Help choosing a thinkpad

Hello there.

I was looking to buy a refurbished thinkpad, as I've heard that thinkpads are really good laptops, to replace my 10+ year old hp laptop, and was hoping for some advice on which one to choose with a budget of around $300-400.

I'm mainly planning on using it to game (mainly modded skyrim/fall out 4, but definitely nothing new) but I'm used to playing games on a primarily office laptop, so it doesn't bother me too much

I'm also planning on upgrading to linux basically as soon as I get it!

Thank you in advance! :D