Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons

He begining

I am a long time Thousand Sons player and I would like to re-visit them. I have been in the hobby for a while and I took most of 2^nd edition off when I lived in Utah, and when I came back into the hobby near the end of 3^rd and I did it with the Thousand Sons. Even though everyone said that they are a bad army I loved the look of the army and the fluff for them. In fact, they have the best background story in 40k. So when I started playing them I started to win a lot of RTTs. So when I posted my batreps I got the same reaction from everyone that I do now winning with an army that the "group think" says that you can't win with.

I tapered off a bit with 4^th edition with them because of the use of scoring units. My army was so small to start with that by the end of the game my units were all chewed up. I killed more VPs then my opponent did, but they still had more units than me and were able to win the game. Then the 4^th edition chaos codex came out and that was the end of a real Thousand Sons army. I still play a combination of my Word Bearers with my Thousand Sons, and I try to keep to the fluff, but it is just not the same. To mix it up a little I took my 3^rd edition Thousand Sons army to Adepticon last year and I even went 2 for 2 in the Gladiator but only 0-2-1 and against the hardest lists I have seen at the Invitational.


 
Building a winning army:

When you are building a pre-heresy army you really have 2 codexs to choose from, Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. I debated back and forth, and even though the Space Marine codex has things like Land Speeders that the Chaos list doesn't I still am going with the Chaos Codex.

Now the chaos codex is ok, and I have played a lot of games with it, and made it work without lash and 9 oblits, but you almost have to take out all of the good units of the codex to make it a pre-heresy army. I already started out handicapped when I played a Thousand Sons based army so that means that I could not take any other marks other than Tzeentch, but when you make it a pre-heresy army you also can't take any good units like Demon Princes, Oblits, etc. and that really neuters the army.

So let's look at what I can take.

Here is a list of the units that appear in the Horus Heresy Visions of War books:

HQs

Ahriman-Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons

Uthizaar Librarian-Sorcerer

Phosis T'Kar Librarian-Sorcerer

Hathor Maat Librarian-Sorcerer

Brother Amsu

Apophis Command Squad


 
Elites

Sekhmet- Terminators


 
Kargori Dreadnought


 
Troops

Prahotpe recon squad

Prahote recon Squad

Tolbek Tactical Squad

Jafari Tactical Support Squad

Pa-Siamun Tactical Squad

Tu-Amun Rhino


 
Fast Attack

Amunis Assault Squad

Resenmut Assault Squad

Menkaura Assault squad

Qaa Land Speeder


 
Heavy Support

Sobek-Heavy Support Squad (Missile Launcher)

Kalid Heavy Support Squad (Heavy Bolters)

Nebmaetre Heavy Support Squad (Plasma Guns)

Amensos-Heavy Support Squad


 
Unknown

T'Kaar Cabel

Uthizaar's sect

Rehahti Magnus's coven

Ankhu Anen- Thousand Sons Guardians of the Great Library

The scarab occult


 
Now let's take those units and see if we can distil it down to a working army.


 
HQ

Ahriman-Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons

I would like to take Ahriman to give the army some panache and he had been upgraded a little bit this edition; (it was odd that the most powerful librarian in the universe couldn't even use a power/force weapon and they finally got around to giving him one). He is not worth his points, but he is a matter of style over substance. I thought about adding another sorcerer right now, and if I take the list up to 2000 point I might, but for now, just Ahriman will have to do.

Elite

Kargori Dreadnought

Chaos dreadnoughts are a bit of a loose cannon, but they have their uses. They are great at tying up assault units that do not have high strength, like bloodcrushers, etc.

Troops

Tolbek Tactical Squad

Jafari Tactical Support Squad

Pa-Siamun Tactical Squad

Tu-Amun Rhino


 
Normal Chaos Marine squads are a must haves and are good all-around shooting and assault units.


 

Heavy Support

Sobek-Heavy Support Squad (Missile Launcher)

I like havoc squads. Missile launchers are good all-around heavy weapons that are good at killing vehicles, hordes and MEQs.


 
So with that I have the core of my army. But that is not enough, and that army is so boring and vanilla *yawn* looking at those units long enough and it will cure your insomnia.


 
So what I am going to do is take some creative license and step out of the pre-heresy box and have a little fun.


 
Ankhu Anen- Thousand Sons Guardians of the Great Library

These guys are a bunch of sorcerers that have a headdress similar to what the Thousand Sons have now. I am going to turn them into a squad of Thousand Sons. It will give me an added sorcerer and what is a Thousand Sons army without a Thousand Sons squad?


 
Rehahti Magnus's coven

Uthizaar's sect


 
These guys are Sorcerers in Terminator armor, so I will have them be Obliterators. When I first play tested a pre-heresy army I found out that I desperately needed Oblits. I just lacked the firepower necessary to beat certain armies.