After reading 'A Thousand Sons' I reall want to do a pre-Heresy Thousand Sons army, so I thought I'd look into the current Space Marine Codex, and here's a list I've devised (mosst of it will invoke 'counts as' for theming purposes [and talking of theme - the points value is actually 1pt of being themed itself ])

HQ
Chapter Master with Artificer Armour, Relic Blade, Hellfire Rounds and Auxiliary Grenade Launcher - 195pts
Honour Guard: 5 extra Guard, Company Banner, 4xRelic Blade, 4xAuxiliary Grenade Launcher - 435pts

Elites
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 4 extra Veterans - 225

Troops
Tacticle Squad 1: 4 extra Marines - 154pts
Tacticle Squad 2: 4 extra Marines - 154pts
Tacticle Squad 3: 4 extra Marines - 154pts
Scout Squad 1: 4 extra Scouts - 127pts
Scout Squad 2: 4 extra Scouts - 127pts

Fast Attack
None

Heavy Support
Devastator Squad 1: 4 extra Marines, 2xHeavy Bolter, 2xMissile Launcher - 214pts
Devastator Squad 2: 4 extra Marines, 2xHeavy Bolter, 2xMissile Launcher - 214pts

Total - 1998pts




As for the counts as -
The Chapter Master represents the Librarian-Captain leading the force, with things like his Orbital bombardment special rule, the Helfire rounds and the auxiliary grenade launcher representing the psyker powers he can employ. Similarly, the auxiliary grenade launchers on the Honour Guard, the special ammo of the Sternguard and the special weapons of the Devistators represent powers that they employ.

Any ideas with tweaking this list? (don't know if I'll ever get around to doing it, but it should be fun if I can think of suitable conversions). At the moment, I'm thinking of dropping a heavy bolter from each of the Devestator squads and spending the points elsewhere (having three special weapons per squad works better with the theme), although I'm not sure what I could spend them on (possibly upgrading one of the other weapons in each of those squads to a plasma cannon or giving one of the scout squads cammo cloaks and a storm bolter to the Chapter Master).

will the first thing i noticed was not you don't have a single "Max'd unit". that means you can' take any speacial weapons like Flamers.
So maybe drop 1 Honor Guard and then max out your Marine units to 10 and get them to take as many "free" weapons as possible.
I would also say maybe get rid of 1 Dev squad and max out the other that way you can combat squad them to get the heavy bolters shootin g at troops and the others with maybe lascannons hunting tanks. You can then gives soem combi-weapons to the Sternguard.
So to summerise

- Devistor squad ~ 214pts
- 1 Honor Guard ~ 35pts

+ 3 Marines ~ 48pts
+ 1 Dev Marine ~ 16pts
+ Swap Heavy bolters for Lascannons ~ 40pts
+ 1 Sternguard ~ 25pts
+ 6 Combi-Melta's on Sternguard ~ 30pts
+ Storm Bolter for CM ~ 3pts
+ 2 Scouts ~ 26pts
+ 20 Camo Cloaks ~ 60pts

Total cost
- 1pts

Quite alot for so little removed.

True, but there's a reason for not maxing out the squads. I'm trying to theme around the Thousand Sons, and the number 9 has special significance for them. If you notice all squads have 9 members and there are 9 squads (the Chapter Master and Honour Guard are counted as a single squad for this purpose due to them effectively being an upgrade for him). Hence also my comment on being 1pt off theme (1998 is a multiple of 9, but 1999 isn't).

ahhh. now it make sence all of a sudden. It also explains why there are not transports or dreadnought etc.
Well then i don't really know what to do then with the army. I don't know much about the Thousand Sons (Other than the fact that there modals are awsume!)
Well maybe a Storm Bolter for your CM. I don't think anyone will shout at you for having an army at 2001pts.

I'd rather stay under the limit - just a personal pet peeve

fiar enought.
The only thing i can now suggest is to swap the Heavy bolters with missile launchers as you are really vunrable agaisnt armour. Since it's the same cost it won't upset your points but no matter what i did i just couldn't get your points to that magic 1999...not without making 1 unti less or more than 9.

Actually, the magic number is 1998, not 1999. 1999 is the current pointage - I really want to drop it to 1998, but I can't think of a way (damn most wargear costing a multiple of 5 )

Thanks for the feedback

makes me glad i'm mainly an Eldar player. ahh the Exarchs costing 12pts

Yeah but they still snap like twigs like the rest of 'em

true but they will snap you just as easily. That and we have somethign Perfect for everyhing.......execpt making my spelling better