Heresy Thousand Sons models

[isotope99]

I’m looking at a new army that I’ve wanted to do for a while:

Heresy era Thousand Sons

There was a nice article on the frontpage not so long ago about choosing an army for the Thousand Sons, so I’m going to skip to the end and say I’m going with Grey Knights for the following reasons:

• They’re going to be an elite force which means I can spend maximum time customising every model.
• They have a lot of psychic weapons/powers that fits with the thousand sons fluff.
• They’re getting a new codex and new models, and its always fun to play with new toys.
• Any anti-daemon powers can be explained by Tzeentch’s grand illusion where he convinced the Thousand Sons that they had mastery over the warp, rather than the other way round.

The heresy novel

I’m taking a lot of ideas from the Thousand Sons heresy book:

Tutelaries: In the book, the most powerful Thousand Sons have daemons that help them channel their powers and I want to show this by modelling familiars for pretty much all my models. (I’m going for a more restrained look than full on daemon as they would have presented a different mask to the legion before they fully embraced chaos, my first batch are all based on daemonettes)

Cults: there are 5 cults in the book

• Corvidae: Precognition powers
• Pyrae: Pyrokinetic fire powers and control over robots/automata/titans
• Raptora: Telekinetic powers and Kine shields for protection
• Pavoni: Lightning and biochemical manipulation (from making blood boil to healing)
• Atheneans: Telepaths

I’m trying to model these powers onto my units. Some are easier, like the pyrae, others mnuch harder, like the atheneans.

Flesh change: A few squad members getting ripped apart from the inside when their tutelaries turn on them will be fun to model.

Tizca pyramids: I like the idea of using the necron monolith to create the distinctive three sided pyramids on the cover of the book (still working on this idea).

Scarab occult: I’ve been practicing my heresy era terminator design and I’m getting a look I’m happy with.

Scarab jewels: there’s an important reference in the book to Magnus having given every member of the legion a jade scarab for their armour that I’m going to model out of green stuff.

Modelling

The base for my marines is the dark angels veterans kit as they have the robes. Heads are coming from the Thousand Sons kit and the weapons are the current metal grey knight weapons until the new plastics are released. Backpacks are chaos backpacks with the vents moved inwards. I’m not using any FW pre heresy armour as it’s harder to convert resin.

The main variation from the pre-heresy idea is the wrist mounted storm bolters the grey knights have, but it sort of fits the Thousand Sons wanting to keep their hands free for casting powers.

The tutelaries are mounted on their shoulders/backpacks. They can be ignored for TLOS purposes as they’re not really supposed to be visible to anyone else anyway.

Painting

See the cover of the book, they’re basically going to be metallic red, gold and metallic purple. I need to experiment a bit to get the right look.

And here are my first 4 Thousand Sons legionnaires;
Pyrae, Raptora, Athenean and an unfortunate damned soul succumbing to the flesh change.

[isotope99]

[justsam]

i really like this idea. as a matter of personal taste, i think the tutelaries are a tiny little bit too big, but it's still a brilliant approach to them. can't wait to see them painted up.

[imperialsavant]

i really like this idea. as a matter of personal taste, i think the tutelaries are a tiny little bit too big, but it's still a brilliant approach to them. can't wait to see them painted up.

Yeah, I agree. great Concept but the Tutelaries do seem too lage but then it might be difficult to find smaller models that would suit.

[JxKxR]

Dude that is awesome! How are you planning to paint the tutels?

[somerandomdude]

Do Daemonettes grow on trees where you live? Or all these leftovers from your Scourges?

Either way, very cool.

EDIT: How are you planning on painting the tutelaries? Some sort of white/blue ghostly appearance? I don't think they are too large, by the way. I'd love to see this in action.

[isotope99]

Do Daemonettes grow on trees where you live? Or all these leftovers from your Scourges?

Either way, very cool.

EDIT: How are you planning on painting the tutelaries? Some sort of white/blue ghostly appearance? I don't think they are too large, by the way. I'd love to see this in action.

Thanks for the comments guys, they are a littel on the large side but I'm going to mix in a few more abstract ones later too.

Painting wise, my current intention is along the lines of my tzeentch daemons, blue, white and turquoise with purple/pink fire. Like the ones below but a lot more white in the mix so that they look paler. I'm hoping when contrasted with the strong reds and golds of the Ksons they'll recede into the background a bit. Going to test this out at the weekend.

I have loads of daemonettes left over from various daemon/dark eldar conversions, particularly the more neutral heads that I'm wanting to use.

[eldargal]

I think its very sweet of that Thousand Sons marine to carry the Daemonette around on his back.

[crazy_irish]

Nice. Really liking the idea of familiars and of using the GK Codex to represent the TS.
but I am also on the to-big side ;-) they seem to stretch the model to high into the air. try around with other places, like coming around the side(hiding like a little girl) or so.

but the broken up TS is AWESOME! XD

[Drew da Destroya]

Man, when you take on a conversion project, you certainly don't go cheap, do you?

Your bitz box must be the holy grail!

I kinda like the bigger tutelaries, as long as you will be doing some more abstract ones later... it seemed like each tutelary was sort of shaped by the individual Kson, so it makes sense that some might choose a less-abstract form.

Planning on doing any of the characters from the book?