Goatboy here, the Emperor’s Children are coming in a pretty fancy new box set with a pretty codex, some cards, and a ton of awesome models. Let’s see how the Third Legion stacks up on the tabletop!
As usual I will go over the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the newest book we have hitting our greedy little hands. It is an interesting codex and while I think it needs tweaks to help it out later there are some cool design ideas in there. Also there are a ton of awesome models to look at and build. Overall I am ok with it, as I see a list I like to play out of it. But the Emperor’s Children have a long way to go to match up to the sheer ferocity of the World Eaters.
Codex Emperor’s Children – The Good
The biggest thing is it is a new codex and with it you see a new “path” forward for Daemons and the other Cult Legion codices we’ll see in the very near future. I will talk more about the Cult books next week as I wax poetic on what is coming down for the other favored sons of the Chaos Gods. This book is all about Slaanesh and its overall theme feels very Slaanesh like. You have highly skilled warriors who want to show off versus each other which could be a determent to the army working.
Thrill Seekers – Awesome, but Complex
The main rule – Thrill Seekers – is an interesting one and while powerful individually I think it suffers from being something players will forget about in the heat of the moment. The basic rule is that everyone can advance, shoot, fallback, shoot, and charge. The only caveat is that units can only do that versus a unit that hasn’t been targeted already. This means that when doing any of your shooting or charging you will have to carefully plan out the order of units that have to advance to charge and the units that don’t need too. This way you can make sure your Advancing ones go in first while your non advance ones can gang up later. It is the same with any shooting option or fallback option as well. You are going to have to be very careful with your movement and make sure you don’t screw yourself over by accidentally picking the wrong unit order.
Peerless Bladesmen
From there we have a pile of new detachments. There are three that I think might have some legs to it. Each of them plays differently which is a pretty cool thing. My favorite and most likely the one I will be playing the most is the straight forward option called Peerless Bladesmen. This one lets you pick either lethal hits or sustained hits 1 when your unit charges into combat. This is very simple, easy, and does well with an army full of nutty monsters who want to get into combat. You have 3 Enhancements that seem interesting with a once per turn Fights first option, a +1 to damage/attacks option, and a free heroic charge option. You also have a weird fights again but only if you are within engagement range of 3 units. I think it will be hard to get within 3 units but who knows.
You have 6 combat based Stratagems as well. You have a 1CP -1 to be hit in combat option which will be useful called Deft Parry. You have a 2CP auto fight on death option too with Death Ecstasy. Cruel Bladesmen gives you an extra 1AP on your melee attacks for 1CP. You even have a counter charge after a Fallback move for 2CP called Cut Down the Weak. You get a 6′ consolidation for 1CP called Incessant Violence. Overall it is a pretty nice set of Strats that you will use with your Close Combat focused Peerless Bladesmen.
Rapid Evisceration
The next detachment I like is the Rhino based one. If you don’t know the Emperor’s Children Rhino is different from others in that it lets you get out after it has moved. The detachment is called Rapid Evisceration and it grants your units that get out of vehicles a Reroll hits of 1 and Reroll wound rolls of 1. This is just any attack so it hits both shooting and assault for those fun times you can do with Land Raiders. There are 4 enhancements with some fun ones. One of them allows a model and the unit they are within a Vehicle to come onto the battlefield from reserves as it is one turn earlier that is called Sublime Prescience. This gets fun with a Land Raider full of Infractors. Another one lets the character and unit attached not get overwatched called Spearhead Striker. The last one I like is Heretek Adept that lets you blank a damage on a vehicle you are near.
There are 6 Stratagems that all cost 1CP which is a pretty cool thing. There is the ability for the Tormentor’s unit in a transport to sticky an objective called Advance and Claim. There is another one that lets a unit charge after getting out of a Rhino that has moved named Ceaseless Onslaught. There is also one that lets you put vehicles back into reserves when they are near the board edge called Outflanking Strike. If you can’t tell, Rhinos are really important to the Emperor’s Children.
Carnival of Excess
Finally there is a detachment called Carnival of Excess. This is the combo Slaanesh Daemon and Emperor’s Children detachment. Their rule is if they are near each other they both are empowered and gain Sustained Hits 1. If they have a rule similar to this they gain Critical Hits on a 5+ if empowered. It is one of the more interesting options as you can take up to 1000 points of Daemons if needed without any real “restrictions” on needing Battleline options. This could mean a crap ton of Fiends that run around your Vehicles/Friends and trip to amplify their damage with Noise Marines getting a 5+ sustained hit. The enhancements really only have this cool Possessed Blade that lets you get +1 attack and you can activate it to get a +1 to damage with Devastating wounds and Hazardous on the attack. That seems pretty good for a Daemon Prince to take. There is even one for your Keeper of Secrets that lets you auto 6″ on your advance roll and move through models called Warp Walker.
There are 6 stratagems you can use with a regeneration option that either gets you 3 wounds or d3+3 Daemonette Models back to you for 1CP called Sustained by Agony. There is a 2CP 6″ consolidation move called Violent Crescendo that lets you choose some Daemons if needed. We have a 1CP advance and Charge option for your Daemons from the Legions of Excess named Sycopantic Surge. You have a -1 to be shot at for 1CP called Uncanny Reactions. Dark Apparitions is a 2CP pick up a Daemonette and redeploy them within 6″ of the enemy if they can be placed within 9″ of an Emperor’s Children unit.
Cool New EC Units
Of the new units we have access to my favorite right is Lucius the Eternal, Lord Kakophonist, Flawless Blades, and Noise Marines. The other units are ok and I think some of the troop stuff might be useable but will talk about it a bit more. Let’s start with Lucius who is an absolute powerhouse. He comes in as a Lone Operative if he is by himself, has a 5+ Feel No Pain, and a flat damage 3 attack. He rerolls all hits and wounds versus Characters, Vehicles, and Monsters. He fights first if he is by himself and his sword has Precision to just really wreck someone. He will be showing up a ton as he is one of the few ways to get a nice stalking little unit that runs through buildings and is scary to see behind a wall.
The Lord Kakophonist is the Noise Marine leader and is one of those interesting units that help amplify the Noise Marines. He comes at you by granting their guns Sustained Hits 1 and has two Screamer Pistols. He runs around with a 2+ save, 4+ invulnerable save, and he can pick a unit hit by his units attacks and get a chance to do some mortal wounds. He leads the Noise Marines who are like sonic Havoks for the Emperor’s Children. All their guns ignore cover and while short range at 18″ they can shoot out a lot of attacks. Their Blast Masters are strength 10, AP -2, and Flat 3 damage at 3 shots a piece which can put out the hurting. I like the idea of running 2 units of these with their Lord ready to pop out of a Rhino as their Battleline Friends hope out and try to sticky something.
The Flawless Blades are almost there and while I have included them in the good section they need some work. These are the “Eightbound” variants for the Emperor’s Children army who come in with 3 Attacks each, hitting on 2’s and always wounding on 3’s. I really think they should have had an extra Attack or at least gone to Damage 3 to make them truly scary. Right now they need a bit of work but in Peerless Blades they can get Sustained hits 1 to help them out. Lucius can attach to them and gain the 3+ critical wounds to really wreck stuff as needed.
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Legacy Chaos Units
The good stuff from the old Chaos options are the Rhino (told ya why), both Daemon Princes, Chaos Spawn, Heldrake, and even the Land Raider. The Land Raider is how you will get your Flawless Blades around and other units. It can haul butt around the table, wreck things, and it is one of the only long range weapons you have available. The Heldrake is interesting too as it can be very fast, shoot its weapon, and just bother the enemy quickly. It even does some Mortal wounds if it flys over the enemy which could be a very powerful thing. The Chaos Spawn are also neat too in that they still have OC 1 and get a reactive move if the enemy gets within 9″s of them. It is a Normal move of 6″ which could be used to block things or even “move” away to get out of range.
The two Daemon Princes are what excite me about the army as both seem good. This might be the army that brings back my 4-5 Daemon Prince dream as 3 Flying options are very powerful. The flying one has a flat -1 Damage done to it and they even have a cool tank shock like option where the unit they charge you roll d6’s equal to how many wounds they have left and each 4+ they cause a mortal wound up to 6 wounds. If you have enough Daemon Princes that hit a unit you could be doing a ton of damage. The foot prince gets Lone Operative if it is within 3″ of an Infantry unit as well as granting any Slaanesh units a +1 to the AP value within 6″ of them. They even get to fight on death on a 2+ too which is pretty powerful. There will be a combo of Lucius and a Foot Prince skipping hand in hand as Lucius activates his Lone Op and then he has it himself.
Codex Emperor’s Children – The Bad
I think the biggest failure in the book is that Fulgrim just doesn’t feel needed. All of his rules activate only for himself and while he is very fast and deadly he will run up, kill something, and then get wrecked by the enemy. He has no Feel no Pain options, a weak number of attacks, and yes he can fight first but only if you charge him. I can see him running up, wreck a unit and then Vindicatored in his beautiful face. He just doesn’t do enough for the army to justify his cost and while I don’t want to see him cheaper it just doesn’t feel like you need him.
Also the book doesn’t have any Predators to speak of, for no good reason. It has a serious shooting range issue and it’s really hard to think why they didn’t get any Chaos Tanks like the other armies have. Is this a precursor to the other books losing those tanks? We’ll have to wait and see.
There is also a lot of Daemon units missing from this codex. So we have to wonder if the other “daemon” updates in the three other Cult Legion codices are going to be missing things. Is this how we get a simplified Daemon Index in the future? The book only has Fiends (good), nerfed Daemonettes, Nerfed Keeper, Nerfed Shalaxi, and Seekers. They removed Feel No Pain from both Keeper options and other attack options. I like the idea of using Fiends in the army as they are fast and tough with the ability to still lock people in combat. The Seekers seem neat too as again it is a ton of fast moving wounds you can utilize in one of the detachments to get everyone empowered.
Both of the EC marine troop units feel like they are missing some kind of Heavy Weapon option in either a weird Sonic Weapon for the Tormentors or a power fist equivalent for the regular Infractors. I like both options as I can see some uses for them as they have Precision on their shooting and close combat attacks but I don’t know if they will do enough. It might just be a unit of 5 Tormentors to ride along with their Noise Marine friends in a Rhino to help “sticky” and objective or two.
Codex Emperor’s Children – The Ugly
Really the book feels like some of the units are just missing some things. It feels like a few rules like Feel No Pain, more attacks, and just upgrades are just not there. I like the design ideas presented in the codex and I am excited to play this but it is going to be an uphill battle a lot of the time. It just feels like this book is going to work hard to kill things and just not keep up with their neighbors like the World Eaters who are another crazy assault army. The book also feels hard to get things to work and I have to wonder if they were actually play tested well enough to make sure people could do the things they detachment wants you to do.
All Hail the Third Legion!
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Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I’ve been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on – or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
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