“Misbegotten” Sons – Semi-Loyalist Thousand Sons PLOG

[Strigis]

Way back at the beginning of 3rd edition when I began playing 40k, the army I chose was Thousand Sons. I liked everything about them, their tortured history, the models, everything. Over the years, no matter which army I was playing at the time, the Thousand Sons were always the closest to my heart. So, when I purged all my 40k down to 3 armies my as of yet unfinished Thousand Sons were one of the ones that got to stay.

I’ve got my Nurgle to a point where it can coast along, adding a model or two in where needed but the main focus of this year is my attempt at a post-heresy, pre-rubric Thousand Sons army. I’ll be using 40k CSM Thousand Sons rules for them with a pre-heresy paint scheme; intending the timeframe of the models to be after the burning of Prospero yet before Ahriman cast the Rubric.

I’ve taken a few liberties with the paint in that I wanted the Cults of the thousand sons to really stand out on the battlefield so I’ve assigned each Cult a particular color of robe and embroidery color. Since the pre-heresy sons were mixed units including all cults, my units will be the same; each having at least one member of each cult. The embroidery on the robes are ALL unique. For example, all Corvidae cult members will have bone colored robes with black embroidery but no two Corvidae members will have the same pattern on their robe/tabard. It’s a painstaking process sometimes as I’ve got to keep thinking of new patterns to put on them as I get more and more Thousand Sons painted.

Cult Robe Color List
Corvidae - Bone w/ Black Embroidery
Raptora - Grey w/ Dark Blue & Light Blue Embroidery
Athaneans - Emerald w/ Gold Embroidery
Pyrae - Red w/ Orange & Red Embroidery
Pavoni - Blue w/ White Embroidery - Also have the Rainbow colored feather somewhere on the model. (Extra painstaking as it's 7 colors for a 3mm square object!)

I’ll post more pics as everything progresses; I need to have the army complete for the local club championship in February of next year.

There are about 15-20 thousand sons that'll have LED's inside them that when placed in the display board will light up. Basing is about to begin once I've got the display board layout finalized, for now they're all just resting on their "painting bases".

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The Rhino’s and predators got 3D modeled pre-heresy doors that I then had 3D printed which I then took and molded then cast. All the vehicles in the army are getting Tomb Kings bits on them to help carry the Egyptian history of the Sons.

[Strigis]

For the bastion in the list, I wanted it to look like one of the defense spires got teleported along with the Sons when they made their extra-dimensional shift to the Planet of the Sorcerers; hence the gigantic hole and cladding inside. It'll have a large blue LED placed inside both the very bottom layer and the exposed section to provide a bit more "pop" when it's on the table.

[Levaticus]

I'm liking where this project is going.

[Darren Richardson]

wow, now that is a sign of a truely dedicated follower of any army, having 3d printed parts made up and molds made....

The rhino's really pop as a result, but I pity you with all those different patterns you intend to painbt :O

[Strigis]

Thanks for the compliment! The 3d printing was done out of house, but I was able to at least make the molds and pour the copies myself. Once again, my calipers came in handy.

As for the embroidery, yeah... I have to pull out all the members of each cult when I do a new robe so I don't repeat any; painstaking but worth it in my opinion as I want them to be done the way I see them in my mind.

[Strigis]

The first Helbrute is finished! (finally). This guy is for my just barely post-heresy Thousand Sons army for a local club championship in February. For the dreads I wanted to go with the aesthetic of being cobbled together the best they could with the parts they had available while at the same time trying to get some themes of Egyptian sarcophagi into the model.

“Revuel Arvida” – noted Corvidae member is entombed within his makeshift dread frame that was constructed from a Penitent Engine, Rhino Hatches, a Predator Autocannon, HK missiles, a catachan, innumerable Tomb Kings Bits, cable maker & green stuff, a clear plastic cooking spice tube and Pour-On for the water effect.

Also finished 100% is the Escape Hatch for the Bastion.

[The_Gonk]

Absolutely fantastic theme mate, I love it!

[Darren Richardson]

wow that cobbled together dread looks well grimdark, nicely done indeed.

[Proiteus]

Awesome stuff mate, loving the hellbrute? What other units do you plan to have in your army?

[Strigis]

Thanks for the praise everyone! February is getting closer by the minute so I'm in a time crunch to get these guys all done for the local club championship.

The full rundown is... Ahriman, ML1 sorcerer (w/ malefic demonology to unlock the 2nd infernal relic), 2x helbrutes w/ reaper AC & missile launchers, 3x 6 man thousand sons squads w/ rhino's, 1x 7 man sons unit w/ rhino, 10x cultists, havocs w/ autocannons, infernal relic predator w/ plasma destroyer turret & heavy bolter sponsons, an infernal relic sicaran w/ heavy bolter sponsons and las but not least a bastion w/ quad gun & escape hatch.

[Strigis]

Well, after finally bringing myself to lug in my drill press from the shed outside I set myself to getting the bases cut and prepared for the Thousand Sons, they've been languishing on their painting bases long enough.

So, I got down to work last night with AutoCAD display base layouts in-hand and marked then hole sawed all the bases out I'd need for the sons then got the first bit of the display base put together. There's much work to be done but at least now I can get to work on basing the painted Sons.

Sadly, no paint work update, but still getting ever closer to completion. Until next time!

[Strigis]

Finally a painting update! There's been lots done I've just been lax in updating this. As it stands now I've got everything done but the 4 rhino's, 9 Cultists, bastion and Relic Predator. Conservative estimates have painting completion by the second week of February. All of the Thousand Sons got fitted to their bases and the display board was primed for fitting of the bastion. I wanted it to look like it had slammed into the ground so the bastion sits below the level of the surrounding material by about half an inch. The second brute (pictured in this post) was primer as of Sunday afternoon and I just finished his base at lunch. The club championship is the 21-22 of Feb so I need to not lose my pace now if I plan on finishing everything on time. The literal crunch is on!

[Darren Richardson]

wow that's pretty impressive indeed, love that walker

[Strigis]

Small update, the first of 4 rhino’s is finished; except that when taking the pictures this morning I noticed that I missed the 4 rivets on the left rear exhaust shroud, grumble touch-ups, grumble… I’m happy with the way the doors really pop. I’m about 60% on a second rhino and the Relic Predator, hopefully pics of them will arrive soon!

[Strigis]

Another small painting update, another rhino and an infernal relic predator are added to the "finished" pile.

[Kirsten]

interesting technique, I like it. the edge highlighting puts me in mind of cel shading

[Strigis]

This has been a long, long project for me. It feels like I’ve been painting this army forever now even though I had just about as much time into the converting/sculpting as I did actual painting. Today marks day 358 for the project and everything I NEED to have completed for the Club Championship is done. The “nice to haves” list is still coming including glowing wreck markers for my tanks and a Scratchbuilt greater demon on the off chance my Malefic Sorcerer rolls Possession.

Here’s the army all arrayed on the display board. The board itself is MDF, 2x4’s, 6” square resin plates (from which the bases were cut out with a hole saw), limestone from the Canadian shield, engineered sand mixture graciously provided by my work, some blood and a plasma-cut aluminum plate as an attention-grabber.

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The Raptora Sorcerer’s spell effect was supposed to be subdued as their powers were described as primarily defensive in nature.

The Athanean sorcerer, intelligence gatherers and mind readers, I wanted his spell effect to have lots of individual "feeder tendrils" coming off of it so as to represent their ability to lash out and pluck information from their enemies.

Ahriman on the left is the absolute master of sorcery so I gave him a very controlled version of all the cults spell effects surrounded by a large gold effect representing his "home" cult of the Corvidae which keeps all the other cults powers in check. Beside him is the Daemonology sorcerer who's effect is supposed to be undefined and unkempt.

The cultist squad leader, now shown with the tendrils feeding into each of the battle automatons that he is directly controlling with one of the many uses of the Pyrae cult's powers.

Pyrae sorcerer, this was the easiest one to conceptualize and get onto the table.

The Pavoni cult often use their arts for healing of squad members and as such his influence is larger than most and has very straight edged feelers coming out of it so as to best reach the battle brothers in need of his arts while the core of the effect is very flowing representing the graceful balance needed to knit bone and flesh back together.

[Strigis]

Last but not least is the Bastion. I did some test shots of it one night in my kitchen with all the lights out. When I flipped it over, it was bright enough to read by. Also are some finished shots of it as I realize I didn't post any.

[Thaldin]

Damn that's impressive work! Nicely done. I like the bastion and I like the display board a lot.

[interrogator_chaplain]

I just want to say that that's the best use of the old school Whirlwind Missile Launcher bit that I've ever seen. Love that walker kitbash.

The board is spectacular too, great work!

[The_Gonk]

Brilliant stuff. The board is outstanding!

[TheyStoleMyName!]

Can't wait to see that one in person in a few weeks!

[Strigis]

Victory! This past weekend was the local 40k Club Championship where I managed to bring in a perfect 40/40 paint score with my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons (post heresy CSM codex rules), the first perfect ever accomplished in the 4 years of the Adepticon style paint scoring method; ours is 40 instead of 45 but the result is the same! It marked my 3rd year in a row winning best painted and now I can take a few year retirement from competitive painting. I’ll keep working on projects and get a few new pieces done this year, but I’m not going to kill myself trying to do an entire new army.

[Darren Richardson]

well done, it's nice to see all that effort rewarded like that.

[Strigis]

Hi everyone, I’ve entered a contest to win a 3D printer from Instructables and have entered both the rhino doors and the 1:1 prop replica Whisper (Lylyth’s bow from Hordes) as entries. If you could please toss a vote or two my way I’d be very appreciative.

http://www.instructables.com/contest/3dprintingcontestxxl/

Also, my next project is coming along nicely, expect a PLOG for Erasmus Haarlock and the crew of the Arcadia soon.