Detachment Focus: Carnival of Excess

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Mercurial Host from the Emperor’s Children.

One of the wrinkles of the Emperor’s Children is having datasheets for Slaanesh Daemons right in the book. The Carnival of Excess is the only way to run these units, giving you a Detachment which lets you combine your Slaanesh-aligned forces into a single synergistic unit on the table. 

Detachment Overview

The Carnival of Excess lets you mash together the forces of Slaanesh, mixing Emperor’s Children with the Legions of Excess units in the same book. This is the only place you can run those datasheets, and doing so gives you some extra bonuses, powering up your Daemons and Emperor’s Children while they’re near each other. This is supplemented by some solid Enhancements and some of the most bonkers Stratagems in the game to make something that’s very enticing.

The Video Version

If you’d rather watch than read about this Detachment, we’ve got you covered with the video version here:

Detachment Rule: Daemonic Empowerment

While an Emperor’s Children unit in your army is within 6” of a Legions of Excess unit, it’s Empowered. While a Legions of Excess unit in your army is within 6” of an Emperor’s Children unit, it’s Empowered. Empowered units get [SUSTAINED HITS 1] on their weapons and if they already had that ability, then they score Critical Hits on a 5+.

Legions of Excess

Your army can include Legions of Excess units, even though they don’t have the Emperor’s Children faction keyword. You can have up to 500 points of them in an Incursion game, 1,000 in Strike Force, and 1,500 in Onslaught. None of these models can be your Warlord.

This is a very solid Detachment rule, though it comes with some caveats. Generally, getting SUSTAINED HITS 1 on all your attacks – shooting or melee – is very good. It’s particularly solid with Noise Marines and the Lord Kakophonist, where you can trigger the Crit 5+ ability, and it works on Fulgrim. But beyond that? You’ll actually find that there are very few sources of SUSTAINED HITS in this army’s Datasheets and the Detachment doesn’t help you there, either. So it’s a good benefit, but that Crit 5+ kicker just won’t happen much.

It’s also worth noting that this Detachment doesn’t give your Legions of Excess the Thrill Seekers rule, so their ability to Advance and Charge will be limited to the use of the Sycophantic Surge Stratagem.

Mike P: Getting Sustained Hits on your Daemons and EC while near each other is great. Note that this isn’t limited to melee attacks, so your ranged weapons can get Sustained Hits (or Critical Hits on a 5+) too. As someone that has played plenty of games with CSM, I can confirm that Sustained Hits on a 5+ is some of the most fun you can have while rolling dice. The big question for Carnival is how much having to keep your Daemons and Emperor’s Children close to each other will hinder your gameplan, as well as figuring out whether the Daemons will be a tax to unlock your synergies or datasheets that you actually want.

Enhancements

Three of these Enhancements go on Emperor’s Children models, while the fourth (Warp Walker), can go on either an Emperor’s Children model or a Keeper of Secrets.

• Empyric Suffusion – Once per battle round, you can target a friendly Slaanesh unit within 6” of the bearer with Heroic Intervention for 0 CP. This is very solid, and being able to tag a nearby unit helps. It’s really great on a Daemon Prince.
• Dark Blessings – Emperor’s Children Infantry model only. Once per battle, just after an enemy unit picks its targets in a phase, you can activate this Enhancement to get a 3+ invulnerable save until the end of the phase. This is a solid durability buff but is really something you’d want on a Daemon Prince. As-is it’s pretty lackluster.
• Possessed Blade – At the start of the battle, pick a melee weapon equipped by the bearer and add 1 to its Attacks characteristic. In addition, each time the bearer is picked to fight, it can use this Enhancement. If it does, while you resolve those Attacks, that weapon gets +1 Damage and gains the [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] and [HAZARDOUS] abilities. Okay now we’re talking. This is the true must-take in the Detachment, and it’s great on either a Daemon Prince or a Lord Exultant. While a D4 Daemon Prince is mighty tasty, it’s worth considering this on a Lord Exultant in a unit of Tormentors, where you can use their re-roll wounds ability to do the standard Chaos Lord trick of fishing for Dev Wounds. Add in his once-per-game ability and you’ll be throwing out nine Attacks with Lethal Hits + Sustained Hits at 3 damage, re-rolling wounds and fishing for Devastating Wounds. That’s pretty great.
• Warp Walker – Goes on an Emperor’s Children or Keeper of Secrets model. When the bearer Advances, they automatically Advance 6”. Additionally, when the bearer makes a Normal, Fall Back, or Advance move they can move through enemy models and Engagement range of enemy units, and will automatically pass all Desperate Escape tests. This is a really solid way to mitigate one of the biggest flaws of the Keeper of Secrets, letting you trivially pass over Screens en route to a key threat. Just note that it won’t work on your charge moves.

Mike P: Possessed Blade is an auto-include, Warp Walker is really good and practically an auto-include, and you can choose from the other two depending on your specific list and how many points you have left over.

Rob: I personally think you’d be crazy not to include Possessed Blade. +1 damage is always amazing.

Stratagems

The six Stratagems in the Carnival of Excess offer some wild abilities. There are some truly unique effects here to play with.

• Sustained by Agony (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the fight phase, after your Emperor’s Children unit kills an enemy unit. You can pick one Friendly Legions of Excess unit within 6” of your EC unit. One model in that unit recovers up to 3 wounds, or if it’s a Daemonettes unit, they get back D3+3 models. This is a solid way to heal, though super situational. Getting back 4-6 Daemonettes is pretty solid if they managed to hold on.
• Ecstatic Slaughter (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase, just after a Legions of Excess unit kills an enemy unit. Pick an Emperor’s Children unit within 6” of it that’s not within Engagement Range of an enemy unit. That EC unit can declare a charge. If it already fought this phase, it cannot fight again. The use case here is that your Daemons unit charged and killed something, possibly with an EC unit, and then once the combat is over, you can have that EC unit just throw out a new out-of-phase charge. This is super situational but can be incredibly nasty, letting you pull off multiple 2D6” moves in the same turn to get into a fight, and letting one unit deal with a cheap screen while the other blows through them to the next target.
  Mike P: This is going to be a bread and butter stratagem in your games, and is especially valuable on a winged Daemon Prince.
• Violent Crescendo (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in the Fight phase on a Slaanesh Beasts, Infantry, or Mounted unit (so no Monsters or Vehicles). Until the end of the phase, your unit can Pile-in or Consolidate up to 6” instead of 3”. When you do this, you don’t have to move closer to the closest enemy model, so long as you end that move as close as possible to the closest enemy unit. This opens up some discussion about closest model vs. closest unit but generally speaking this is amazing for making long slingshot moves that allow you to tag multiple enemy units or, if you’ve already killed your charge target with another unit, shoot past them to tag and kill something else.
• Sycophantic Surge (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Charge phase on a Legions of Excess unit. Until the end of the phase, that unit can charge even if it Advanced or Fell Back, provided its target is within Engagement Range of an Emperor’s Children unit from your army. This is something you desperately need to make Slaanesh Daemons work, but here it’s been gated behind a restriction for inscrutable reasons. It’s a great ability to have, but the extra planning you need to do to make this work really stinks. The consolation prize is that your Chaos Spawn can help with this.
  Mike P: This is going to be very useful because you already want to keep your Daemons and EC close together for the Sustained Hits buffs.
• Uncanny Reactions (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase, after they pick targets. One Slaanesh unit from your army picked as a target gets -1 to be hit for the rest of the phase. This is a solid defensive buff. Always useful.
• Dark Apparitions (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used at the end of your opponent’s Fight phase on a Daemonettes unit in your army that isn’t within Engagement Range of an enemy unit. You can pick that unit up and put it into Strategic Reserves. If you bring it back in the Reinforcements step of your next Movement phase using Deep Strike, you can set it up anywhere more than 6” away from enemy models, provided you set it up wholly within 9” of an Emperor’s Children unit. This is a very, very good ability to have, though it has a host of restrictions that make it more situational. Namely, being limited to Daemonettes and costing 2 CP. Still, it’s good to have for scoring and forcing opponents to screen their backfields.
  Mike P: This is a solid effect, but a 2CP cost and Daemonettes being mediocre means you’ll rarely use this.

Playing This Detachment

If you’re building for this Detachment there are some easy starting decisions to make here. For one, you’re going to want a Warp Walker Keeper of Secrets and at least one unit of Daemonettes to make use of Dark Apparitions. We’d also recommend either a Daemon Prince or Lord Exultant with a Flawless Blade, pairing the latter with a unit of Infractors. Note that a foot Daemon Prince in this army can still proc his Lone Operative ability off the Daemonettes. 

Beyond that, you’ve got more options than you normally would for Emperor’s Children. Even with a reduced ability Fiends remain a strong datasheet, capable of dropping some real pain with their barbed tail and claws, and they benefit strongly from having a Daemon Prince and Keeper of Secrets around, which can help them get to AP-4. Outside of the Detachment ability, Fulgrim doesn’t do anything for the Legions of Excess, and they don’t otherwise do anything for Emperor’s Children, so when you play this you’re really going to be banking on that ability and your Stratagems to get the most out of these units. And that will frequently mean running units in pairs. With Sustained hits on his attacks, Fulgrim is the perfect recipient for the Detachment ability, so pair him with Shalaxi or a Keeper to turn his 12 sweep attacks into 16+. 

Mike P: I want to focus on all of Slaanesh’s beautiful children in my early testing, so I’m going to start my own games with the Carnival of Excess.

I plan to lean on the two powerful Carnival of Excess enhancements, the Possessed Blade and Warp Walker. In this Detachment, a Lord Exultant’s unit can get both Lethal Hits and Sustained Hits. Whenever you can combine both of those, you’ll be able to do damage into a wide variety of targets. The Lord Exultant with the Possessed Blade enhancement attached to a unit of Infractors is one of the hardest hitting combos in the entire codex, and will be a key piece of any Carnival list. 

You’ll also want to include some Noise Marines. Sustained Hits will really help out the Blastmasters. If you’re feeling especially spicy, you can include a Kakophonist to get Sustained Hits on a 5+. Fulgrim will also be an intriguing option for Carnival players, because his weapons innately have Sustained Hits so you can average a greater than 100% conversion rate on your Hit rolls.

The main thing for players to figure out will be which Daemons to bring. Fiends and Seekers seem like smart choices because they can help you play the mission with their speed in addition to handing out the Sustained Hits buff, but if GW gives the Daemons in the Emperor’s Children codex reasonable points cuts then we will suddenly see a lot more variety and spice out of this Detachment. 

Strengths

• Solid offensive buffs. Getting Sustained hits army-wide for shooting and fight is pretty great, even if it does mean needing to have another unit nearby. And Possessed Blade is a must-take.
• Combat Movement. Between off-phase charges, 6” pile-in and consolidate moves, and the ability to advance and charge, you have some of the nastiest combat tricks in the game here. It’ll take some work to make them work, but they’re strong.
• More units. Even with worse datasheets, having access to Slaanesh Daemons is a big help for an army with only 16 choices of its own. Shalaxi and the Keeper pack a nasty melee punch and Fiends are just great.

Weaknesses

• Lots of hoops to jump through. There are some powerful rules here, but they tend to be gated behind a lot of additional requirements, usually requiring another unit to be nearby.
• Need to work in tandem. Requiring other units to be nearby to get your benefits means that your already elite army needs to operate with pairs of units to get their full value, and that’s going to run counter to how Emperor’s Children are built generally.
• No Army Rule for Daemons. The most disappointing part of this Detachment is that your Daemons don’t get the Thrill Seekers army rule. This means they only have one, very limited way to advance and charge, which puts a real damper on this Detachment.

A Sample List

For our Carnival list, we’re going to take a well-rounded mix of units that all benefit from Sustained Hits, giving us both mobility and trading power

Sample List - Click to Expand

The lower cost on Fiends really makes them enticing, and you can pack quite a lot of units into a Carnival of Excess list. It’s worth playing around with these values and units to find something that works, but this list opts for a ton of speed to dart around the table over the raw hitting power you might get from Keepers.

Final Thoughts

The Carnival of Excess offers some intriguing strategic options for the Emperor’s Children player, with some great Stratagems and some additional datasheet variety. It solves one or two of the problems the army has but introduces new complications to work around when using your new units. That said, the movement effects you get here are very good, and experienced players (combat movement perverts in particular) will likely get a kick out of trying to make this Detachment work. 

Mike P: It’s fun to see support for a mixed Daemons and Emperor’s Children army in the Carnival of Excess, and this Detachment is honestly solid. I would have preferred if there was any actual synergy for Daemons anywhere else in the codex too, but I’ll take what we can get.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.