Desert Nomad, History Buff, Sorcerer Extraordinaire

It seems that I have plenty of time on my hands these days! I now live in the middle of New Mexico, in the desert, and I often find myself doing things like watching all nine seasons of Smallville in a single month. With all that time on my hands, how can I not create some new 40K armies, paint them, blog about them, and watch all five seasons of Supernatural?!

So what have I been into for the past two years? Pre-heresy Space Marines seem to be the most thematically attractive thing I've come across; I made three of them. I began with the Death Guard and World Eaters, subsequently revising both armies for 5th Edition. I moved on to the Emperor's Children last summer, incorporating a few more conversions than the first two armies. Now, finally, I find myself wanting to complete the classic quadruplet of pre-corruption by creating the Thousand Sons.

The question really is: What the hell kind of codex should I use to make them? Until now I've been using the 5th Edition Codex: Space Marines. Do I stick with this or go with Codex: Chaos Space Marines? The SM book allows me to play the 1Ksons as loyalists, using loyalist gear, vehicles, and characters that make them feel like they are still the good guys. However, the CSM book allows me to incorporate lots of sorcerers! I don't much care for the actual 1Ksons troop units because they don't feel like they're pre-heresy; they feel like robots. There's also a lot of inconsistency between the 1Ksons troop units and other CSM units I would like to use (like Raptors and Havocs (meaning that the troops have totally different saves and traits - 4++ and fearless).

I suppose that the theme issue of 'lots of sorcerers with psychic powers' can be addressed by having a SM command squad that all carry power weapons (force weapons) and plasma pistols (short-range blasts of psychic energy emanating from their hands)... not to mention I can use a Librarian with a jump pack to head-up a unit of assault marines. 1Ksons assault marines!? Who would've known?!

So I'm off to juggle the pros and cons of these two prospective 'counts as' lists...