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THOUSAND SONS THE PSYCHIC SCOURGE

CONTENTS Introduction .......................3 Legion of Tzeentch .............6 Sons of Magnus.......................................8 The Burning of Prospero .....................10 The Rubric of Ahriman........................12 The Planet of the Sorcerers ..................14 Cults of the Thousand Sons.................16 Legion Organisation ............................18 Hosts of the Psyker Lords....................20 Conflagration of War ...........................24 The Prism of Warfare ...........................26 Annals of the Arcane ...........................28 Magnus the Red ....................................34 Exalted Sorcerers ..................................36 Ahriman ................................................37 Sorcerers ................................................38 Daemon Princes of Tzeentch ..............39 Rubric Marines .....................................40 Scarab Occult Terminators ..................41 Bestial Hordes .......................................42 Chaos Cultists .......................................44 Chaos Spawn .........................................45 Mutalith Vortex Beasts.........................46 Battle Tanks ...........................................47

Helbrutes ...............................................48 Heldrakes ...............................................49 Daemon Engines ..................................50 Daemons of Tzeentch ...........................52

Agents of Change..............54 Acolytes of Tzeentch ............................63 The Flames of Tizca ..............................64

Warriors of Lost Prospero....................66 Ahriman ................................................67 Daemon Prince of Tzeentch ................68 Exalted Sorcerer ....................................69 Sorcerer ..................................................70 Sorcerer in Terminator Armour .........71 Rubric Marines .....................................72 Tzaangors ...............................................73 Chaos Cultists .......................................73 Horrors ..................................................74 Tzaangor Shaman .................................75 Flamers...................................................75 Scarab Occult Terminators ..................76 Helbrute .................................................77 Tzaangor Enlightened ..........................78

Screamers...............................................78 Chaos Spawn .........................................79 Mutalith Vortex Beast ..........................80 Chaos Predator .....................................81 Chaos Vindicator ..................................82 Chaos Land Raider ...............................83 Defiler ....................................................84 Forgefiend..............................................85 Maulerfiend ...........................................85 Chaos Rhino..........................................86 Heldrake ................................................87 Magnus the Red ....................................88 Armoury of Tizca .................................90

Sons of Magnus.................94 Warlord Traits .......................................95 Stratagems .............................................96 Sorcerous Arcana ..................................99 Psychic Powers ....................................100 Points Values .......................................102 Tactical Objectives..............................104

What’s Next? ...................105

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM With thanks to the Mournival for their additional playtesting services Codex: Thousand Sons © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Codex: Thousand Sons, GW, Games Workshop, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Doubleheaded Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world. All Rights Reserved.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. British Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Pictures used for illustrative purposes only. Certain Citadel products may be dangerous if used incorrectly and Games Workshop does not recommend them for use by children under the age of 16 without adult supervision. Whatever your age, be careful when using glues, bladed equipment and sprays and make sure that you read and follow the instructions on the packaging. ISBN: 978-1-78826-302-3

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INTRODUCTION Steel your mind against madness and horror, for you hold in your hands the definitive guide to Tzeentch’s sorcerous Legion – the Thousand Sons. This tome will help you assemble your collection of Thousand Sons miniatures into a powerful tabletop army, ready to set the galaxy ablaze through arcane ritual and heretical wars. The Thousand Sons are a Legion of sorcerers and spectral warriors, and are the most favoured mortal servants of the Chaos God Tzeentch – the Great Conspirator, the Architect of Fate, the Changer of the Ways. Driven by an undying desire for vengeance, as well as an insatiable lust for arcane power and daemonic knowledge, they launch their nightmarish wars against the forces of the Imperium. Whole swathes of realspace are left burning in their wake, yet each battle is but a single step in a larger plan, a lone ripple in the corrupted stream of fate.

Within this book you will find all the information you need to collect a Thousand Sons army and field it upon the tabletop. LEGION OF TZEENTCH: This section contains the history of the Thousand Sons, their fall to Chaos and their ongoing wars to twist the fate of the galaxy for the glory of Tzeentch. It also provides an in-depth analysis of how their armies organise themselves to fight. AGENTS OF CHANGE: Here you will find a showcase of beautifully painted Citadel Miniatures that display the iconography and mutations of the Thousand Sons, as well as example armies to inspire your own collection.

With a wide array of ornately armoured warriors, daemonic war engines and mutated warp-creatures, the Thousand Sons offer any collector an exciting range of possibilities. The armies the Thousand Sons can field are as varied as the whims of Tzeentch himself, and whether you prefer elite cabals of sorcerers, heaving throngs of grotesque monstrosities or serried ranks of implacable automata, the Thousand Sons have the units and abilities to suit your needs.

WARRIORS OF LOST PROSPERO: This section includes datasheets, wargear lists and weapon rules for every Thousand Sons unit for use in your games. SONS OF MAGNUS: This section provides additional rules – including Warlord Traits, Stratagems, Relics, psychic powers and matched play points – that allow you to transform your collection of Citadel Miniatures into an ensorcelled Thousand Sons army.

Building and painting a Thousand Sons army is equally engaging. The miniatures in the range offer countless opportunities for any collector looking to create a distinctive aesthetic – ornate armour emblazoned with detailed runes featuring alongside mutated flesh and twisted machinery. Personalising your collection can be as simple as choosing the profane heraldry that your thrallband will bear to battle, or you can delve deep into the history of each of your warriors, with individualised mutations and different colours of warpflame enwreathing their weapons of war. The possibilities are limitless.

To play games with your army, you will need a copy of the Warhammer 40,000 rules. To find out more about Warhammer 40,000 or download the free core rules, visit warhammer40000.com.

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With the might of a thousand psykers they breach the dam between reality and the immaterium, then come pouring forth to set worlds ablaze beneath their implacable march. A Legion shaped by the mutating energy of the warp, they are imbued with the sorcerous power of Tzeentch, and in his name they seek to transform the galaxy into a realm of nightmares and horror.

LEGION OF TZEENTCH Wreathed in warpfire and imbued with boundless empyric energy, the Thousand Sons are the favoured mortal servants of Tzeentch, the Weaver of Destinies. What soul remains in these Heretic Astartes is consumed by a desire to see the Imperium burn. The air crackles with warp energy as the Thousand Sons make their approach. An aura of maddening flux radiates from the psychic core of the Traitor Legion, twisting hope into despair as the Chaos-bound warriors emerge onto the battlefield from tears in reality. As their warp presence flares even brighter, time shifts unnaturally, stretching seconds into seeming eternities and crushing minutes into fleeting moments. The only anchors to reality that remain are the racing heartbeats of the fearful and the incessant pounding of Rubric Marines advancing in perfect unison.

the revving of chainswords. Ignoring those in their number who fall to incoming fire, Tzeentch’s footsoldiers hurl themselves bodily into combat, revelling in the transformations they work on their enemies’ flesh with every hack and gouge. The concentration of sorcery and the psychic agony of the dying pierces the veil between realspace and the warp, drawing forth Tzeentch’s daemonic servants who eagerly leap into the fray. Horrors of varied hues spill through the ruptured membrane of reality, obliterating the minds of those they behold or simply incinerating them with spouts of coruscating flames. The skies fill with floating Flamers unleashing daemonic fire upon those below and flights of Screamers that swoop down with terrifying swiftness to shred the flesh of the living with their slashing talons.

From the silently trudging ranks comes a hail of inferno bolts. These ensorcelled projectiles unleash the baleful energies of the immaterium upon impact, tearing through armour and riving flesh with ease. Even when the enemy returns fire, the Thousand Sons press on unabated. Salvoes of shots ricochet harmlessly off the Rubric Marines’ ancient, ornate plating, and energy blasts dissipate in the warp fields that surround each Heretic Astartes. As the lifeless legionnaires draw closer to the enemy lines, torrents of warpflame are spewed forth, reducing all in their path to bubbling heaps of melted gore and slag. Beside them, Scarab Occult Terminators heft curved blades sheathed in shimmering power fields, cleaving effortlessly through any foes that dare obstruct their advance.

‘Magnus the Red, the traitorous lord of the Thousand Sons, once more walks the Sea of Stars. He is a destroyer, a despoiler, a creature of ruin. He has brought his soulless Legion forth from the warp and wreathed them in Daemon fire. We know not how they will strike or the fell sorceries they will unleash, for it is impossible to know the mind of the Cyclops. Any man who says otherwise is a fool or a drunkard.’ - Logan Grimnar, High King of Fenris

Enormous battle tanks and engines of war rumble alongside the Heretic Astartes, their corrupted machine spirits enslaved to the will of their dark masters. Rivulets of Chaos energy flow over their gleaming hulls, mutating metal plating into hideously twisted faces and screaming maws. Crushing the enemy’s defences with sheer weight of firepower or beneath their adamantium tracks, the vehicles then unload more Rubric Marines from their transport bays to stride wordlessly into the carnage.

The hellscape of the battlefield becomes even more nightmarish as twisted monstrosities neither natural nor daemonic emit soulshredding howls. Chaos Spawn – shambling heaps of musculature, claws and jagged protrusions – barrel forwards to eviscerate their enemies with unthinking fury. Those unfortunate foes caught in the flux field emanating from Mutalith Vortex Beasts are ravaged by hideous mutations, their internal organs bursting outwards and their bodies contorting into paradoxical configurations. Fuelled by the unquenchable anguish of entombed Heretic Astartes, Helbrutes pulverise the packed ranks that stand before them, while Daemon Engines stomp and swoop across the battlefield, blasting apart enemy armour and crushing infantry beneath their massive frames.

The incessant annihilation perpetrated by the Thousand Sons shifts to rapacious slaughter with the charge of savage herds of Tzaangors and teeming mobs of Chaos Cultists. As their onslaught gains momentum, the cacophony of inhuman braying and bellowed prayers is added to by blasts of rugged firearms and

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The majority of the Thousand Sons’ warriors are walking relics – fusions of technology and sorcery that are devoid of fear or the capacity for reason. They are a Legion bound by dark and eldritch powers, soulless servants of Tzeentch who march implacably forwards to set the galaxy ablaze. Guiding the cults and thrallbands of the Thousand Sons are cabals of master psykers, Sorcerers and Daemon Princes who seek to twist the wending paths of destiny towards their own inscrutable ends, and above all these is the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red. Every merciless onslaught launched is but a single step in a millenniaspanning stratagem, and each world turned into a blazing pyre is a single component in yet another unfathomable warp ritual. For a hundred centuries the Thousand Sons have been a scourge to the Imperium of Man, their ruinous designs complex beyond mortal comprehension. The warpaths they carve through Imperial space are simultaneously destructive and subtle, both fluid and immutable. Though the Legion’s Sorcerers and Daemon Princes are creatures of near-infinite ambition, their machinations ultimately serve the will of their Primarch and their god, whether intentionally or not.

Created by the Emperor as the fifteenth Legion of Adeptus Astartes, the Thousand Sons fell to the taint of Chaos during the Horus Heresy. Magnus was a peerless psyker, unmatched in power save by the Emperor himself. Through his gene-seed his psychic potential was passed on to the Space Marines in his Legion, along with a susceptibility to mutations of the flesh. Magnus saw Horus give himself to the Chaos Gods, and using his sorcerer’s mind tried to warn the Emperor of the coming destruction. But this warning was not heeded, and Magnus was declared an outcast for using the powers of the warp so brazenly. The Emperor sent his Space Wolves to bring the Thousand Sons to heel, but the Sons of Russ failed to silence Magnus and his sorcerous children. The XV Legion retreated from realspace, and in the warp the vast majority of their number were transformed into incorporeal automata. When they were next seen, the Thousand Sons fought at the side of Horus, wreaking vengeance on the warriors still loyal to the Emperor. Though Horus was ultimately slain, the Thousand Sons continue to fight in the Long War, and have waited patiently for the time of their emergence and retribution.

‘They flee from the horrors I bring about; they fear the mutations I wreak on their flesh. Do they see beauty in the chaos I create? No. For Tzeentch has not opened their all-seeing eye.’ - Mordant Hex, Sorcerer Lord of the Six-Cursed

When the fleets of the Thousand Sons appear above a world, traditional defensive batteries are of limited use, for though the Sons of Magnus employ assault craft and drop-ships, they also possesses the power to tear passages in reality. This allows them to march their dreaded Rubricae from the halls of the Silver Towers directly onto the field of battle.

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SONS OF MAGNUS Before their fall to Chaos, the Thousand Sons were a Legion of warrior scholars, robust in body and mind. The gene-seed of their Primarch Magnus left them disposed to psychic mutations, but the Crimson King harnessed this flaw, fostering in his children a grasp of empyric powers unmatched throughout the Imperium. When the Primarchs were wrenched from their incubation pods on Terra and scattered across the galaxy, Magnus the Red fell upon the remote colony world of Prospero. Even as an infant he displayed an innate psychic ability which would have seen him butchered as a mutant on most planets in the Imperium. But this was not his destiny, for Prospero was a remote planet whose inhabitants had made it a refuge for psykers. It was into the communes of these outcasts that the child Primarch was accepted.

Magnus was made a ward of the scholars of Prospero, who viewed his comet-like arrival as a portent of his significance. They were not wrong in this view, for the crimson-skinned child quickly surpassed the abilities of the greatest adepts in the communes and achieved mastery over each of the psychic disciplines they studied. As he matured, Magnus grew into a giant, both mentally and physically, eventually coming to behold the vastness of the empyrean. He witnessed the incomprehensibility of the warp and from it drew much wisdom and knowledge. More than one consciousness saw the mind of Magnus also, shining like a bright beacon amongst the roil of Chaos. Chief among these was his distant sire, the Emperor of Mankind.

It is said that the psychic communion formed between the Emperor and Magnus was so strong that when the Emperor eventually came to Prospero at the head of a mighty warhost, he and Magnus greeted each other as old friends. The Emperor had chosen his XV Legion of Adeptus Astartes to be his vanguard force, for these were the progeny infused with Magnus’ own gene-seed – the Thousand Sons. Magnus accepted command of this army before kneeling and swearing undying fealty to his Emperor. The reunion of Magnus with his Legion was a great boon for the Thousand Sons. They were inheritors of their Primarch’s mental and physical fortitude, but were also disposed to unstable psychic mutations. The rampant manifestation of psykers throughout their ranks had caused them to be feared and despised by many in the Imperium, with some calling for their complete eradication. Even amongst their fellow Space Marines, some viewed the Thousand Sons as a danger to Humanity – an entire Legion of potential mutants armed and armoured with Imperial technology. By relocating the Thousand Sons to Prospero, Magnus saved them from the witch hunts that sought to purge the Imperium of psykers. He then turned his colossal intellect towards instructing his gene-progeny in the ways of psychic mastery, training them to control the enormous power that lay within them. Some scholars believe it was at this early stage that Magnus first entreated the Chaos Gods, sacrificing his right eye to these entities in exchange for the power to stabilise the mutations that ate at his Legion. Whether or not the threshold of sorcery was crossed at this time, Magnus fostered in the Thousand Sons some of the most potent Librarians of the epoch, and their might was terrifying to behold. Joining the Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy, Magnus and his Sons fought with vigour and tactical brilliance. Their campaigns were marked by deft feints and misdirection, shattering their enemies’ defences with guile and trickery rather than brute force. Using psychic illusion to

obscure their advances, the Thousand Sons impelled their foes to deploy too thinly across an embattled planet, or lured the main bulk of an opposing force off world so that the remaining soldiers could be effortlessly overrun. When they did engage the enemy, the Thousand Sons tended to avoid close combat, relying instead on ranged weaponry and devastating psychic assaults to secure victory. Xenos empires, enclaves of mutants and human populations who refused the dominion of the Emperor, all were consumed by the fires of Magnus and his Legion. The powers employed by the Thousand Sons did not go unnoticed by the other Legiones Astartes. Battle-brothers witnessed their Prosperine allies tearing psychic maws in the skies above battlefields from which bolts of eldritch energy racked the enemy ranks. Alien war machines were pulverised by force of thought, and the flesh of the faithless was tortuously warped by will alone. Though Librarians of many Legions were possessed of similar psychic might, their abilities were disciplined,

carefully controlled and honed to be a tool of the Imperium. The wanton fashion in which the Thousand Sons wielded their psychic energies showed no such restraint, and the effects they achieved were far more terrifying. Such powers had been seen in other places in the galaxy – in dark places the light of the Emperor had not yet reached. On worlds controlled by enclaves of heretics who openly worshipped unknown gods, warriors of the Great Crusade had felt the same unfettered psychic fury that they now saw used by Magnus’ Legion. Once again, suspicion and mistrust loomed over the Thousand Sons, for even amongst other Imperial psykers they were seen as practitioners of the abhorrent. Their most vocal detractors were the sepulchral lord of the Death Guard, Mortarion, and the bellicose Primarch of the Space Wolves, Leman Russ. In the path Magnus had chosen for his Legion they saw only corruption, and their opposition to their brother threatened to sunder the very foundations of the Emperor’s new order.

RITES OF PROSPERO When Magnus took command of the Thousand Sons, he made Prospero the Legion’s new home world and main recruiting planet. Those warriorscholars inducted into the Legion underwent similar augmentative procedures as in other parts of the Imperium, receiving extensive bioimplants and hypno-indoctrination to make them Space Marines. New inductees to the Thousand Sons also underwent the Nine Rites – a series of trials to ensure only the most psychically robust would serve the Legion. In the first of these Rites, known as the Formless Path, the recruit was placed into a state of physical dormancy while their psyche was cast to the Temple of Severance on the far side of Prospero. Those unable to guide their unfettered mind back to their body still served the Legion, with their flesh being used to create an unthinking Servitor.

The regalia of the Thousand Sons has always borne elements of the Legion’s Prosperine heritage, with scrolls, sigils and headdresses incorporated into their Imperial power armour. After their fall to Tzeentch, the Legion completely embraced their magi culture, and the ancient, arcane symbols of their destroyed home world that had once been merely vestiges became far more pronounced.

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BURNING OF PROSPERO THE

Prospero had been chosen by its original settlers for one reason – its remoteness. Far from the travel lanes that crossed the galactic expanse, it had no abundant natural resources, no veins of precious minerals, and no exotic plant or animal life. But what this barren backwater did offer was a place to hide. Since before Magnus’ arrival, outcast psykers had gathered on Prospero, away from the gaze of Humanity at large. Here they could study their collected knowledge in relative peace, without fear of reprisal. But with concern surrounding the Thousand Sons turning to outright condemnation of their practices, even Prospero could no longer provide a safe haven. Aware of the fractious animosity that was threatening the stability of his fledgling Imperium, the Emperor called for a council to be held on the planet of Nikaea. The council would discuss the psychic powers that Magnus had fostered amongst his Legion, and decide whether or not the warpcraft of the Thousand Sons would be condemned or allowed to continue. The mightiest proponents of each side convened on the planet in an ancient amphitheatre, with the Emperor himself enthroned as arbiter above the dais. Those opposed to the recklessness of the Thousand Sons made their case first, bearing witness to the misery wrought by sorcerers enslaved to their own dark powers. They spoke of mutants and despots who made dark kingdoms amongst the stars, using their fell gifts to further selfish and sadistic ends. Magnus then strode to the dais and defended himself and his Legion against such claims, speaking with such charisma and conviction that all fell quiet. Last to speak was a contingent of Space Marine Librarians. They argued that while psykers could serve mankind, sorcery was something that must be bargained for, and neither man nor Primarch could be certain they had the best of such bargains. The Emperor accepted this argument, sanctioning the employment of Navigators and Astropaths, but declaring the use of warp powers an unforgivable heresy against Humanity. These Edicts of Nikaea were to apply to all the Space Marine Legions, but would impact most heavily upon the Thousand Sons.

As Magnus moved to storm from the hall, the Emperor himself stopped his son, and he bade Magnus cease his pursuit of arcane knowledge. This was not the outcome Magnus had wanted, and his crimson face was wan and brittle. Yet, as recorded in the Grimoire Hereticus, Magnus bowed before his Emperor and pledged loyalty and obeisance from himself and his Legion. Though none in attendance knew at that moment, this would be the last time that Magnus and the Emperor would meet. Though the crisis was thought resolved at Nikaea, the fear surrounding sorcery had masked other, more insidious betrayals that would soon be unleashed upon the Imperium. On Davin, the Warmaster Horus fell to the dark manipulations of Chaos. The Primarch, once the right hand of the Emperor, was utterly enthralled by the baleful gods that dwelt within the warp, and emerged from that planet with a singular desire to see the galaxy burn. Along with his own Legion, other Primarchs were swayed to Horus’ cause, joining their Legions to his mighty army and together plotting to take the Imperium, and even the Emperor, completely by surprise. From his sanctum on Prospero, Magnus saw through the warp and beheld a vision of Horus’ fall to Chaos. He saw the treachery of Angron and his World Eaters, of Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children. In that moment, the Crimson King was aware of the traps being laid for the Legions still loyal to the Emperor. The Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard would be laid low on Isstvan V. Guilliman’s Ultramarines would be lured to the far side of the galaxy where they would be unable to defend against the horrors soon to unfold. The fate of the Imperium was known to Magnus. He alone perceived every event that would transpire and each role that would be played. Only his own place in this impending nightmare was unclear to him. Aided by his fellow sorcerers, Magnus wove an immensely powerful spell that crossed time and space to breach the wards surrounding the Imperial Palace on Terra, and through this spell he cast a desperate message before the Emperor. The warning was not received as Magnus had hoped. Instead, the Emperor raged at Magnus’ own betrayal. He had used forbidden sorcery, and in doing so had broken the seals that had protected the Imperial Palace. Rather than Horus, it was Magnus who was declared traitor. Utterly dismayed by his cyclopean son’s actions, the Emperor broke psychic contact before Magnus’ dire warning had even been conveyed.

The Emperor sent Leman Russ to lead an occupying force to Prospero and bring Magnus to justice. But Russ was deceived by Horus, whom he trusted and admired. With Horus’ treachery still veiled, the Warmaster convinced Russ that the Emperor wished for him to execute Magnus and eradicate his Legion. When the Space Wolves fleet arrived at Prospero they were completely unopposed. Some believe that their approach was masked by Tzeentch, where others claim it was the light of the Emperor that blinded the Thousand Sons to their attackers. Others still say that Magnus shielded the farseeing vision of his own sorcerers and prevented them from perceiving the coming Space Wolves, for in his despair he realised he had chosen the wrong path in his attempts to save the Imperium and now invited the retribution that would befall his world. Whatever the cause, the Space Wolves were able to bombard Prospero mercilessly. Fires raged across the planet’s surface, consuming all that Magnus had created until only the capital city of Tizca remained. As recorded in the Space Wolves saga, The Edda of the Hammer, the Fenrisian Legion landed on Prospero and made pyres of the tomes and relics the Thousand Sons held so dear. Magnus remained ensconced in his sanctum while the world around him burned, imploring his Legion to accept their deaths with honour. Ignoring these words, Ahzek Ahriman, Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons, led a desperate defence of Tizca. Ahriman had ever viewed Magnus as a father and mentor, but this love was turned to ire by the Primarch’s refusal to defend Prospero’s last city. Despite Ahriman’s efforts, the Thousand Sons were soon shattered, and Leman Russ – Horus’ unwitting executioner – strode towards their lines, ready to butcher. At last Magnus broke. Unable to bear the continued slaughter of his gene-children, he charged to meet Russ. The clash of Primarchs was more ferocious than all that had preceded it, with the cyclops battling the berserker right through the ruined heart of Tizca. It was Russ that eventually prevailed, snapping Magnus’ back before raising his frost blade Mjalnar to deliver the finishing strike. But with a whispered word of power Magnus was spirited away before death could claim him and sent drifting through the warp. There he saw the salvation that had eluded him – he beheld sorcery incarnate, and with inextricable finality Magnus the Red forsook his Emperor and gave himself fully to the Dark God Tzeentch. In that instant, Tizca and the Thousand Sons vanished from the face of Prospero.

RUBRIC OF AHRIMAN THE

As Horus’ betrayal was finally revealed the Imperium was consumed by chaos, and that which Magnus had foreseen in his vision came to pass. Angron and Fulgrim joined in the Warmaster’s treachery, as did Mortarion, who had once decried Magnus’ sorcery as heretical. Together with these fallen Primarchs, the Warmaster established a stronghold on Isstvan V. Seven Space Marine Legions were sent to scour the traitors from the galaxy, but four of these had also fallen to the taint of Chaos, and sided with Horus. The Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard were massacred by their erstwhile brethren, and through the warp Magnus watched them die for a second time. When the Thousand Sons emerged from the empyrean they too fought alongside the Warmaster, though the exact nature and extent of their involvement in the Horus Heresy is still unknown. What accounts exist of that dark time are closely guarded, and those regarding the Thousand Sons in particular are riddled with contradiction and paradox. What is known beyond doubt is that they unleashed their full psychic fury, wreaking vengeance on the Imperium that had declared them abominable and destroyed their world. Also recorded is that the Thousand Sons joined the final siege on Terra, where the Horus Heresy reached its apocalyptic zenith. The Sons of Magnus descended upon the Imperial Palace with their fellow Traitors and slaughtered the defenders, shredding their ranks with incessant hails of bolt-fire and using their fell powers to fuse mortal flesh into twisted creatures of Chaos. Sorcerous cabals sundered the wards protecting the deepest Terran Librariums, allowing the Thousand Sons to plunder the relics and tomes housed within. But when Horus was slain at the Emperor’s hand, the Chaos invasion was broken. The Thousand Sons and their heretical brethren fled into the gaping warp maw known as the Eye of Terror. Horrendous mutations tore through most of the Traitor Legions as the warp was made manifest in their bodies and wargear. Limbs grew into cruelly clawed appendages, gun muzzles bristled with jagged teeth and Imperial aquilas morphed into the wretched symbols of the Chaos Gods. But at first the Thousand Sons were spared from this fate. Though their gene-seed had ever been unstable, they were shielded from metamorphoses by their new master, Tzeentch. Their patron god even guided the Legion to a new planet, deep within the Eye of Terror and rich in occult power. Here, on the Planet of the Sorcerers, the Sons of Magnus believed they would find a haven within the warp where they could continue their arcane studies. But the God of Change is ever capricious. No sooner had the Thousand Sons claimed dominion over their new home world than they too were afflicted by the grotesque transfigurations of Chaos. The flesh-change

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– known and feared since the Legion’s founding – came swift and unsparingly, reshaping their bodies into inextricable forms more pleasing to the twisted eye of Tzeentch. This was followed by despair, for the long and exacting pursuit of knowledge had resulted in the very abomination the Thousand Sons had sought to overcome.

‘ECHOES OF THE PSYCHIC SCREAM WERE HEARD ACROSS THE ENTIRE IMPERIUM. SCORES OF ASTROPATHIC CHOIRS FELT A TERRIFYING POWER EMANATING FROM A SINGLE POINT IN THE WARP. THE MINDS OF MANY SANCTIONED PSYKERS WHO HAD BEEN TASKED WITH LISTENING FOR WHISPERS OF THE THOUSAND SONS WERE DEVOURED IN AN INSTANT, AND FROM THEIR RUPTURED BODIES AROSE CACKLING TZEENTCHIAN DAEMONS. ONLY NINE SURVIVED TO TELL OF WHAT THEY SAW.’

- On the Rubric of Ahriman, from the Grimoire Hereticus

At this time Ahriman gathered to his side a cabal of the Legion’s mightiest Sorcerers, and together they determined to undo the corruption of the flesh-change. They knew that Magnus would oppose their actions, and so Ahriman created wards of secrecy, under the cover of which his cabal’s workings would go unseen. Hidden from view, they wove their mighty spell, then unleashed their creation across the Planet of the Sorcerers. The Grimoire Hereticus records the moment that the Rubric of Ahriman was unveiled – a roar of anguished unreality flared within the warp, a maelstrom within the maelstrom of Chaos so unimaginably powerful that even Daemons fled from its upheaval. The skies on the Planet of the Sorcerers were enveloped by iridescent storms and torn by streaks of polychromatic lightning, with each bolt arcing down to strike one of the corrupted Thousand Sons. It was Magnus that eventually ceased this eruption of cosmic energy, calling upon the power of Tzeentch to halt Ahriman’s sorcery. But the vast majority of the Legion had already been touched by the Rubric. Those struck had indeed been stripped of their mutations, for their flesh had been reduced to dust, mystically sealed inside their ensorcelled armour for eternity.

When their armour is punctured by bolt or blade, the dust of the Rubricae pours out. And yet it is from this dust that the Rubricae can be given animus again – not life, but a ghostly simulacrum, devoid of thought or passion, and capable of great destruction.

A second howl echoed through the warp as Magnus beheld his warrior sons. The once-enlightened scholars of Prospero now stood as soulless automata on the surface of a Daemon world. Everything the Crimson King had worked for and each sacrifice he had made was now rendered useless, for he had failed to save his Legion from irrevocable damnation. Filled with wrath, Magnus sought out Ahriman and his cabal, shattering the wards behind which the malefactors hid.

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But Ahriman was defiant, claiming that the Rubric had achieved its ultimate goal in purging the Thousand Sons of mutation. As Magnus prepared to obliterate his most wayward son, the lord of both intervened. Tzeentch had plans yet for Ahriman, and so Magnus was compelled to banish him instead. The Primarch then ascended his tower and cast his baleful gaze upon the universe. With his home world destroyed, his father a sworn enemy and his Legion a spectral shadow of their former glory, Magnus vowed to see the galaxy burn.

THE

PLANET OF THE SORCERERS For ten thousand years the Planet of the Sorcerers has been the staging ground from which the Thousand Sons have launched their raids into realspace. A nightmarish world of Daemons, it was nested deep within the warp until by Magnus’ hand it was drawn through the veil and thrust into the Emperor’s domain. Whether the Planet of the Sorcerers has a natural origin or is merely a by-product of Tzeentch’s will, none can say. It is a warped and twisted place, even compared to the worlds of other Traitor Legions – a locus of Chaos energy that the Thousand Sons use to fuel their diabolical craft. While it existed within the warp it orbited a constantly changing sun, an erratic orb that passed through nine distinct waxing and waning phases. The world itself is dark, rocky and violently volcanic. Leaden skies are riven by unholy power, and kaleidoscopic lightning illuminates the skyline with impossible hues. Clouds of aetheric vapour release deluges of liquefied warp energy, which flow out to the seas that lie between the planet’s vast, shifting continents. Though the Planet of the Sorcerers is anathema to natural life, its surface is rife with Tzeentch’s warp-spawned children, whose hideous screams fill the air as they coalesce into existence and disperse again. Other strange beings also manage to cling to a wretched existence among the erupting peaks and flux plains. Tzaangors – horrendous hybrids of beast, bird and man – roam the wastelands in nomadic warbands. Enormous monstrosities march beneath raging empyric storms leaving wide wakes of devastation. Most nightmarish are the shambling Chaos Spawn, fleshy amalgams of living creatures and raw Chaos energy. The only place bearing any semblance of order on this constantly mutating planet is Tizca, the capital city of the Thousand Sons that was transported through the warp in its entirety from the devastated world of Prospero. The majestic spires that once lined the city have been replaced with disfigured obelisks that meld into the bedrock. The mighty pyramids of old have given way to mounds of crystalline earth-matter, and pillars of molten stone that pupate into metamorphic towers. These grotesque structures

house the halls of the Thousand Sons. Inside them lies the dark lore the Traitor Legion has harvested over its long existence, stored in endless rows of profane librariums whose walls pulsate and echo with daemonic wailing. Those mortals brought inside the sanctums are flensed of their sanity by the raw psychic resonance, preparing them perfectly for the Thousand Sons’ sorcerous experimentations. Many are the malshapen edifices of Tizca, but they are all dwarfed by the innermost megalith – the Tower of the Cyclops. Looming ominously over the planet’s surface, its highest levels contain Magnus’ personal sanctum, and from the pinnacle comes a flood of iridescent light, cast by an entrapped tempest of glowing warp energy. This raging storm is enveloped by an orb of profane wards, and through the eye of the storm Magnus watches the manifold paths of the past, present and future. For thousands of years Magnus has observed the material universe from his tower, biding his time and planning his master strokes of avengement. Yet the Planet of the Sorcerers is not merely a secluded refuge in which the Thousand Sons toil at their dark arts; it is a base of warfare, a staging ground for campaigns of annihilation that are waged against the Imperium of Man. Tizca is replete with labyrinthine armouries that contain racks upon racks of warp-infused weaponry.

Corrupted manufactorums – either gifted from the Dark Mechanicum or wrenched through the warp from incinerated forge worlds – belch smoke into the auroral atmosphere as they churn out waves of daemonic siege engines. Between the twisting forms of the buildings themselves are enormous mustering grounds ringed by inscrutable Tzeentchian runes. Here the rows of Rubricae are gathered, ready to be marched into the corridors of the awaiting Silver Towers. From there they are unleashed upon the unforgiven enemies of the Sorcerer-Lords. The catastrophic effects of a full-scale Thousand Sons invasion are exemplified by the Legion’s attack on the Fenris System. The attack drew the Space Wolves back to defend their home world, allowing the Sons of Magnus to wreak vengeance upon them. Unnatural footsoldiers from the entire Chaos pantheon joined in the slaughter before Magnus himself stepped forth from the warp onto the surface of Fenris, there to face the Chapter that had thought to execute his sons on Prospero. Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Grey Knights champions fell to Magnus’ psychic might, their minds and bodies dashed to particulate matter. But the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar was able to land a blow on the Crimson King, allowing the Daemon hunters of the Grey Knights to work their rites of banishment. Though the invasion was driven back, its purpose had been achieved. The psychic anguish of a billion deaths rippled through the immaterium, providing the final component in a ritual millennia in the making. The power taken from the worlds of the Space Wolves saturated the Planet of the Sorcerers. It vanished from the warp only to burst violently into realspace, appearing near the burnt husk of Prospero. The old and new home worlds of the Thousand Sons now orbit the same cursed star – a star that has become an omen of doom in the skies throughout the Imperium.

THE WARP FLEETS OF MAGNUS Scarring the minds of all who look upon them, the Silver Towers are the largest remnants of ancient Prospero’s citadel spires. Each of these mighty fortresses exists across dimensions, and wherever they go they spread the chaotic influence of Tzeentch. Though they manifest in realspace, the Silver Towers contain chambers that are fragments of the Crystal Labyrinth entwining the Grand Conspirator’s Realm. For millennia the Silver Towers have been harbingers of madness and death, appearing from warp fractures above Imperial worlds across the galaxy. Arcane lightning lances out to incinerate anything that draws near to them while cruelly mawed cannons and more esoteric weapons open fire. When the gates of the Silver Towers open, rank upon rank of Thousand Sons march forth to enact destruction. Magnus leads his warp fleets from his flagship, Tizca’s Revenge. This vast and monstrous craft is fashioned from the plundered resources of an entire Imperial world, fused together with unfathomable warp energies as a simulacrum of the Great Pyramid of Tizca.

CULTS OF THE THOUSAND SONS After the Rubric of Ahriman, the confluence of once noble fellowships that comprised the Legion was replaced by a hierarchy born of Magnus’ will. The Thousand Sons were divided into nine great cults, each devoted to a separate facet of the Change God, and whether wittingly or not these cults all serve Magnus, and all have a purpose in the unfathomable plans of Tzeentch. Though the Planet of the Sorcerers is a world in constant flux, its inhabitants are governed by a strict order set in place by Magnus. The spectral remnants of the Legion’s warriors, known as the Rubricae, reign over throngs of Cultists, Tzaangors and mutated warp beasts, while above the Rubricae is the former bodyguard of the Crimson King, known as the Sekhmet. Raised above all of these is the Rehati – a coven of nine Exalted Sorcerers and Daemon Princes who are favoured by Tzeentch more than any other amongst the Thousand Sons, save Magnus himself. From this overarching hierarchy, the Legion’s forces are further divided into nine great cults. At the head of each is a member of the Rehati who bears the ancient rank of Magister Templi. Beneath each Magister Templi are nine other Daemon Princes and Sorcerers who, though lesser in rank, still bear much of Tzeentch’s favour. These nine steer the cult along the ever-changing paths of fate. Other Sorcerers hold lower positions in the cult, and along with troops, tanks, mutants and Daemon Engines are capable of claiming vast swathes of realspace for their cult masters. Each cult has worlds from which they draw resources and magical energy, and populous planets to provide them with constant streams of Cultist soldiers, slaves and subjects for their arcane experiments. Aside from constituting a terrifying military force, each of the cults is an amalgam of the twisted minds of those in its ranks, and though inherently selfserving, the members of a given cult are ultimately bent towards the same purpose. To a mortal mind, untouched by Tzeentch’s corruptions, the complex plans laid out by these cults are utterly unfathomable, but to the Thousand Sons they are both a form of profane worship and a route to vengeance over the Imperium. Often, the goals of a given cult will undermine or even contradict those of the other cults. As such, the cults are wary of one another, and alliances between them are ever shifting. The power and influence of each is also in constant flux, with every cult going through cycles of activity and torpidity as befits their inscrutable machinations.

It is extremely rare for the entirety of a cult to deploy in a single war zone, though when this does happen the fabric of reality quakes in their presence. More often, the cult’s malevolent goals require its forces to be spread throughout space and time, allowing each splinter to play a separate role in some larger and more sinister stratagem. A cult therefore comprises many sects, each of which may prosecute their own seemingly unconnected campaigns of terror. Where the combined forces of a cult could easily set a whole system ablaze, a single sect is still capable of devastating a planet. Often, several sects will launch simultaneous strikes across large tracts of realspace, plunging entire sub-sectors into disarray and panic. As nearby worlds send reinforcements to the embattled planets, more Thousand Sons appear to attack where defences have been stretched to breaking point. Devastating as they are, these attacks rarely give any clue as to the ultimate goals of the cult. A sect is made up of multiple thrallbands, which can also act independently of each other. With several units of Thousand Sons bolstered by auxiliary troops and vehicles, a single thrallband can obliterate an enemy fortress or turn a city into a blazing pyre. A number of thrallbands operate in complete isolation – some have been exiled from the Planet of the Sorcerers, while others chose to leave to pursue their own ends. But even these forces ultimately serve the goals of one of the nine cults, whether they themselves know it or not.

THE NINE CULTS The Cult of Prophecy is guided by incessant whispers that bleed from the warp. From these they divine the outcomes of multiple futures, and seek out events that can be twisted to their own purpose. The Cult of Time is similarly enthralled by the future, as well as the present and past. They view the flow of time as an unwrought resource that can be shaped into a weapon. By their victories, ripples are sent both forwards and backwards in time, so that their enemies may be defeated before they are even engaged.

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The Cult of Mutation embodies the transfiguring aspect of Tzeentch. Not only do they embrace the warping of flesh, but also the warping of reality itself. By their hand civilised planets are transformed into Daemon worlds, and entire populations moulded into grotesque abominations. The Cult of Scheming is perhaps the most insidious of the cults, for the creation of convoluted plots is to them a form of profane worship. Every conquest and withdrawal is a perfectly planned manoeuvre, a single step that leads towards some unseen master stroke. The Cult of Magic is dedicated to the pure and unfettered use of sorcery. Their bloody campaigns are launched to secure arcane objects held by Imperial, xenos and other Chaos forces. These artefacts are then used as foci in the weaving of devastating spells. The Cult of Knowledge is also drawn to the many curios hidden throughout the galaxy, particularly tomes of eldritch learnings, dark secrets and paradoxical logics. Through such lore, the cult is able to extrapolate the weaknesses in their enemies, and in the fabric of reality itself. The Cult of Change is anathema to order. They are the great unravellers, launching their armies wherever civilisation and reason exist. Similarly, in places of utter anarchy, the cult appears to impose their ever-shifting will. The Cult of Duplicity is unique within the Legion in that it both is and is not guided by a unified desire. The Sorcerers of this cult are by their very nature deceivers, at once appearing fractured and singular in their purpose. As such, it is impossible to know whether the sects within the cult are acting independently or as part of a singular, terrifying plan. The Cult of Manipulation is similarly deceptive, using its tendrillar web of influence to sway the actions of its enemies. Vast networks of mortal and daemonic spies allow the cult to oversee their plots as they unfold through assassination, possession and the wreaking of pure havoc.

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LEGION ORGANISATION By the will of Magnus the Red, the Thousand Sons Legion is divided into nine cults – twisted mockeries of the nine noble fellowships of Prospero. Each cult has hundreds of Sorcerers who guide thousands of Rubricae warriors to war, and though the relative power of each cult may wax or wane, nine there shall always be, for nine is the number of Tzeentch.

CULT OF MAGIC The nine fellowships of the Thousand Sons Legion have become cults dedicated to furthering Tzeentch’s plots across time and space.

CULT OF SCHEMING

CULT OF MANIPULATION

CULT COMMAND Magister Templi Exalted Sorcerer Magister Templi Retinue Familiars, Acolytes and Bodyguards

CULT OF TIME

Cult Assets

• Cult Flagship • Silver Tower Constellations • Battleships • Escort Squadrons

Sects are identified by their livery and the sigils they use to mark their armour. Each consists of a number of thrallbands, as the warbands of Thousand Sons sorcerer-champions are called, themselves marked with runic combinations favoured by their Magister.

1ST SECT

2ND SECT

3RD SECT

1st Thrallband

2nd Thrallband Thrallbands consist of nine lesser Sorcerer Thralls under the command of a Magister, who is a Sorcerer, Exalted Sorcerer or Daemon Prince.

• Summoned Daemon Cohorts • Sorcerer Thrallbands • Super-heavy Squadrons

4TH SECT

3rd Thrallband

Each Magister is an architect of war, leading his thrallband in their campaigns of ruination. Beneath his command are nine lesser magi, Sorcerers who serve as his chief advisors and battlefield lieutenants.

Thrallband Assets

• Helbrutes • Daemon Engines • Battle Tanks • Transport Vehicles • Chaos Cultists • Tzaangors • Chaos Spawn

MAGISTER 1 Exalted Sorcerer

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Lesser Sorcerers

LEGION COMMAND Magnus the Red, Daemon Primarch of Tzeentch Rehati Daemon Princes and Exalted Sorcerers of Tzeentch Sekhmet Conclave Scarab Occult Terminator Formations

CULT OF KNOWLEDGE

CULT OF CHANGE

Legion Assets • Daemon World Planetary Domains • The Tower of the Cyclops • Legion Flagship • Capital-class Warships • Secondary Escort Squadrons

CULT OF DUPLICITY

• Silver Towers • Escorts • Planetary Assault Craft and Drop-ships • Daemon Engine Packs • Cultist Covens • Tzaangor Warherds • Super-heavy Assets

SECT COMMAND

Arch Magister Exalted Sorcerer Arch Magister Retinue Familiars, Acolytes and Bodyguards

4th Thrallband

CULT OF MUTATION

CULT OF PROPHECY

Sect Assets

6TH SECT

5TH SECT

• Space Hulks • Bound Greater Daemons • Legion Armorium • Vassal Renegade Chapter Warbands • Auxiliary Forces

5th Thrallband

7TH SECT

6th Thrallband

Beneath the Magister and his favoured Sorcerers are lesser thralls – Aspiring Sorcerers and Scarab Occult Sorcerers who direct the ranks of lifeless Rubricae and Scarab Occult Terminators.

3 squads of Rubric Marines, each led by an Aspiring Sorcerer

3 squads of Scarab Occult Terminators, each led by a Scarab Occult Sorcerer

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HOSTS OF THE PSYKER LORDS The Thousand Sons are known not only for their intricate battle stratagems and the destructive sorceries they unleash upon their enemies. Their armour and heraldry is also instantly recognisable, and the Legion marches to war bearing the symbols of their Prosperine heritage alongside runes and sigils devoted to Tzeentch. Aside from the slavering throngs of Cultists and Tzaangors, the bulk of a Thousand Sons thrallband is composed of Rubric Marines. These warriors tower over mortal humans on the battlefield, and with lifeless, warp-driven movements they march inexorably through all but the most punishing fire. Their armour is irreplaceable, for each suit was fused with the essence of the

warrior inside by the Rubric of Ahriman. However, any given Rubric Marine may have been felled in battle dozens or even hundreds of times, his essence inevitably restored once again to his armour by a sorcerous master to fight in another campaign of horror. As such, the armour of the Rubricae is both a grim reminder of the devastation done unto the Legion, and the means by which the Thousand Sons wreak their vengeance upon the Imperium of Man. The Rubricae in a given thrallband – along with the Sorcerers and Sekhmet warriors who march to battle with them – are all adorned in the colours and symbols of their Magister, with additional iconography on the armour and tabard. These icons have various and often simultaneous meanings, with some denoting the Aspiring Sorcerer to whom a Rubric Marine is enthralled, and others recording a lost piece of Prosperine lore.

SORCEROUS ICONOGRAPHY The symbols of Tzeentch and Magnus the Red are displayed boldly on the armour of the Thousand Sons. In addition, these symbols are sometimes wrought in warp-drenched metal and held aloft by a Rubric Marine, allowing the flickering flames of Tzeentch to lap at the enemy.

The Legion’s sigil – or one of its many variants – is typically displayed on the left pauldron. This symbol shows the fiery drake devouring its own tail.

The right pauldron is usually emblazoned with the iconography of a warrior’s sect. These symbols are multifarious in their shape and meaning, with some mirroring the symbol of Tzeentch, others the eye of Magnus, and others still some long-forgotten Prosperine icon.

As befits the servants of Tzeentch, the Thousand Sons have changed greatly in appearance since the days before the Horus Heresy. Where they once wore crimson, the manifold sects now decorate their armour with innumerable hues. Blues, yellows and golds are favoured, but many other colours are seen in their garb and sigils, particularly those that are believed to have some past or future significance. Each sect is unified in its colours and heraldry, with individual thrallbands also bearing their own unique insignias.

THE TIZCAN HOST

SECT OF THE RED ECHO

The Tizcan Host is known for its shared delusion of attaining perfect purity through the Rubric of Ahriman. They are devout adherents of the Cult of Magic, and their thrallbands are perhaps the most warlike of any amongst the Legion. They announce their presence on the battlefield with bombardments of iridescent warp energy.

Though their leaders were once known for their forbearance, the Sect of the Red Echo has carved a gruesome warpath since falling to Tzeentch, with haunting screams following wherever they go. Some amongst the Cult of Time interpret these as the dying cries of their victims, others as the mad harmonies of the warp itself. Khar en Shaphat of the Cleansed Ninefold

Farroteth of the Silent Scream

THE CRYSTAL HARBINGERS

THE HERMETIC BLADES

The Sorcerers of the Crystal Harbingers delve into the hidden recesses of the Silver Towers to explore the Tzeentchian labyrinth to which they lead. Here they glean portents of the future and commune with daemonic entities, which they then use to terrifying effect in their wars against the forces of the Imperium.

As a sub-sect of the Cult of Mutation, the Grand Order of the Hermetic Blades view flesh as a twisted cage that imprisons the soul. Their numerous close-combat warriors are charged with taking battlefield captives who are brought back to the Planet of the Sorcerers, there to be used in gruesome soulflaying experiments. Amyr Vasser Suhk of the Fractal Barons

Khamonaht the Lacerater of the Knights of Emancipation

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THE PRISM OF FATE

BLADES OF MAGNUS

The Prism of Fate has always prided itself on the diversity of psychic manifestations that have been mastered amongst its ranks, as well as the variety of ways in which these warp powers can inflict death. The sect’s Sorcerers are quick to unleash new forms of devastation upon their enemies, making them exemplars amongst the Cult of Change.

The Blades of Magnus were long bound to the Cult of Manipulation, and worked in secret to break the bonds between Magnus and the eldritch powers. When the Daemon Primarch learned of their works he annihilated their minds with an overwhelming psychic blast. Now they are some of his most loyal thralls, replete with Rubric Marines. Omarion Ragaar of the Refracted Sons

Ahmokhat the Cruel of the Third Order of Blades

THE CRIMSON SONS

WARP GHEISTS

In the wake of the Rubric of Ahriman, the Crimson Sons were exiled from the Planet of the Sorcerers, and have wrought mayhem in isolation from the main body of the Thousand Sons ever since. Like so many sects in the Cult of Duplicity, how their actions ultimately serve the will of Magnus is unknown to all but the Crimson King.

The white on the Warp Gheists’ armour represents the bone remnants contained within. Their former Arch Magister, Nezchad Aratos, enacted a ritual to restore a portion of his exiled brethren’s form, though he himself was destroyed by the spell. The sect has scoured the galaxy ever since in search of similarly powerful magics. Kairophon the Second of the Blooded Brotherhood

Hocchad Zephek of the Teeth of Aratos

Representations of the numbers one to ten in the ancient Prosperine script are employed to denote squad numbers within a thrallband. These numbers are typically displayed on a warrior or Sorcerer’s tabard.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

22

8

9

10

THE REFLECTED ONES

THRALLS OF MAGNUS

The Sorcerers of the Reflected Ones view realspace as an imperfect mirroring of the warp, and seek to scour the galaxy of its impurities by weaving worldspanning mutagenic spells. The ranks of their enemies devolve into Chaos Spawn and braying Tzaangor herds before the Thousand Sons even set foot on the battlefield.

The Thralls of Magnus are the largest and most powerful sect of the Cult of Scheming, and have been since shortly after the Legion’s fall. Many rival sects have sought to dethrone them, only to succumb to impossibly intricate traps and complots. The same inescapable fate has befallen countless Imperial and xenos worlds. Nebunak Surrian of the Twisted Visage

Belkizadek eht Ra of the Makers of Truth

THE SILVER SONS

THE SECTAI PROSPERINE

The Silver Sons covet certain priceless metals found within celestial objects, believing them to be links to the past and future. Once obtained, these metals are used in the creation of twisted Daemon Engines, and should such substances lie on inhabited worlds, the Silver Sons will incinerate all who stand between them and their prize.

Originally a gathering of minor sects from the fringes of the Thousand Sons’ hierarchy, the Sectai Prosperine now wield truly terrifying influence and power. They embrace their Legion’s legacy, believing the dark fate of Prospero to have been a rare gift that imparted to them knowledge that would otherwise have remained hidden. Oklithyon Duhk of the Nova-Born

Dramendesha the Lowborn of the Encircling Hex

Many symbols are emblazoned on the armour of the Thousand Sons. These icons may denote the thrallband within a sect to which a warrior belongs, or the rank of a Sorcerer below their Magister. Other symbols have meanings that are closely guarded, known only to the Arch Magister of a sect or the Magister Templi of a cult.

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CONFLAGRATION OF WAR Though the Thousand Sons have ever been a peril to the Imperium, now more than ever they threaten to burn the galaxy to cinders. Perhaps most horrifying is the notion that their campaigns of destruction may be designed merely to distract from or veil their grander machinations.

3

8

1

2

5

8 8 7

Item number: 2G27.63– 759. Star chart fragments intercepted by the Astra Telepathica and compiled for Logan Grimnar.

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1. Cult of Prophecy – Nightmares Undreamt As the beleaguered Imperial defenders of the Cadian Gate continue to be butchered, the Cult of Prophecy has begun a massive ritual of summoning around the Eye of Terror.

2. Cult of Time – Enslaving the Ancients In their wars against the Necrons of the Nephrekh Dynasty, the Sorcerers of the Cult of Time seek to uncover the methods by which the star gods known as the C’tan were made slaves.

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3. Cult of Mutation – Slash and Burn The Ferric Blight ravages Kantakkha to the delight of the Plague God Nurgle’s followers. But lattices of flaming glass have started to sprout, mutating the metallic rot into a crystalline labyrinth.

4. Cult of Scheming – Coming of the Despoilers Deep within the Imperium Nihilus, sects from the Cult of Scheming terrorise the now isolated shrine worlds, prising the relics they seek from the charred hands of their defenders.

5. Cult of Magic – The Scintillating Straits As Imperial fleets try desperately to pass between the warp storms of the Maelstrom and the Planet of the Sorcerers, they are riven by strands of astral fire woven by the Cult of Magic.

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6. Cult of Knowledge – Remnant of the Dark Age Scores of sects from the Cult of Knowledge repeatedly besiege and withdraw from the forge world Incaladion. In the carnage, one of the hallowed STCs held on the planet disappears.

7. Cult of Change – Unspoilt Flesh In a gruelling campaign against the Sons of the Phoenix Chapter of Primaris Space Marines, the Thousand Sons take many of their enemies as live captives for their arcane experiments.

8. Cult of Duplicity – Web of Heresy On worlds across the Imperium, Chaos Cultists arise and swear allegiance to the Cult of Duplicity. All claim that they are the warriors chosen by Tzeentch to bring ruin to the galaxy.

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9. Cult of Manipulation – Burnt Offerings

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Scores of worlds have been immolated in great sacrificial rituals before the coming of Hive Fleet Kronos, though whether these are designed to repel or lure the Tyranids is uncertain.

THE PRISM OF WARFARE When the Thousand Sons march to war, the very stars tremble before their displays of sorcerous might, great swathes of the galaxy are consumed by warpfire, and anarchy and madness reign supreme. Yet each battle is but a component in their impenetrable stratagems, a single rite with a purpose inscrutable to all but the most twisted of minds. Though the Thousand Sons perpetrate their horrific wars throughout the galaxy, they do not see warfare as an end unto itself. Instead, through their studied violence they seek to wreak change upon the galaxy and to draw to themselves power and knowledge. By divining the currents of fate – both past and future – they identify crux points in time, moments where calamitous upheaval can be wrought for the glory of Tzeentch. To aid in their grand designs, the Thousand Sons launch myriad raids on the worlds of the Imperium and xenos planets alike. Amidst the fires of these incursions they wrest arcane technologies from long-forgotten reliquaries, despoil temples of their sacred tomes and bend the faith of the masses to Tzeentch’s evershifting purposes. The lore of millennia is consumed and digested by the rapacious minds of the Legion’s Sorcerers, who glean from it hidden truths that help guide them along their ruinous path.

In their campaigns the Thousand Sons conquer vast tracts of realspace from which they draw the resources for their arcane war efforts. As they advance across the stars, their knowledge-lust brings them to sites of eldritch power, places saturated with the magic of profane rituals performed millennia ago. Some are worlds whose ancient inhabitants worshipped the Chaos Gods; others are planets with hateful entities buried deep beneath their surface. The baleful energy that hangs thick around such sites creates weak points in the veil separating realspace from the warp. Here, the Thousand Sons commune with empyric consciousnesses, beckoning them to enter the material plane and entreating them to share prescient visions of the skeins of fate. These places of power also serve as anchorpoints to which Exalted Sorcerers and Daemon Princes tether their enormous, system-spanning spells. Gigantic hexes are etched into the fabric of space itself, corrupting the reality that lies within their

bounds and causing it to tear violently open. From these gaping wounds the warp bleeds into existence, ravaging the minds of mortals with nightmarish perplexions and birthing daemonic beasts that descend hungrily upon the worlds of the living. The sects of the Thousand Sons prosecute their wars in various ways and towards various ends. Some blaze like a comet as they carve their ruinous warpath through space. The psychic scream preceding their onslaught is a portent of doom, heralding to all before them the horrors that will soon be brought into being. Others conduct their campaigns in more subtle ways, silently preparing their offensives until the moment to strike is at hand. The thrallbands of these sects insinuate themselves throughout a war zone, whereupon they work to sever those strands of fate that would oppose their total victory. Psychic whispers are sent echoing through the immaterium to misdirect their enemies, time and space are bent to steer battlefleets wildly off course,

and the currents of the warp are shifted so that enemy psykers are consumed by the horrendous backfire of their arcane machinations. Such malefic dissimulation can even allow the Sorcerers of a thrallband to enter the mind of an enemy general, reaping from them battle plans or erasing carefully considered countermeasures from their memories. As combat commences the general’s army faces impossibly superior intelligence, and the Thousand Sons slaughter their floundering opponents with brutal precision.

For thousands of years the Sons of Magnus have been a scourge upon the galaxy, and over that time many amongst their ranks have fallen in battle. But the Rubric of Ahriman – whilst stripping the Legion’s warriors of their corporeality – rendered those it touched immortal. The dust containing the remnant essence of these warriors has been poured out on countless battlefields, blown from rents blasted in their arcanely sealed armour and trampled into the mud. When drawn together by

a Sorcerer, the warrior’s essence can be rejoined with its armour and the spectral soldier can rise once more. Sorcerers seeking to raise an army of Rubricae hunt out the remains of the fallen, burning to the ground cities that have been built atop forgotten sites of battle. Any surviving inhabitants are swiftly massacred by the newly risen warriors. Ambitious Sorcerers also go to great lengths to procure Daemon Engines with which they can loose even greater destruction upon their enemies. Fell pacts are made with Warpsmiths and the devotees of the Dark Mechanicum who forge abominations of metal infused with empyric entities – the Thousand Sons offering sorcerous knowledge in exchange for the creation of these daemonic machines. Such pacts are fraught with treachery, for both the Thousand Sons and the Chaos smiths seek only to further their own standing with the Ruinous Powers, and will gladly betray one another when they can find an opportunity. There are some in the galaxy for whom the Thousand Sons’ hatred burns more brightly than others – the Space Wolves who sundered their home world, the Death Guard who worship the Rot Lord Nurgle – but all who bar the paths laid out

by Tzeentch feel the piercing gaze of the Thousand Sons bear down upon them. Of late, the Aeldari known as the Harlequins have been subjected to this focused fury, for these guardians of the webway seek to protect their labyrinth dimension from the passage of Magnus’ Legion. A sect of the Thousand Sons may join forces with the warbands of another Chaos Legion, only to turn upon their allies when the fickle winds of fate shift, or they may drive xenos invaders from an Imperial world only to sacrifice the planet’s population in a pyric ritual. Individual sects within the Thousand Sons may even go to war with one another as the cryptic machinations of the Great Conspirator set kin against kin. In this seeming madness lies the method of Tzeentch. Through continual anarchy and upheaval his will is made manifest throughout the galaxy, and upon his favoured mortal champions he bestows his manifold gifts. Ultimately, each Sorcerer in the Thousand Sons is driven by selfish desire. Their thirst for arcane power is insatiable, leading them inexorably down the path that leads towards daemonhood. Only those most faithful to their patron god receive this blessing, and in their wake they leave centuries of anguish and destruction.

ANNALS OF THE ARCANE For ten millennia, the Thousand Sons have fought in the Long War against the Imperium, winding the strands of fate to their own malign purposes. Armies, civilizations and countless worlds have burnt in their blasphemous wars, and from the ashes of these conflagrations ever greater horrors have been brought into being.

M31 THE GREAT CHANGE The Burning of Prospero Leman Russ and his Space Wolves, along with contingents of the Legio Custodes and the Sisters of Silence, arrive on the Thousand Sons’ home world to carry out the execution of Magnus’ Legion. The savagery they unleash leaves the planet in flames and the Thousand Sons fighting for their very existence. Though Magnus is felled by the Wolf King, he is able to cast a spell to spirit himself and his sons away, saving their lives but damning them for eternity by pledging his allegiance to Tzeentch. The names of those who despoiled Prospero are never forgotten by the Thousand Sons.

The Horus Heresy The Thousand Sons join Horus and the other Chaos Legions as they strive to annihilate the Imperium. Though they fail to reduce Terra to cinders, the Sons of Magnus delve deep into the Emperor’s Palace, learning many of his hidden secrets before retreating to the Eye of Terror.

The Rubric of Ahriman Ahriman and his cabal weave a great spell in an attempt to rid the Legion of their harrowing mutations. When unleashed, this Rubric reduces the vast majority of the Thousand Sons to dust, and entombs what remains of their spirits within warpinfused armour. Discovering what his most trusted son has wrought upon the Legion, Magnus becomes enraged, but Tzeentch intervenes and Magnus spares Ahriman’s life, instead casting him out as an exile.

M32-M41 AGE OF SECRECY Siege of the Fang Magnus’ vengeful gaze falls upon Fenris, and through a series of false visions he lures the Great Companies of the Space Wolves away from their lair. His assault on Fenris itself is devastating, but is at last repelled by warriors led by Bjorn the Fell-Handed.

The Athenaeum of Kallimakus Ahriman travels to Apollonia, where the works of Kallimakus the Remembrancer are guarded by a fanatical sect of warrior priests. These tomes are held in a grand

citadel known as the Athenaeum, and contain records of the Thousand Sons Legion from the time of the Great Crusade. After a month-long siege, the defenders lie broken before Ahriman’s forces. The ArchSorcerer plunders the writings from their vault before burning the library to ashes, intending that only he should hold the secrets contained within their pages.

Omen of Omniscience Hasophet, Magister of the Mind-Eaters thrallband, receives a vision of his Tzeentch-ordained destiny. He sees a time in his future when he will devour the thoughts and memories of an entire world, and in doing so will achieve apotheosis. The Mind-Eaters embark on the first of nine hundred and ninety-nine rites that will lead to this portended moment.

The Feral War Whilst mining the feral world of Aggaros, the Adeptus Mechanicus engage in what at first seems like an embarrassingly onesided battle – that is until the primitives bring their flame-tongued shamans into the fray. The armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus find themselves burnt from the inside or crushed flat by invisible forces. The retreating Tech-Priests call in an old debt from the Relictors in order to renew the attack. Four days later, the Relictors’ 3rd Company fights its way through psychic pyrotechnics of bewildering force to reach the hidden city of primitive tribes. Lining every road are dust-caked statues of the Thousand Sons facing a colossal effigy of Ahriman atop a pyramid of obsidian. When it is toppled, every one of the Thousand Sons comes to life, shrugging off the dust of centuries and opening fire on the Relictors with a hail of bolts. Not one of the Adeptus Mechanicus, nor their Relictor allies, survives.

First War in the Webway A coven of Sorcerers from the Kindled Spirits thrallband conducts a great ritual in the webway, hoping to gain access to the scream-filled city of Commorragh, the home of the Drukhari. Before their ritual is complete, hundreds of Drukhari, led by troupes of Harlequins, pour from an invisible portal and launch themselves at

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the Rubricae defending the coven. With their spell sundered, the Kindled Spirits counter-attack, their blasts of warpflame eventually breaching the fabric of the webway itself. As the arterial walls of the webway buckle and collapse outwards, the backlash strands the combatants in a shattered pocket-reality with no way out. There are whispers that the fighting has continued ever since, and that each warrior is fated to die and be reborn in an endless cycle for the rest of time.

M41 AGE OF UNVEILING The Sacking of the Etiamnun Reclusiam Mordant Hex, Sorcerer Lord of the SixCursed, is sent by Ahriman to the barren, airless planet of Etiamnun III on the distant Eastern Fringe. The arrival of Thousand Sons drop-ships shatters the peace that had shrouded the world for millennia, though the small community of hermits gathered within the central monastery meets the arrival with quiet, contemplative acceptance. Hex’s forces advance steadily through the mountain passes, directly towards the gates of the hermitage where he strikes the giant adamantium doors nine times. As the doors yawn open, many of those inside are wrenched into the cold vacuum of the planet’s surface, while those who remain in sealed chambers are swiftly hunted down and massacred. Even facing death at the hands of the Six-Cursed, the inhabitants give little or no resistance. When all are dead, Hex descends into the heart of the mountain complex, to a longforgotten chamber buried under layers of ancient Imperial construction. Within the chamber is the prize for which Hex was sent – an entrance to the webway.

Fortress of Infinities The Imperial Fists strike force Anvil of Dorn boards a fire-wreathed space hulk on the western fringe of the Segmentum Solar. Within, they encounter Manat, Exalted Sorcerer of the Cult of Time, and after a gruelling war of attrition through mutating corridors, Captain Dantarian strikes down the Thousand Sons warlord in single combat. But in the moment of the Exalted Sorcerer’s death there is a crack of aetheric power, and the Imperial

Fists find themselves back on their strike cruiser, preparing to board the space hulk as though for the first time. Only an unquiet flicker buried deep within each battle-brother’s psyche suggests they may have walked this path before, and none can determine why they seem to have sustained so many casualties before even engaging the enemy. They battle Manat again, and again the Exalted Sorcerer’s death transports them to the moment before the siege. After eight iterations the Anvil of Dorn is all but obliterated, and the ninth sees Captain Dantarian alone march aboard the space hulk, there to meet his death against the laughing Manat.

Threading the Labyrinth After years of gruesome crusades within the webway, Ahriman approaches the location of the Black Library, a vast and ancient repository of Aeldari knowledge. The Arch-Sorcerer bypasses the sanctum’s Harlequin defenders and spectral guardians by projecting himself inside the Black Library’s halls, allowing his physical body to transcribe onto hermetic parchment what his astral self sees. In doing so, he is able to create a copy of the fabled Tome Labyrinthus, the map to the hidden passages of the webway.

to the Planet of the Sorcerers. There he entreats the Arch-Sorcerer to once more work with him towards a common goal.

A Curse Returns Shortly after reuniting with their long-lost Wulfen brethren, the Space Wolves find their home system engulfed by raging warp storms and a massive daemonic invasion. The Grey Knights and Dark Angels arrive to aid the Sons of Russ in expelling the threat, but the Imperial forces are coerced into a state of infighting by one of Tzeentch’s most devious Daemon servants – the Changeling. It is the Grey Knights who first notice the warp storms forming a pattern, one recorded in their oldest tomes of lore and not seen in the galaxy for ten thousand years. It is a symbol of vengeance last used on Prospero by the Thousand Sons.

Destinies Entwined To enact a plan that will transform the galaxy forever, Magnus the Red summons his exiled son – Ahzek Ahriman – back

It is only when the neighbouring planet of Midgardia is destroyed that the Silver Towers disappear from the system, but any Imperial celebration is premature – unbeknownst to the Space Wolves, the psychic harvest reaped by the towers from Midgardia’s demise has given Magnus the power he needs to enact a plan of unimaginable scope.

The Blood-filled Gullet

Crystallised Night An endless psychic scream lures Vasellisk the Shrouded, Sorcerer warlord of the Night Lords, to the obsidian mines on Xanthematos. As his warband sets about butchering the Imperial work crews, the terror of those slain continues to linger in the form of disembodied warp-gheists. The sight of spectral figures crowding the mines and howling with fear blinds Vasellisk to the true sorcery at play, for the planet has been hex-bound by Hasophet and his Mind-Eaters. As Vasellisk revels in the resonant terror, the Mind-Eaters seal the mines with the Night Lords inside. In the final twist of Hasophet’s curse, the spirits of the dead burst into warpfire, filling the subterranean tunnels with screaming flame. By the time the mines are reopened, every last Night Lord has been reduced to ash – all except for Vasellisk the Shrouded, whose body has been melted into a lump of dark glass. This Shrouded Crystal is the foreseen prize of Hasophet’s seven hundred and sixty-fifth rite, and it pulses with the psychic energy of the Sorcerer it once was.

conflux of dark magics creates a weak point in reality – a doorway through which strides the Daemon Primarch Magnus. The Crimson King joins with Ahriman and his other most powerful acolytes, and together they begin their rituals in the hearts of the Silver Towers. The resultant flow of mutagenic energy ravages the surface of Fenris, causing the molten magma powering the Fang to fill with Daemons and bubble up to the surface.

A World for a World As the home system of the Space Wolves is being overrun by Daemons, nine Silver Towers appear in the skies above Fenris. From their warped halls pour ranks of Thousand Sons, ready to wreak vengeance on the Chapter that destroyed their home world. Swarms of braying Tzaangors and mutated Cultists charge across the frozen plains, with Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators marching close behind. From hidden portals more Thousand Sons emerge onto the Fenrisian steeps, exiles brought back into the fold by Ahriman. By following the Arch-Sorcerer through the webway they are able to take the Space Wolves and their allies by surprise, incinerating the Adeptus Astartes with crackling psychic energy as they burst from the labyrinthine dimension. As the Imperial lines hold out against the onslaught, the Silver Towers align with sites of geomantic power and begin siphoning the internal energy of Fenris, and on the third day the air is riven with fire. Sorcerers around the planet pour their psychic energy into this sky-fire, and within each of the Silver Towers a captive Space Wolf is boiled alive in a cauldron of gore. The

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With the Fang’s defences disabled, the Thousand Sons march towards the Space Wolves citadel. But it is in the Wolf ’s Gullet canyon that the defenders of Fenris make their stand. Magnus himself towers above the fire and the fury, shredding tanks, attack craft and squads of Space Marines with bolts of coruscating warp energy. Hoping to fell the Daemon Primarch, Egil Iron Wolf fires a lascannon blast at Magnus’ cyclopean eye, but with a thought the Crimson King freezes the bolt in mid-air before translocating Egil in front of his own shot and allowing the las-beam to incinerate its firer. This momentary distraction gives the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar the opening he needs to cleave the Axe Morkai through Magnus’ armour, breaking the protective wards formed by the Blue Scribes of Tzeentch. As Magnus howls in pain, a gleaming throng of Grey Knight Purifiers begin to incant the rites of banishment. The white flames pouring from their blades envelop Magnus, and in a flare of light brighter than the Fenrisian sun, the Crimson King, the Thousand Sons and their daemonic hordes are banished back to the warp. The defenders of Fenris believe they have halted whatever dark plan Magnus had, but far across the stars there is a rumbling in the void…

Magic Made Manifest Powered by the death of Midgardia and its inhabitants, the Planet of the Sorcerers bursts violently from the warp into realspace, coming to rest in sight of the burnt husk of Prospero. Sitting atop his throne, Magnus gazes outwards at a galaxy irrevocably changed.

Dark Confluence Abaddon the Despoiler unites the fractious Traitor Legions in preparation for his Thirteenth Black Crusade. Magnus the Red refuses Abaddon’s call to war, but Ahriman sees potential in the scale of the Despoiler’s plans. The Arch-Sorcerer sends several thrallbands towards the ice moon of Klaisus in the Cadia System, ostensibly in aid of the Despoiler’s building crusade. However, their movements are a distraction designed to cover Ahriman’s true motivations, for he foresees that this moon will soon become a nexus of fate in the schemes of Tzeentch.

Wages of Change After undermining the millennium-long battle plan of Korthuphos – an Exalted Sorcerer of the Cult of Magic – Hasophet is challenged to a psychic duel. As the two lock minds in combat it is clear that Korthuphos is the more powerful psyker, but Hasophet unsheathes the Dagger of Reflections, acquired centuries ago during his eighty-seventh rite. The mind-flames cast out by Korthuphos are drawn towards the shimmering dagger before being forced back in a thunderous wave, pulverising the brain matter of the Exalted Sorcerer. Korthuphos begins to slump over with liquid oozing from his helm, but before he hits the ground Hasophet plunges the ensorcelled dagger into his fallen opponent’s chest, carving out his stillbeating hearts. They are the trophies of his eight hundred and twenty-eighth rite.

As Ahriman prepares to wrench the knowledge he seeks from his dying captives, Yvraine – the Ynnari emissary of the recently awakened God of the Dead – demonstrates the power she can offer by restoring to life a dozen Rubric Marines. The resurrected Thousand Sons are staggered by their sudden awakening, knowing not where they are or who they fight, yet they recognise their battle-brother Ahzek Ahriman whom they have not beheld with living eyes for ten millennia. Filled with a mixture of elation and grief at seeing his warriors restored, Ahriman yanks Ynnead’s luminaries back inside the webway before they perish. No sooner than the Triumvirate are safe, a Wraithknight slices through the superstructure of the tunnel, creating a yawning chasm between the Aeldari and the Thousand Sons. The Yncarne – Avatar of Ynnead – inhales mightily as the Aeldari forces withdraw, pulling the reanimated Thousand Sons over the precipice into the void. Ahriman screams in horror as these flesh and blood warriors tumble away. They are lost to him once more, but he now knows that the reversal of his Rubric is possible, and he knows who has the power to do it.

Second War in the Webway Hidden daemonic spies seeded throughout the webway draw Ahriman’s eye to the Reborn of the Ynnari, for in their resurrection he sees hope for his own fallen Legion. In the wake of Cadia’s fall during the Thirteenth Black Crusade, the Arch-Sorcerer leads a contingent of Thousand Sons into the webway, there to lay an ambush for the unsuspecting Aeldari forces that are rushing towards Klaisus. Just as the Ynnari are entering the Psychedelta, Ahriman sacrifices nine hundred and ninety-nine captives to Tzeentch to complete his ritual of translocation, shifting him, his warriors and his Daemon thralls to the Ynnari’s location. Warpfire, ensorcelled bolts and the flicker of monomolecular blades fill the fractal tunnels as the armies clash. In the midst of the carnage, Ahriman creates a void-like pocket reality outside the walls of the webway, and into this emptiness he transports the champions of the enemy, the Triumvirate of Ynnead.

An Ancient Foe Awakens Word reaches Magnus of the resurrection of Roboute Guilliman. Knowing the loyalist warlord will try to reunite with the Emperor on Terra, Magnus reads the fluctuating strands of fate to divine his brother’s path. He leads his armada to the edge of the raging nether-realm of warp storms known as the Maelstrom, and there waits for the arrival of the Terran Crusade. When Guilliman’s fleet emerges from its warp-jump, it is greeted with pummelling fire from the heretic craft. Against overwhelming numbers and the element of surprise, Guilliman is still somehow able to direct the Imperial ships to hold out. But the Crimson King calls to the warp, summoning coiling tendrils of power to coalesce around the ships of the Terran Crusade, drawing them into the Maelstrom. Magnus knows this is not the hour of the loyalist Primarch’s death, but Guilliman’s fate has been set on a path most suited to the Crimson King’s designs.

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Gods of War Magnus waits for Roboute Guilliman to make his way to Terra, but instead of travelling to the portal beneath the Emperor’s Palace, as Magnus had hoped, the Terran Crusade emerges on Luna. Nevertheless, Magnus follows the beleaguered Imperial force, storming from the webway onto the moon’s surface to stand beneath the orb of Holy Terra. As Magnus and Guilliman behold each other, the Crimson King smiles in anticipation of the combat to come. His Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators advance upon the Imperial forces, spraying them with gouts of warpfire and fusillades of inferno bolts. Magnus’ psychic might erupts in a destructive nova, shattering the bodies of his enemies and shielding his own forces from harm. Guilliman then launches himself at Magnus, and the moon’s crust trembles with the impact of their blows. Across the plains, craters and wreckage of ancient frigates the two demigods battle, Guilliman a titan of martial prowess, Magnus armed with the unbridled sorceries of the warp. As the Primarchs fight, the ranks of Thousand Sons continue to pour unending fire into the remnants of the Terran Crusade and their Imperial reinforcements. Guilliman’s ally – the Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker – weaves her own magic to undo the runic bindings placed by the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons on the webway portal. With a roar of hate and rage Guilliman strikes his opponent, while Magnus unleashes an uncontrolled sorcerous blast. The resulting shock wave sends the Crimson King reeling back through the portal, and in a fateful instant Veilwalker seals the gateway behind him. Within the labyrinth-dimension Magnus roars in fury. The day he saw fated to visit ruin on the Emperor has been taken from him. But his anger is short-lived, for looking to the future he sees a great darkness that will soon envelop the Imperium, and many paths of fate that will lead him to the vengeance he seeks…

The Galaxy Ruptures The baleful energies emanating from the Planet of the Sorcerers intermingle with that of countless gathering warp storms, rending the galaxy across its length. The massive outpouring of mutative power destroys entire systems and briefly extinguishes the Astronomican – the Emperor’s guiding light that unites the Imperium. Laughter and gleeful snarls echo deep within the Chaos dimension.

M41 AGE OF BURNING Broken Shield The Cult of Manipulation forge a hex to extinguish the Aspis star in Segmentum Solar. The growing solar storm alerts the Adeptus Custodes to the Thousand Sons’ machinations, and a squad of Allarus Custodians, joined by a Grey Knights strike force and a large contingent of Skitarii, set out to locate and eradicate the cabal, but as they approach the Aspis System an enormous solar flare separates the Imperial forces. While the Grey Knights and Skitarii find and destroy the profane wards sustaining the hex, the Adeptus Custodes are sent adrift through the warp, into the clutches of the waiting Thousand Sons.

The Stygius Kingdom Magnus the Red leads a devastating assault on the Stygius Sector. Cut off from the Astronomican, the Imperial defenders fall quickly to Cultist uprisings, daemonic invasions and attacks from scores of thrallbands. Only the stubbornness of the Mordian Iron Guard and the arrival of the Aeldari prevent the system from being overrun, though even these events have long been foreseen by Magnus, and are part of his wider plan for the transformation of Stygius.

The Beast Within On the high-grav world of Krachordia, the abhuman Ogryn tribes hunt down a mutant beast that has been roaming the stalagmite jungle. As they hack the writhing creature apart, they find an undulating sac lodged within its innards. The hunters feel a strange inclination to recover this mysterious growth, and so bring it to the tribal elders who deem it ‘good’ and place it in the centre of their settlement. Over time the sac begins to shed light of multiple hues. Eventually it splits open and from within emerges a creature radiant and beautiful to the eyes of the tribesmen. To them it resembles a perfectly formed human, and they weep in the presence of its magnificence. As they fall to their knees in worship their own bodies begin to change, becoming more like the being they adore. Months later, the Astra Militarum fleets arrive to collect their tithe of warriors from Krachordia. They find no trace of the Ogryn tribes – only a world overrun with hulking Chaos Spawn.

The Impassable Sea Space Wolves from Engir Krakendoom’s Great Company set a course for Prospero, hoping to reach the Planet of the Sorcerers and once more bring ruin to the Thousand

Sons’ home world. But no matter what path they take, eerily sentient warp eddies fling them far off track.

A cloud of particulate dust falls over the heavily fortified spire-convent of the Sisters of Silence on Gassima. It is soon followed by a more destructive storm as suits of Rubric armour bearing the sigil of the Blades of Magnus fall from the sky like meteors, smashing through vaulted ceilings and cratering the courtyards. As the Sisters of Silence reel from the bombardment, sheets of lightning crack through the atmosphere and the dust cloud coalesces around the lifeless Rubric suits. The dust – which is in fact the essence of Thousand Sons warriors – pours into the armour, and one by one they stand up and raise their weapons. The spire-convent is obliterated in the battle, and every Sister of Silence slaughtered, though even faced with death not one allows herself to scream.

combatants on Mangel III, siphoning their very life force into the Sorcerer. But as the Grand Conspirator’s changes take hold Hasophet screams in agony. The armies on the horizon are pulled physically towards him like gnats caught in a thundering vortex. Ranks of screaming bodies and enormous war engines fly across the darkened land, colliding with Hasophet where they are quickly absorbed by his warping form. His body devours metal and flesh with equal voraciousness as it continues to grow, howling in excruciation from newly forming maws. His mass pupates, not into the form of a Daemon Prince, but to that of a Mutalith Vortex Beast. The warp vortex emanating from the hideous creature extends outwards with each newly consumed sacrifice until it encircles the planet, and with a final mind-tearing scream Mangel III itself is torn from realspace. In its place there is left only a perpetual dark shroud and an echo of Hasophet’s final, pitiful cry.

Power Unbound

The Subsumation of the Exiles

In their war with the Necrons of the Nephrekh Dynasty, the Silver Sons loose a quartet of Heldrakes upon a Tesseract Vault. The winged monstrosities tear the prison open, freeing the C’tan Shard within and allowing it to begin a years-long rampage through Nephrekh space.