plague marines as 1k sons - heresy?

[vonny]

I was thinking by myself how much I think the plague marine special rules fit my idea of the 1k sons so much better, that I just wanted to write it out and hear some other thoughts on the topic.

 

The T5 and FnP seem to me as much more representative of the resilience of animated suits of armour than a 4+ invulnerable save. Where small arms fire may chip away some armour, or even punch holes in it, a hit by an anti-tank weapon is much more likely to blow the whole armour to smithereens, and thus end the 1k sons's usefulness on the battlefield.

 

So then, this got me thinking - the blight grenades could be representative of the sorceror using defensive spells. The poisoned close combat weapons put me in mind of how the thousand sons were written up in the battle of the fang, where they seemed far more dangerous to the space wolves in close combat than they did at range. I never even saw any mention of special ammunition in that whole book.

 

Keeping in style with inferno bolts though, you could argue that not every bolter in the unit has been supplied with enchanted ammunition - and add 2 plasmaguns. Or that the enchantments take other forms, opening up the other special weapon options and allowing for a much more all-round army to be fielded, with more options to tackle more situations.

 

The only downside is no force weapon on the champion. This could still be a power weapon, however, and even lightning claws or power fists.

 

When it comes to taking plague marines as troops, one could even chose a chaos lord with mark of nurgle, give him the brand of skalanthrax and lo! it can cast the blue flames of Tzeentch at range. This emulates the actual Tzeentch spell list, which seems to be mainly composed of fancy shooting options.

 

I'm gonna try the thousand sons with some allies next week, without counts-as, but I just wanted to run this past you guys as well. Would it be too confusing for opponents? Am I totally off with all my ideas?

[Narse]

I did this in the last league I played in for a few weeks... it seemed a little like cheating though....

[Azatoth]

Both armies have their own codex entries. They are two distinctivly different forces.

I would find such a thing... distasteful.

[Mykra]

I wouldn't use them as rubrics as those are very clearly defined and presented with the actual rules (pricing aside). However, you could easily explain it as a sort of daemonic possession - like the Daemonhosts in a way (There is a better, defined name for it in the 40K universe but it's just failing to come to the front at the moment) or corruption.

 

It's the Lord of Change, I could easily see it. The plague knives are just warp knives that alter and disrupt what they bite into, the grenades are just raw bits of chaos contained until the moment the marines releases them, the toughness and feel no pain could easily be thought as the mass of flesh and bones of the marine constantly shifting and warping inside his armor, causing the ceramite to crack and break in places, and residual bits of the immaterium 'leaking' out of the armor, instead of the normal plague marine ick.

 

But I don't like the idea of 'These guys are Rubrics'.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

I wouldn't use them as rubrics as those are very clearly defined and presented with the actual rules (pricing aside). However, you could easily explain it as a sort of daemonic possession - like the Daemonhosts in a way (There is a better, defined name for it in the 40K universe but it's just failing to come to the front at the moment) or corruption.

 

It's the Lord of Change, I could easily see it. The plague knives are just warp knives that alter and disrupt what they bite into, the grenades are just raw bits of chaos contained until the moment the marines releases them, the toughness and feel no pain could easily be thought as the mass of flesh and bones of the marine constantly shifting and warping inside his armor, causing the ceramite to crack and break in places, and residual bits of the immaterium 'leaking' out of the armor, instead of the normal plague marine ick.

 

But I don't like the idea of 'These guys are Rubrics'.

Sounds like a use for either the old realms of chaos tzeentch marines or modern conversions based on them to fight aongside the rubrics.

[Dammeron]

One alternative to representing them as Rubrics may be to look back into the all but forgotten history of the Thousand Sons. Before Second Ed, there was no such things as Rubric marines; instead, the Thousand Sons were represented by the most extremely mutated miniatures you could get your hands on; most of them looked more like daemons than marines. Perhaps your "Plague Marines" could represent Thousand Sons that were off world when the Rubric happened, or have been created by the Thousand Sons using Magnus's gene seed after the rubric, thus still suffering the hideous descent into mutation that is the hallmark of his genetic legacy? This would certainly more than cover both Feel no Pain and the poisoned attacks, so long as you inform your opponent precisely what is what before hand.

[Xenith]

Your reasoning behind this is good.

 

TS should be all but immune to small arms fire. Unfortunately, PM are also supposed to do this.

 

We have the unfortunate situation where GW really does not know how to make the TS work on the battlefield. Their casings needing to be blown apart by anti tank weapons (fluff) is ignored by them being more resilient against anti tank in game. Having TS die to small arms fire is...upsetting. I believe the simplest solution would be to simply give them a 2+ save and drop the points a little.

 

I would be fine with that if you explained it to me.

 

Unfortunately, it would mean you need a nurgle marked Lord to make Plague Sons troops, instead of the sorceror.