Thousand Sons project

I have been a long time fan of the Thousand Sons concept and models from Games Workshop. This all started when I procured the Ahriman model many years ago. The posture and background of this character are very much to my liking and it was one of the models I brought with me to enter into the Golden Demon competition when I finally was able to go to a GamesDay in Birmingham (2010 I think it was). I am still very proud of the paint job, although it did not even made it through the pre-selection.

Obviously it was bound to happen that I would be adding more Thousand Sons to aid Ahriman in his endeavors on the gaming table. As with all my projects I start to collect and buy and then the models gather dust for a long time before I do something with them. This time would not be different. I purchased some standard Chaos Marines boxes and upgrade kits to make them Thousand Sons. First stop is, off course, the kits that Games Workshop itself offers. But in my opinion it lacks diversity and would not be enough to make multiple squads that are appealing to the eye and not become a boring repetition of parts. So I started to search for alternatives. One manufacturer that came up pretty quickly was Exclusive Miniatures, or Wargame Exclusive as they are now called. They offer a variety of alternative kits for WH40.000 models including Thousand Sons. They have upgrade kits for normal marines but also for Terminator models. Needless to say I bought them all.

I started working on the Terminators before Games Workshop released the new Wrath of Magnus book with updated rules for Thousand Sons armies and the new model kits that include Terminator models. So I started with a box of regular Chaos Terminators and began converting them with the upgrade kit from Exclusive Miniatures.

     

As you can see the parts from Exclusive Miniatures are very much compatible with the Games Workshop models and are very well detailed. They reflect the Thousand Sons iconography just as good as Games Workshop models, but offer a greater variety. (In my case Games Workshop had not even released Terminator parts or models for Thousand Sons yet.)

When the Wrath of Magnus book became available it became obvious that the rules for Terminators were not compatible with the models I had made. Some of the weaponry for instance is not found in the list for Terminators anymore. And one of the models must become a sorcerer model with a force staff. I had no intention of swapping all their weapons because it would be lots of extra work and I would need to find Egyptian-like sword blades suitable for their bulk. One way of getting these swords would be to buy a box of the Terminator models from Games Workshop, but that be a bit ridiculous right?

But I do wanted to covert one of the five I made to a sorcerer model. I found someone who offered an Ahriman 30K sprue from the Prospero box set.

I started with the cape, because no decent sorcerer can walk around without a cape billowing behind him. The rule of cool must be observed. So I cut the cape from the backpack part. (this time without cutting myself).

It fits perfectly. I have not permanently attached it to the model, because then I would be having a hard time reaching certain parts when I start painting the model.

Next stop would be the replacing of the power mace. I used the staff of the Ahriman model including the hand. That way I could just cut of the Terminators hand and replace it with the new one.

  

After some extra basing the unit is now ready for some primer.

   

I had some leftover bits from the Terminator upgrade kits because there were enough bits to make 6 models. But the Games Workshop box of Terminators only has 5 models to begin with. Fortunately a friend of mine bought the Calth box because he wanted to use the Marine parts for his Red Scorpions Space Marines. He did not need the Dreadnought model and I was able to use it as a basis for a Thousand Sons Dreadnought. The original model is, in my opinion, a very boring model. It has a very boring pose, very straightforward. It actually looks like a monoplastic model from the nineties in terms of pose. This I wanted to change. I started by cutting the torso from the legs so I could put them back together with a twist. I used a pin for this so I was able to rotate it freely until I was happy with the position and glue it together. I also wanted to have one of the legs bend so the model could be standing on a rock with one of its feet. This proved to be a bit more complicated. I had to cut the leg at its knee joint which was not a straightforward cut. It took me a bit of cursing, but in the end I succeeded pretty fast. I used a cylindrical plastic part I found in my bitsbox to fill in the open part of the kneecap once the leg would be glued back together. I also used pins to put the legs in a slightly different angle onto the groin section. And I magnetized the arms in order to move them around whenever I like and be able to use both weapon options.

 

After filing off some of the Imperial signs I could begin adding some Thousand Sons parts to the model. Most of these are from the Exclusive Miniatures bits I had left, but there is also a Tzeench banner pole from the regular Chaos Marines sprue from Games Workshop.

  

Well, that’s it for now. Next time I will be showing some more of this project, including sorcerers, a Landraider and regular Rubric Marines.