to change and I'll be waiting for the FAQ in any case. Hopefully the Obliterators won't go up to 115 points (we can all hope, but I highly doubt it), but if they get a slight increase (for example, going up to 90 points instead of 115), I can change things around. Like, replacing the Lord Discordant with a Dark Apostle with Dark Disciples, swapping the Rubric Marines out for Cultists (with a flamer), the Havoc Sergeants' meltaguns for plasma guns and then adding 2 Obliterators. Obviously that's unlikely to happen, but we can all hope.

We'll see what happens!