Thousand Sons...

The Thousand Sons were the very first tournament-specific army I built, based around the Index Astartes list in White Dwarf. Why did I pick them? 3 reasons – they had two wounds each; their possessed could charge 12"; their dreadnoughts didn't go crazy.

I created the army list based around three units of eight marines plus aspiring (sorceror) champion. This was joined (as far as I can remember) by a unit of 9 possessed, a dreadnought and a land raider – all led by a Sorceror Lord on flying disc. From memory they did ok, but not great (mostly due to my naive tactics). I never got to buy, build or paint the Dred and LR so my Templar rented out theirs for the occasion.

The Thousand Sons themselves were just normal Chaos marines (this was way before the cool TS metal bitz became available), organised into squads identified by different helmets. They had old school metal TS shoulder pads. I went with a very dark blue colour scheme, with rich gold edges – I've never liked the sky-blue and yellow the TS usually wear. Of course having left it too late to do a proper job, everything was rushed beyond belief, and subsequently nothing was painted very well – the highlights on the blue armour so subtle that you need a spotlight to see them!

Each squad had an Aspiring Champion, and I scoured the bitz box to find matching helmets and three power weapons. Again, these guys got a very raw deal when it came to painting – not even having their lovely TS shoulder pads painted beyond undercoat (oh the shame of it!).

I spent a little more time on the Sorceror Lord. I scratch-built him a disc from an upside-down flying base, some spawn tentacles and a lot of greenstuff. Alas it is no longer with us – the flying stem broke during the last game of the tournament, and the lord fell off (hence he is housed on a temporary base with chipped paintwork). The model itself is of course Ahriman, with Abaddon's daemon sword and a plastic zombie hand. With hindsight, this makes him look like he's reaching for a packet of biscuits rather than casting some deadly spell but it seemed genius at the time! I made a mould of the metal TS shoulder pad the rest of the army had and stuck the cast-up piece onto the plain shoulder pad of the lord model so at least he matched.

It is my aim one day (once I tweak my Bezerkers and finish my Nurgle) to revisit these Thousand Sons, give them the paint job they deserve and maybe add a few more models.