Iconography

[Ahzek451]

I'm a huge fan of marks/symbols/squad markings on my models. I generally don't have an issue settling on what I want and finding the lore to coincide with what I want to do. When it comes to Thousand sons, even after many years I find myself "stuck" in this regard. What do you guys do and think about your thrallband choice and what to mark on the right shoulder pad of your army?

When I started, t.sons were simple enough. You had the classic ouroboros symbol and the mark of tzeentch. Ouroboros on the left shoulder pad, and mark of tzeentch on the right. Since The release of wrath of Magnus GW has presented us with unique thrallbands and cults. You got:

Thralls of magnus

Blades of magnus

Brotherhood of dust
And so on.....

Then you have your 9 cults, from which each thrallband tends to align. 

 

As far as the right shoulder pad goes, it is not 100% clear what goes here. But it appears to be the space for the thrallband mark. And what I mean by not clear is that arguably you could put the cult mark here too. GW likes to pick a "primary" sub-sect faction for each army as the poster-boy. For space marines, you of course have ultramarines, necrons would be the silent king, etc. Simply looking at the models GW painted for their display models, the thrallband they chose was the Thralls of Magnus with that yellow eye symbol. Their biggest note being the largest and most powerful of the cult of scheming. And arguably, the primary faction or rather....thrallband to boast the classic gold and blue paint job that thousand sons have always been known for. 
 

Now, funnily if you google or look at the illustrated newer artwork for Thousand sons you will find that most(not all) show the classic Ouroboros on both shoulder pads. I don't personally put a lot of weight into any meaning to this as I simply think the artists probably were not aware of the concept of thrallbands at the time. But it is interesting to note. 

That being said, I am a stickler for making lore accurate iconography, and I simply cannot settle on what to slap on the right shoulder pad for my army. I am without a doubt sticking with the classic blue and gold scheme but I also don't feel comfortable using the thralls of magnus eye symbol presented on the box art. And I would prefer to choose the "primary" subfaction for the legion, but this is not made abundantly clear. 

What do you guys think? 

Side note: Since it is clear we are our own unique chaos faction, I don't understand why it is taking GW so long to make our own legion transfer sheet, which would include many sorcerous symbols, marks for tabards, marks of tzeentch, thrallband marks and cult marks. 

[Indy Techwisp]

The vast majority of symbols and icons used by the TSons have Gnostic origins, with the meanings transferring across pretty well, so if you can't find what a symbol means in lore or have an idea but can't find a Lore symbol that matches it you can simply follow GW's lead and steal from Gnostic Mysticism.

 

That said, not every Thrallband really have an offical symbol (I don't think we've ever been shown what icon the Tiscan Host march under) and as demonstrated by a few books the various Sorcs in the Legion can just strip and repaint eachothers armour at will, iconography and all, so an accurate Thrallband probably have a whole bunch of different cult icons scattered about which the Sorcs haven't gotten around to touching up yet (and probably more than a couple Heresy era symbols as well).

 

In regards to having an Ouroborus on both shoulders, iirc that's Ahriman's preferred marking and with the Gold and Blue colour scheme being his specific thrallband's colour scheme first it makes sense that GW also give them his preferred shoulder decals.

 

Also TSons haven't had a big range update since we launched, so if we get one in 10th I expect we'll get a new decal sheet then.

[Xenith]

Personally I think mark of tzeentch, or other runic markings. 

[INKS]

I used to own a book (sadly lost it in my recent move) it was TSONS vs Wolves - it had all sort of marking and iconography. can't find the name of it now

 

This thread has lots of pics and might be helpful

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThousandSons/comments/wb1e33/crusade_and_heresy_era_heraldry_of_the_thousand/

 

[Ahzek451]

Appreciate the responses all! 

My gutt check is GW didn't really put a hard focus on any standard for the symbols as a result of being the first god-legion to get the separation treatment. I am privy to some insight from GW at the time that it initially was the intent to "Trial run" the T.sons to see how they would do but shortly afterword's changed their minds and decided to go full-tilt with Death guard before seeing any sales figures from the sons. As seen by the small range of choices for new models(not counting the thrown-in tzaangor) and much larger death guard offerings. Hence why our decal sheet is still a shared spot on the chaos marine sheet instead of our own. Death guard mostly have their symbols as part of the model already and require little decals. World eaters were the first to get their own decal sheet. 

So while I do think it is fitting to have such an evolving symbol system from a lore standpoint, it does appear that GW wants specific thrallbands to be a thing as the standard option to make more paint schemes than just blue and gold. I do hope/think that next round we would see our own transfer sheet with more options and things to play with. As well as GW expanding on existing lore for the thrall bands, etc. Again I point to world eaters getting a sheet of their own.