Detachment Focus: Peerless Bladesmen

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 Peerless Blades from the Emperor’s Children.

Looking for a Detachment that really lets you cut loose and show off your sick knife skills? Well the Peerless Bladesmen just may be the Detachment for you. This one’s all about emphasizing the powerful melee effects the Emperor’s Children can bring to bear.

Detachment Overview

Peerless Bladesmen is the Emperor’s Children Detachment for players who want to run melee-first armies. The flat Detachment buff here is great, and the kind of thing that benefits Fulgrim, Lucius, Daemon Princes, and other heavy melee hitters. The Detachments and Enhancements here also make your melee threats better, and the whole thing pushes the army toward a much more World Eaters-like style, albeit one with a bit more finesse.

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: Exquisite Swordsmanship

Each time an Emperor’s Children unit from your army fights, if it charged this turn, then you can choose for it to gain either [LETHAL HITS] or [SUSTAINED HITS 1] on its melee attacks until they’re resolved.

This is great. It’s a solid and flexible boost for your melee output, and combos with the Thrill Seekers ability to fall back and charge, ensuring you’ll always want to be dropping back and charging in against a new target to maximize your damage output. The melee output from Daemon Princes, Flawless Blades, Terminators, and Infractors can be pretty lackluster, making it helpful to be able to give them an extra bump.

Enhancements

All of these Enhancements focus on the Fight phase, though of them only Distortion is a must-take, as upping your damage and Attacks is just too good to pass up, either on a Daemon Prince or Lord Exultant.

• Faultless Opportunist – You can target the bearer’s unit with the Heroic Intervention Stratagem for free, and you can do that even if you’ve already used the Strat this phase. This is cheap and decent, though narrow enough that it’s just a place to drop your last ten points.
• Blinding Speed – Once per game, at the start of the Fight phase you can use this to give the bearer’s unit Fights First until the end of the phase. Very solid, very powerful, and realistically you only need to get FIghts First once per game in most games anyways, making your unit very difficult to charge.
• Distortion – Gives its bearer +1 Attacks and Damage on its melee weapons. This is very simple and very, very good. It’s particularly wonderful on a Daemon Prince, where it gets you to 4 damage strikes and 2 damage sweeps. 
• Rise to the Challenge – Infantry only. Once per game at the end of the Fight phase, if the bearer is within Engagement Range of three or more enemy models, you can use this to fight an additional time, and when doing so, you can pick an Exquisite Swordsmanship ability to apply to those attacks. This would be money on a Daemon Prince but alas is only really an option for a Lord Exultant, where it’s merely OK and difficult to use.

Stratagems

Four of these Stratagems are used in the Fight phase, while the other two affect units within Engagement Range of your units. They’re much more defensive than you’d expect them to be.

• Deft Parry (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Fight phase when an enemy unit picks its targets to give one of your units -1 to be hit. Always useful as a defensive buff.
• Death Ecstacy (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in your Fight phase when an enemy unit picks targets. One targeted unit can fight on death. This follows in the vein of spending 2 CP to automatically fight on death, making this expensive but reliable.
• Incessant Violence (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase before one of your unit Consolidates. That unit can Consolidate up to 6” instead of 3”, as long as it ends up in Engagement Range of an enemy unit. This is pretty situational, though it can be helpful to sweep ahead and tag some key shooting unit – just be mindful you’re going to get hit before you have a chance to clap them.
• Cruel Bladesman (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase on one of your units that made a Charge move this turn. Improve their AP by 1 until the end of the phase. This is a huge offensive boost, and for 1 CP is something you’re going to smash every time you charge. 
• Terrifying Spectacle (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Command phase on a unit from your army that made a charge in the prior turn and destroyed an enemy unit in the Fight phase. Every enemy unit within 6” of them has to take a Battle-shock test, with a -1 penalty if they’re below Half Strength. They don’t have to take any other tests this phase. This is fine but incredibly situational and most of the time you’ll have better things to spend CP on.
• Cut Down the Weak (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Movement phase, after an enemy unit Falls Back. One unit from your army – you can only pick a vehicle if it’s a WALKER (i.e. the Maulerfiend) – within 6” of that enemy unit can declare a charge against that unit, but won’t get the charge bonus this turn. This is pretty nasty as a way to chase down a unit falling back or get in a free charge. It’s mostly a defensive play to protect your unit by putting them in melee, but for 2 CP it’s going to be a pretty big resource ask.

Playing This Detachment

As the Detachment that gives you passive buffs for your damage output, Peerless Bladesmen is your option if your focus is purely on melee with your Emperor’s Children. Which isn’t to say you can’t take some shooting, but the primary focus here is going to be getting the most out of Fulgrim, Maulerfiends, Daemon Princes, Flawless Blades, and Infractors. Lethal Hits is a big help for getting your units to punch up, and Sustained Hits is a must-have on Flawless Blades to mitigate their small number of attacks per model. As a Detachment, there aren’t a lot of movement tricks here, so you’re going to be more reliant on your units’ base movement to get around, or on Transports for protection.

Because your tricks are only okay, a good Peerless Bladesmen list is going to primarily focus on taking the Detachment’s best datasheets to maximize the value it can get per-point. Winged Daemon Princes love this Detachment, and it’s probably Fulgrim’s favorite too. This is also a Detachment where you give up relatively little taking War Dog Brigands for ranged support, as nothing here is geared to work with ranged units anyways.

Strengths

• Offensive Boosts. This Detachment gives you a broad boost to your melee output that works on any unit in the army, plus additional buffs with Enhancements 
• Some More Anti-Vehicle Oomph. It’s not a ton, but the combo of Lethal Hits and being able to boost AP can be a big help taking down heavier targets like vehicles in melee.
• Post-Combat Movement. Between a 6” Consolidate and Charging fleeing foes, you’ve got some nice post-combat tricks to work with here.

Weaknesses

• Ranged Output. While Peerless Bladesmen helps you on the melee front, it does nothing for your ranged output, meaning all of your problems with the army are still there. 
• No Movement Tricks. Compared to other Detachments you’re definitely working with fewer tricks for zipping around the table.
• Defensive Buffs. You’ve only got one defensive buff here, and it only works in melee. 

A Sample List

Pure melee, baby. This list just leans hard on the army’s best datasheets from a melee standpoint. 

Sample List - Click to Expand

I picked a Detachment after building this list and settled on Peerless Bladesmen because it offers a good way to keep DPs from being disappointing (sustained hits), while also offering three great enhancements. The Strats here aren’t bad either – you have auto fight on death, pile-in/consolidate 6”, -1 to be hit in the fight phase, a way to charge units that fall back. It’s not the strongest set available, but it’s a good batch of utility tools for an army of big melee threats.

The Tormentors act as your scoring, and whether you use one to sticky your home objective will depend on the mission and opponent. Your big plan to crack transports and take out enemy units at range is the Brigands, who are fast and will need protecting, but the plan should be to hold them in reserves and bring them in to soften a key target right before your army comes crashing in. If I’m honest, this list is probably better throwing out Fulgrim and running three maulerfiends  and a third winged daemon prince, but for the Codex review it’s worth trying him out a few times to see how he feels.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking to build a melee-focused Emperor’s Children army, this is probably where you want to go. The tricks here are only OK, so you’ll want to focus on hitting hard with fast, efficient datasheets. When it all goes well, you’ll be using this Detachment to get the most out of your Flawless Blades, cutting down bigger threats with impunity. 

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