I am relatively new to Epic, having played 40k for a while. I was looking over the Chaos rules (since I play Thousand Sons) and I found a line that confused me:

Prohibited Units:
Chaos Veteran Marines and Terminators (replaced by Automatons)

Looking at this from a 40k standpoint, this seems unrealistic and even detrimental to Tzeentch armies. The Automatons are the "Rubric Marines" used by the Thousand Sons. So for starters they're a unit unique to the Sons, not Chaos Renegades who worship Tzeentch. Thusly the Thousans Sons Century is listed as 2 CSM Detachments and an Automaton Squad.

That said, the prohibition on Veterans and Terminators makes no sense. Chaos Renegades have the same access to veterans and terminator armor as any 2nd Founding Chapters. As for the Thousand Sons, they follow a different sort of rule. Thanks to the Rubric of Ahriman, there are no "normal" CSM in the Legion. All of the Thousand Sons are either Sorcerers or Rubrics. So instead of Veterans and Terminators they would have Sorcerers and Rubric Terminators.

I spoke to someone from the NetEpic Dev team and they suggested I join the forums to discuss new rules for Tzeentch army lists and the Thousand Sons Legion. Here are my three proposals: Tzeentch armies can take Veterans and Terminators like normal, Only Thousand Sons can take Automatons (I prefer Rubric Marines personally but that's immaterial), and Thousand Sons armies replace all Veteran stands with Tzeentch Magi stands (or some similar Psyker) and all Terminator stands with Rubric Terminator (or Automaton Terminator) stands.

Isn't that essentially what the current rules try and represent? Only a Tzeentch pure force is prohibited from taking Terminators/Veterans, a generic Chaos Marine force can still take them. Tzeentch already have access to Magi (and darned fine ones they are). I'd not support the suggestion to take away all of Tzeentch's CSMs however as:

a) Most of the NetEpic changes are based on 2nd Ed 40K codexi and if we updated everything every time GW change their fluff we'd be forever chasing our tail,
b) even the current fluff I've read only says most of the T-Sons were changed into Rubric marines and
c) most importantly, game wise that'd suck moderately hard.

On Terminators for T-Sons, I don't really pay attention to 40K these days. I didn't think Tzeentch Termies existed in 3rd/4th. Are the Rubric Terminators a new thing in 5th ed? If they are a big thing in Tzeentch forces it wouldn't be hard to add them as a new detachment option (as long as Warmaster Nice doesn't have an aneurysm that is ).

I think it would be easy and probably non-disruptive to the Gold process to change the name to Rubric Marines. As a regular Chaos player and often times fielder of the Thousand Sons I wouldn't be much in favour of forcing Tzeentch to lose all its regular CSMs though.

Well, I wasn't particularly for replacing all CSMs with Rubrics/Automatons. My main point was veterans and terminators. Most Tzeentch veterans are sorcerers. Tzeentch Magi are pretty scary, so I was thinking maybe something like Thrall Wizards or Aspiring Sorcerers to replace Tzeentch veterans. Something like this:

Aspiring Sorcerer Move: 10cm, Save 6+, CAF +0, Doombolt 30cm, Atk 1, To-Hit 3+, TSM -2, HQ, Psyker, PsySave 4+

which is a little step up from the Renegade Psyker, though we could always just replace Veterans with Renegade Psykers.

As for Rubric Terminators, they were in the 3rd edition Chaos Codex, removed in the 4th edition Codex, and then brought back in Apocalypse. They function like Rubrics/Automatons, except their stat line would probably look like this:

Rubric Terminator, Move: 10cm, Save 4+/5+f, CAF +4, Storm Bolter 35cm, Atk 2, To-Hit 4+, TSM -1, Elite, Fearless, Unbreakable, Inorganic, and never receive Fall Back orders.

I am willing to work with anyone and everyone to balance and play test this.

I doubt they'd need much playtesting as long as they were costed responsibly. I doubt either will be gamebreaking. As a suggestion I would probably remove Elite from any Rubric unit though...they are robots not Rambo! You probably couldn't reasonably give the Aspiring Sorcerors HQ protection either.

You just need to ask Warmaster Nice if it is possible to fit the changes into the Gold book without major reorganisation, and have suitable photographs of the unit ready. I'd say pretty please (cause otherwise it's off to the Optionals book)

Ok, I'll drop Elite and HQ from the entries and work up entries for the Warmaster. Obviously they'd be slightly more expensive than Renegade Psykers and Chaos Terminators respectively. Thanks for your input.

Cool, I look forward to seeing them