Apparently, Ignatius learns of Horus Lupercal's manipulation of Leman Russ to set the wolves loose on Prospero and the Thousand Sons, and has sworn to fight him. What? I did say my modern 40K Thousand Sons are closet loyalists, right?
Anyway, I currently have a Thousand Sons Praetor in Terminator armor and four Castellax-Achea battle automata. I had no idea what to do with them, I originally intended to use them as Helbrutes, but my army doesn't really need Helbrutes and rule of 3 means I can only use 3 of them rather than 4. However, with Horus Heresy becoming a big thing now, and a lot of things moving to plastic, that means I can actually field my Castellax-Achea en masse. YES!
So I'm looking at the Rite of War, the Achaean Configuration. So I have two squads of two Castellax-Achea each, or a single squad of 4 (depending on my budget and how things go, I might purchase more Castellax-Achea and maybe have 2 squads of 3 or 4), that gain the Line Sub-type, allowing them to score and hold objectives. Yay. Of course, I'll need to ensure that I have a couple of Thousand Sons psykers next to them, like Ignatius himself (he's the Praetor). If possible, I would like to add a single squad of Cataphractii Terminators to basically be his bodyguard or something. No, I'm not using them as a command squad or a retinue, just normal Terminators for the Praetor to join their squad as an Independent Character. I currently have an Age of Darkness box reserved and waiting for me in the United States (I'm in Singapore right now, so...yeah). I know for sure that I want 2 Tactical Squads, the Sergeants having Aether-fire pistols and power swords, and the squads being equipped with asphyx bolters. Why? Because they are f-ing Thousand Sons. Why wouldn't I use their unique armories? I'm more of a narrative player, and my theme are robots (cough, automata) and plasma or Aether-fire. Speaking of Aether-fire, I'll be turning a third MKVI squad into a Tactical Support Squad, all armed with plasma guns. Or Aether-fire blasters. You know what I'm talking about.
If you've been following my blog, you probably remember that I have four Castellax-Achea battle-automata lying around somewhere, all of them armed with Aether-fire cannons. So yes, that's a lot of Aether-fire. I'll convert one of the Praetors in the box to be a Legion Praevian, probably need to add a few Mechanicum stuff like servo-skulls and stuff to make him a Praevian. And the Cataphractii Terminators in there, yeah, I'll use half of them for my Thousand Sons while selling the rest (and the Contemptor Dreadnought) to my friend. The Spartan Land Raider is reserved for my Imperial Fists - you know I have a bunch of Black Templars Imperial Fist Cataphractii Terminators with Vigil storm shields and thunder hammers, along with a Praetor in Terminator armor with a paragon blade and a storm shield too. So yeah. The fourth MKVI squad might be reserved for Imperial Fists or maybe another allied Legiones Astartes detachment.
That comes to the crux of this post. If everything goes according to plan, I should theoretically have one Legion Praetor (upgraded to psyker), a Legion Praevian (also a psyker), a Techmarine, 2 squads of 10 Legionaries with asphyx bolters (and the Sergeant with his Aether-fire pistol and power sword), 1 squad of 10 Legionaries with Aether-fire blasters, 5 Cataphractii Terminators, and 4 Castellax-Achea - hopefully more to come. Cool, but that probably only runs 1,650 points. Assuming I get another 2 Castellax-Achea automata, I would have 1,930 points. Great for 2,000 point games, but I believe the average size of Horus Heresy games are 3,000.
So what do I do with the remaining points?
Most likely, I intend to just ally in Knights. The Liber Mechanicum book is not out yet, so I don't know what I'll do in the meantime. Well, by the time I return to the US, it should be out, so yay. I look forward to it.
On the other hand, there are a few options I can explore. Allied Legions. Now, this is a bit of a weird point, because apparently, the Thousand Sons do not really gel well with other Traitor legions. So I have this gigantic book called Liber Hereticus, but...I can only use it for the Thousand Sons. Welp. The Thousand Sons have no Sworn Brothers, but the only Fellow Warrior Traitor Legion they have is the Alpha Legion. And quite frankly, the Alpha Legion is not really my kind of legion. I've tried them once before, as Chaos Space Marines, and read their lore, but the whole sneaky business is not my kind of thing.
Let's say I'll just go with Distrusted Allies and not bother with scoring units or Line units in my allied detachment. Now my options have widened. Apart from Death Guard, who...are pretty much not an army I like anyway (for obvious reasons, I hate disease), all the other Traitor Legions except Alpha Legion are Distrusted Allies. So I was looking at Rites of War, and surprise, surprise. I can't take many Rites of War in allied Traitor Legion detachments (even if I do, I would just say my Thousand Sons and their allies are Loyalists, anyway).
Let's start with the generic Rites of War. Sky-Hunter Phalanx says it cannot be used as an Allied detachment. Uh oh. I don't think I need to say anything about Pride of the Legion. No allies allowed, can't take it in an Allied detachment either. Armored Spearhead must be taken as a primary detachment. Brethren of Iron requires you to take Forge Lord Legiones Consularis as a Compulsory HQ, and you need to bring along a Praetor or Consul Delegatus to unlock a Rite of War with Master of the Legion. Given that you only get 1 HQ slot in an allied detachment, that's not going to happen. Fury of the Ancients? Primary detachment only.
That leaves Legion Recon Company, Angel's Wrath, Drop Pod Assault and Underworld Assault. Recon company? I don't think my Thousand Sons lack recon units or scouts. They need...anti-tank or something, so yeah, out. Angel's Wrath might be too expensive because you need to bring in Flyers like Storm Eagles, so it's not very practical. I guess Drop Pod Assault is cool, but it doesn't really add anything to my army (I think?). Underworld Assault? Uh, same as Angel's Wrath, not very practical because they add up too many points, and I can't afford a bunch of resin Storm Eagles or Termite Assault Drills from Forge World anyway. Besides, why not use a unique Rite of War to maximize the allied Legion's potential?
Let's start with Emperor's Children. The Maru Skara is out because you need a Legion Champion or Phoenix Warden Consul in addition to a Praetor or Consul Delegatus. I guess Company Elite is cool, but I can only take it if I'm of Traitor Allegiance, and I'm not. I'm Loyalist. Cool. Besides, the Surgical Augment costs add up too quickly, making it impractical. Not a fan of Kakophonis, anyway.
What about the Iron Warriors? The Ironfire requires a Consul Siege Breaker, so that one is out. The Hammer of Olympia is interesting, with an upgrade to shrapnel weapons - the Iron Warriors' version of our Asphyx bolters, and their tanks - which is why I'm taking them - ignores Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned, which is actually pretty good. So that might be cool to consider. Shrapnel? Who cares. They provide good anti-tank, which is exactly what my Thousand Sons need, since we have to rely on Aether-fire weapons with Rending (6+) to do any damage to vehicles. Ugh. And requiring a psychic check to increase their Strength from 6 to 8, which means I won't get it off every time. Damn. Anyway, Hammer of Olympia is a good consideration.
Night Lords? Both the Swift Blade and Terror Asault can only be primary detachments, so out.
World Eaters? Berserker Assault can't take allies. Rule as written, it seems that you can technically take it as an allied detachment, you just can't take allies if Berserker Assault is your primary detachment, but I'm not counting on that. The Crimson Path? Sounds interesting, though with only a single Heavy Support choice, like Legion Recon Company, it doesn't really add anything to my Thousand Sons army, which probably benefits more from anti-tank. I think.
Death Guard? Uh...if I want to risk the Leadership penalty. Anyway, Creeping Death is out because you need a Consul Siege Breaker for that, but the Reaping is interesting. Could be worth a try, especially since I'm not using them to score, so I don't care about them not getting Line for Veterans and Heavy Support squads (which is what I need for anti-tank). But I might as well stick to Iron Warriors, I guess.
Sons of Horus? Never mind I can't take the Long March because I'm not a Traitor, the Black Reaving requires a Consul Master of Signal, so nope. But if I want to be traitor, I could technically take the Long March, but I'll need to buy transports for the Terminators. Oh, well. It'll make for an interesting choice, but I'm a Loyalist. Probably not practical anyway.
Word Bearers? Last of the Serrated Sun can't be an allied detachment, and I'm not Traitors. I can't use Dark Brethren either because I'm not Traitors, but the whole Sacrifice thing makes me roll my eyes anyway.
That leaves Alpha Legion, the only Fellow Warriors. The Coils of the Hydra don't really make much sense because I don't need the Rewards of Treachery when I'm already playing Thousand Sons anyway. So what do they add to my army? The Headhunter Leviathal doesn't really do much as well because...well, you need more Fast Attack then Heavy Support, which means...not many anti tank options. All right.
So, except Iron Warriors' Hammer of Olympia (and maybe The Long March, which makes no narrative sense) allies, I'm left with Loyalists. That's not so bad, because Loyalist have more options for allies, and Thousand Sons are better with Loyalists anyway. Our Fellow Warriors include Dark Angels, White Scars, Blood Angels, Iron Hands and Raven Guard. That's 5 options as opposed to 1 from the Traitors. So I was right to play my Thousand Sons as Loyalists, after all.
We'll explore the Loyalists next time, though. I can't risk this going on for too long.
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