The long wait is finally over! After years of teasing, the inevitable fourth release in the cult Chaos Space Marines cycle is here, with Codex: Emperor’s Children giving us a full, standalone army for Fulgrim’s loyal sons. But how do the newest kids on the Chaos block stack up to the other three cult books, and are they a formidable player stepping onto the competitive stage or are they going to make more of a tepid splash on their debut? In this article we’ll dig into their rules, datasheets, and Detachments, and talk about how they’ll play and what we expect from them competitively.
Before we dive in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of the book for review purposes, and with an advance copy of the updated points for the faction.
Army Overview
After thumbing through the book, it quickly becomes clear that the Emperor’s Children are a fast, elite melee-centric force. They have very limited shooting – Noise Marines comprise almost all of it – and what they get from those units is limited to 18” range. What’s left is a mix of fast utility units and hard-hitting melee units, though without a ton of durability. While on the surface, these may look similar to World Eaters in how they operate, they’ll be much more finesse-driven, and their Detachments are more likely to give them clever movement tricks than outright power buffs. Further bolstering their elite melee approach is a set of five Daemons units in the Codex, which can be used in a special Detachment which combines the two.
What We Liked
Here are the five standout features of the book:
- Mobility. Emperor’s Children are fast – most of their infantry move 7” or 8”, and even their Terminators get a small boost. On top of that, the army can largely fall back and advance and shoot and charge with its Thrill Seekers ability, giving them a ton of flexibility. The Detachments further boost this.
- Six different Detachments. Although this probably could have been five, six is not only the sacred number of Slaanesh, but six Detachments will give Emperor’s Children players plenty of chances to experiment and find a match for their playstyle. If you have a favorite unit in the book, there’s almost certainly a best Detachment for it.
- Noise Marines. The signature unit of the Emperor’s Children got a nice glow-up in this book, taking on a role more akin to Havocs. They’ll be good here and great in Renegade Raiders.
- Lucius. Lucius got a big overhaul and his new rules are great. He’s going to remain a must-take in Emperor’s Children armies.
- Elite. Although we have our issues with the missing units, there’s no denying that the Emperor’s Children feel like an elite fighting force of skilled marines. You aren’t going to be relying on chaff here and even your Battleline units feel like specialists.
What We Didn’t
And there were some things we didn’t love here. Specifically:
- Bad Support for Daemons. The list of Daemon units you get to run with is incredibly limited – all of the Chariot variants and many of the incredibly cool characters like Syll’Esske and the Masque are missing from this codex. Not only that, but the Daemon datasheets in the codex are largely nerfed.
- Missing Units. Many iconic Chaos Space Marine units are missing. It doesn’t really make sense for Emperor’s Children to not have Cultists, Predators, or Helbrutes. What you’re left with is a very limited roster and that means that lists are going to look the same regardless of the Detachment because you’ll just gravitate to different ways of using the same dozen datasheets.
- Shooting. As a result of not having any tanks, Emperor’s Children are mediocre at shooting. They’ll struggle to kill anything more than 18” away and you’re going to have a real problem dealing with enemy transports and screens.
Where’s Crusade?
As usual, we’re holding the Crusade rules review for Tuesday – check back then for everything you need to know about walking conquering planets and distilling their entire population down to make a single vial of euphoria-enducing elixir.
The Video Version
If you’d rather watch or listen to a review of this than read it, you can find our more truncated video version here:
Army Rule: Thrill Seekers
If your Army Faction is Emperor’s Children, this unit is eligible to shoot and declare a charge after it Advances or Falls back, but when doing so it cannot target the unit that it was within Engagement Range at the start of the turn, and it cannot target a unit that was the target of another unit’s charge or attack this phase.
This is pretty strong but that’s a wild restriction – It’s simultaneously very fluffy but interesting to work around, and it’s a fun way to temper what would immediately be one of the strongest army rules in the game. There are a few major implications here, the first being that you can’t just fall back and re-charge the same unit in order to activate charge bonuses and fights first – that is, apparently, just too boring for your pink-armored warriors (which, fair). The good news there is that you have more than a few ways to gain Fights First if you really need it for a combat you’re locked into, and in most other cases you can plan around this ability by carefully choosing the order of shooting and charges – only the units which advanced or fell back apply this restriction.
Pact of Excess
Additionally, this Codex has five datasheets for Slaanesh Daemons, and these have the Legions of Excess Faction Keyword. As a result, they can’t be included in your army unless you’re running the Pact of Excess Detachment and you cannot choose that as your Army Faction.
Detachments
The Emperor’s Children have a surprising number of Detachments to work with – six in total – and while that’s very fluffy given it’s the number of their patron, it’s a lot for an army with 21 units.
Detachment Focus: Mercurial Host
This feels like the “basic” option for the Emperor’s Children, and in many respects it’s the most boring. The Detachment rule allows you to re-roll Advance rolls made for your units, which is a rule that seems boring but is doing a ton of work when you consider that your whole army can potentially Advance and still shoot or charge.
Detachment Focus: Peerless Bladesmen
This is your heavily melee-focused Detachment, mostly focusing on Stratagems for the Fight phase. Your Detachment rule gives your units a choice between Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits 1 on the turn they charge. If you just want to run a pure melee army of fast guys who smash into the opponent and cut them into tiny bits, this is your go-to option.
Detachment Focus: Rapid Evisceration
The Mechanized option for Emperor’s Children, this one’s all about transports – your units can re-roll hit and wound rolls of 1 during a turn in which they disembarked from a transport. This Detachment has a ton of tricks for getting into and out of transports and has ways to drop them back into reserves. This has the potential to be the most fun way to run Emperor’s Children.
Detachment Focus: Carnival of Excess
This is the Detachment that combines Emperor’s Children with Slaanesh Daemons. You can include up to 1,000 points of Legions of Excess units in a Strike Force army, and while your Daemon and Emperor’s Children units are within 6” of each other, they’re empowered, gaining [SUSTAINED HITS 1] and scoring critical hits on a 5+ if they already had Sustained Hits. The Daemons Datasheets here are mostly toned down from the Index, but on the balance they cost less now points-wise.
Detachment Focus: Coterie of the Conceited
This is one of the strangest Detachments, focusing on army-wide buffs based on your ability to call your shots. Every round, if your Warlord is on the table you’ll have to declare the number of enemy units you’ll destroy in the round. Succeed at doing that, and at the end of the round you’ll accrue that many Pact points. Fail, and your Warlord takes D3 mortal wounds. Scoring Pact Points gets you some good army-wide buffs, starting with re-rolls of 1 to hit at 1 point and wound rolls at 3. It’s amazing if you can get it to 7+, but doing that’s going to take a lot of work and a bit of luck.
Detachment Focus: Slaanesh’s Chosen
The only potential lemon of the bunch, Slaanesh’s Chosen is a weird Detachment in that it buffs a single unit at a time. That unit, which starts as your Warlord’s, will be the first unit in your army to destroy an enemy unit in each player turn. While a unit is your Favoured unit the re-roll wound rolls. On top of all this your Character units will ignore modifiers to their move, advance, and charge rolls. There are some interesting rules in this Detachment, but the rule itself is very finnicky to work around and the timing on becoming Favoured leaves a lot to be desired.
Datasheets
If you thought the units list in Codex: World Eaters was light, this book takes that to a whole new level. The Emperor’s Children only have 16 Datasheets, plus another five for Slaanesh Daemons. As a result, we can go into detail on every individual datasheet here but it’s very clear that from a roster standpoint, you’re going to be very limited in your options. That’s in part because there are a lot of units which you might expect to see in this book and they’re just not here.
Something to note before we jump in – Emperor’s Children units tend to be pretty fast. Most infantry in this army have a Movement characteristic of 7”, and the faster models like Lucius and Flawless Blades will move 8”. That’s a good combo for their ability to Advance and Charge.
What’s Not Here
Let’s start here just to streamline things: A number of common Chaos Space Marine units didn’t make it into this book, despite being longtime units in the EC armory. Specifically – and inexplicably – there are no Helbrutes, Forgefiends, Predators, Vindicators, Chaos Bikes, Dark Apostles, Masters of Execution, Lords Discordant, Raptors, or Warp Talons in here. And perhaps even more surprising, there are no Chaos Cultists – your cheapest unit is going to be Chaos Spawn. The good news is that those are good – but we’ll come back to that later.
Fulgrim
The big bad primarch of the Emperor’s Children is a melee monster. He comes with a Daemon Primarch Statline – 16” Movement, T11, 2+/4++ save, 16 wounds, 5+ Leadership, and OC 6 – plus wings for Fly and Deep Strike. And in melee he’s an absolute blender, tossing out 6 attacks at S14, AP-3, D6+1 damage and a sweep mode that goes to 12 attacks at 8/-2/2 (both profiles have Sustained hits 1). Fulgrim also has a Malefic Lash to throw out in the shooting phase, giving him 6 shots at 12” range with S8 AP-2, 2 damage and Sustained Hits 1. As with other Primarchs, Fulgrim gets to pick one of three abilities at the start of each opponent’s Command phase – note that timing because it’s very specific and unique, but it makes sense given what those abilities are:
- Units making attacks on Fulgrim get -1 to hit
- Fulgrim gains Fights First
- Enemy units within 6” have to take a Leadership test when they attempt to fall back and if they fail they have to Remain Stationary instead
Finally Fulgrim comes with Daemonic Poisons – After Fulgrim shoots or fights, he can pick a unit he hit that phase and they’re poisoned for the rest of the battle. At the start of each player’s Command phase, roll a D6 for each poisoned enemy unit on the table and on a 4+ they take D3 mortal wounds.
Fulgrim is… an interesting unit. He’s not a force multiplier like Magnus, Guilliman, or Mortarion – he doesn’t do anything for your other Emperor’s Children units. This means his value is heavily focused on his ability to just plain murder things in melee – but he lives in an army that’s already very good at murdering things in melee. In that regard, Fulgrim will likely act in a similar fashion to Lion El’Jonson, being a type of cruise missile to send directly into your opponent’s lines, reducing the heat on your other units and forcing your opponent to deal with him while you score objectives and pick off the remaining units. Fulgrim can also be your answer to vehicle threats, and with FLY he can jump over screening units – but clever opponents will just screen out his large base. Fulgrim’s best life is probably going to be in the Mercurial Host or Peerless Bladesmen Detachments, where you get the kind of always-on tools that work best with him.
It’s hard to evaluate Fulgrim in a vacuum. He feels like he’ll be an option in your lists, but he’s far from a must-take. His poison ability is interesting thanks to what it can do and the ability to rocket a guaranteed 22” across the table before charging in Mercurial Host is pretty tantalizing. Poison is a fun little add-on stinger, tacking on extra mortal wounds to ensure you finish things off… eventually.
Lucius the Eternal
Lucius received a major glow-up in this book – and it wasn’t just for his model. His datasheet is straight fire – his profile is similar to that of the Flawless Blades, with 8” Movement, T5, 6 wounds, and a 2+/4++ save. He’s lost his Doom Siren and Armour of Shrieking Souls abilities, but gained more than enough to compensate – his Blade of the Laer throws out 6 Precision attacks at S8 AP-3, 3 damage, while his Lash of Torment gives him the option for 10 attacks at S4 AP-1 1 damage with SUSTAINED HITS 1. That’s a very good melee profile, but Lucius has plenty more to offer on top of that. Against characters, monsters, or walkers, Lucius gains full re-rolls to hit and wound, and while he’s not leading a unit he has Fights First.
On that topic, Lucius can lead a unit of Flawless Blades – and probably will, since he’s the only character who can do so. That said, if you don’t attach him to a unit, he’s got Lone Operative and a Feel No Pain 5+ ability, so he can handle himself solo as well. They’ve done a good job here making one of the only Lone Ops in the game you’ll actually want to attach, since those Flawless Blades really want the extra damage output he can provide.
Lucius is a major threat and a must-take in the Emperor’s Children. He just puts out an incredible amount of damage in melee and he’ll be a huge help getting a unit of Flawless Blades over the hump against tougher threats, keeping them on-target to kill a model.
Lord Exultant
The Lord Exultant is the Chaos Lord equivalent for Emperor’s Children, offering a 5-wound, 3+/4++ model who’s good at fighting and can join either of the army’s Battleline units – Tormentors and Infractors. If he does, he’ll gain Infiltrators or Scouts 6” from the unit he joins, meaning you won’t lose out on their pre-game mobility just because you added in a character. The Lord Exultant gives his unit the [LETHAL HITS] ability.
As a fighter, the Lord Exultant is pretty decent, but no Chaos Lord. He comes with three 2-damage options, each with 5 attacks: A S5 AP-2 Precision sword, a standard power fist, and a Phoenix power spear, which gives him S7 AP-2 and [LANCE]. You can supplement this with a rapture lash (4 extra attacks at S4 AP-1, 1 damage) or plasma pistol, and if you opt for a fist you can take a screamer pistol to get a 2-damage sidearm. Similar to a Chaos Lord, once per game the Lord Exultant can use his Euphoric Strikes ability to go berserk, getting +3 attacks on its melee weapons and improving their AP by 1. This is a good boost, but ultimately it just doesn’t compete with the +1 damage and Devastating Wounds combo you get on a standard Chaos Lord. It’s worth noting that this makes his Lethal Hits ability more relevant, though it’s still an odd non-bo with his spear’s [LANCE] ability.
If you’re taking Infractors, you need a Lord Exultant to go with them – they just don’t hit hard enough otherwise. The good news is that points-wise, they’ll run you less than the Legionaries and Lord in Codex: Chaos Space Marines, and the addition of Scouts 6″ makes them more palatable to run.
Lord Kakophonist
If you’re looking for a character to join Noise Marines, this is your guy. Clocking in at T5 with 6 wounds and a 2+ save (plus a 4+ invulnerable save), the Lord Kakophonist comes with a Screamer Pistol and power sword, but can swap out the sword for two pistols (do this). Screamer Pistols are basically 12” Sonic Blasters, giving you 3 shots of Ignores Cover, S5 AP-1 2 damage shooting, so taking a pair is like adding two more blasters to a unit. On top of this, the Kakophonist gives his unit SUSTAINED HITS 1 on ranged attacks and his Doom Siren lets you force additional mortal wounds and battle-shock tests on a single enemy unit hit by his squad each round. If you’re going heavy on Noise Marines, you’re likely going to want three of these in your army to help maximize their output.
The Lord Kakophonist can also join Terminators but he doesn’t have the Deep Strike ability and Terminators are pretty bad in Emperor’s Children. What’s more likely however is that you’d run this guy solo – he’s very cheap with the updated points and durable enough that you could run two or three just as cheap action units.
Sorcerer
Emperor’s Children get access to their own version of the bog-standard Chaos Sorcerer. This guy is the same as the standard option, albeit with a faster movement. When he hits an enemy INFANTRY unit with his psychic attack he can give them -2” to its move characteristic and -2 to charge rolls, and while leading a unit they gain the benefit of cover against ranged attacks. He’s… fine. Nothing to write home about, though.
Daemon Prince of Slaanesh
The foot Daemon Prince is a real eye-opener. For starters, he’s got 10” movement instead of 8”, and this foot version gains Lone Operative while he’s within 3” of a Slaanesh Infantry unit. His other two abilities are pretty great as well – Friendly Slaanesh units within 6” making a charge get +1 AP on melee attacks, and he fights on death on a 2+ in melee. That’s a pretty great combination of abilities – probably the best we’ve seen yet on a Daemon Prince, and taking a DP and Lucius to hang out and Lone Op each other seems like a pretty great (and funny) combo.
Daemon Prince of Slaanesh with Wings
In similar fashion, the winged DP also picks up extra movement to go to 14”, but has two other abilities. Stimulated by Pain reduces incoming damage by 1, while Daemonic Destruction lets you pick one enemy unit in Engagement Range after a charge and roll D6 equal to the models remaining wounds (10 to start), dealing a mortal on each 4+ (to a max of 6). Given an average charge at full health will net you 5 mortal wounds, that’s pretty crazy. The real benefit we like here is that -1 damage, which can really give the Winged DP durability that other units in the army don’t have.
Flawless Blades
The Emperor’s Children’s answer to Possessed or Eightbound, Flawless Blades give you an improved profile – 8” move, T5, 3 wounds, with a 3+/5++ save, and come armed with Blissblades, which give them 3 Attacks each at WS2+, S6, Ap-3, 2 damage. That’s fairly underwhelming, but where things get interesting is the unit’s ability: Each time the unit fights they can call on their Daemonic Patrons, giving them Critical Wounds on unmodified rolls of 3+. However, if they end the Fight phase not having destroyed a single enemy model, one of the Flawless Blades is destroyed instead.
This is pretty interesting – automatically wounding any unit in the game on a 3+ really lets Flawless Blades punch up, but only having three attacks each means there are going to be times they just let you down from a volume standpoint. For that reason, Flawless Blades really want Lucius joining them for the extra six beefy attacks. Unfortunately, there are a few things going against these guys. First, there really isn’t anything you can do with those Crit wounds – nobody here has Devastating Wounds – and second, Flawless Blades can’t ride in Rhinos, meaning if you take them with Lucius they’ll need a Land Raider if you want to give them a transport. That will likely be the case, as they come in sizes of 3 or 6. Flawless Blades are the most intriguing unit in the book and with their updated cost they’re cheap enough you might actually play them. That said, they don’t really seem to be a unit you can build around or take without Lucius.
Mike P: Three 2-damage attacks without either a sweep profile or higher damage option on the champion is disappointing for your most elite melee infantry. There are specific situations where these guys can punch up and they can perform well if given the right support – don’t get me wrong – but Flawless Blades are likely to be a bit overhyped coming out of the gate.
Chaos Spawn
Emperor’s Children Chaos Spawn are absolutely amazing and would be must-take units even if the army still had access to Cultists. These Spawn have 10” movement, OC 1, the Thrill Seekers faction ability, and once per turn they can make a normal move of up to 6” when an enemy unit ends a normal, Advance, or Fall Back move within 9”. They’re amazing action units and harassment pieces.
Tormentors
One of the two Battleline options for Emperor’s Children, Tormentors are the shooty variety of Tactical Marines. And they’re pretty great – they come with the Infiltrators ability and they sticky objectives, plus they have precision on all of their ranged weapons and the ability to take one meltagun and one plasma gun for every five models in the unit, plus a plasma pistol on the champion. These guys are just solid objective holders who can throw out some surprising firepower in a pinch. They likely do their best work as five-man units where you can minimize the number of boltgun shots you have to live with.
Infractors
The fighty Battleline unit to the Tormentors’ shooty option, Infractors come with Dueling Sabres – basically chainswords with [PRECISION] – and Scouts 6”, plus the standard re-roll wound rolls of 1 or all wound rolls vs. an enemy on an objective. That’s pretty similar to Assault Intercessors and Legionaries, though it’s worth noting that while Infractors have [PRECISION] on their attacks, they give up any access to power fists or other D2 weapons, which really neuters their ability to punch up into some targets. As a result it’s not clear how much value they’ll bring to the table, but they can throw out a decent number of attacks and will benefit from having a Lord Exultant with them to give them some real punch via Lethal Hits and his own blender abilities. Just be mindful that they won’t hit as hard as a standard Lord + Legionaries combo.
Chaos Terminators
EC Terminators come in units of five models and have a 6” movement characteristic. Their Lethal Obsession ability gives them re-roll charges against a target they shot earlier that turn, provided they shot no other units. They are otherwise just regular Terminators, except that you can only take them in units of 5 models. That stops you from doing almost anything interesting with them, and there may have been some juice in an army running 30 of them.
Mike P: EC Terminators have to win an award for “highest amount of text in a datasheet rule relative to the power of the rule”. I guarantee a lot of players are going to read this and get more excited than they should be at first, because it’s a lot of intriguing words that result in a very mediocre effect.
Chaos Land Raider
The old classic returns here, same as it is everywhere else. It can hold 14 models and is the only Transport that can carry Flawless Blades (they take the space of two models each).
Noise Marines
The signature unit for the Emperor’s Children get a major glow-up in this book, losing Battleline and gaining some real beef – it’s clear they’re now meant to more act as an analog to Havocs, sporting 40mm bases and 5 Toughness, while losing the penalties for moving and shooting Blastmasters. On that note, all of their guns got much more deadly, but lost range and all noise weapons have [IGNORES COVER].
- Blastmasters now top out at 18” but still have two modes: Single Frequency fires off 3 shots at BS 3+, S10, AP-2, 3 damage, though you can opt for varied frequency to get 6 shots at S6 AP-2 1 damage instead.
- Sonic Blasters also top out at 18” and lost Assault but are 3 attacks at S5, AP-1 and 2 damage, giving them some real hit as they basically become more accurate Heavy Bolters which Ignore Cover.
- Screamer Pistols are basically 12” Sonic Blasters with Pistol. Your squad champion can opt for one and a power sword over a Sonic Blaster.
A unit of Noise Marines is now six models, and two of those models can swap out their Sonic Blasters for Blastmasters, a move you’ll do pretty much all the time since there’s no downside whatsoever. Each shooting phase after you shoot you can pick a unit you hit to get -1 to its Leadership and Battle-shock tests until your next Shooting phase.
These feel like the stand-out stars of the book’s Infantry options, and it’s easy to imagine starting lists with three units in Rhinos. They’re a solid unit of tough infantry with decent shooting, but they highlight one of the army’s biggest issues – namely, that there just isn’t any big, long-range shooting here. Even a full unit of Noise Marines is going to struggle to kill a Rhino going full-bore (average damage: 8), and will need the help of a Lord Kakophonist and his extra guns and Sustained hits to help get over the hump. They’ll likewise struggle into Terminators and other elite Infantry without help.
The biggest winners here? Players running the Renegade Raiders Detachment over in Chaos Space Marines. Noise Marines regaining [ASSAULT] and getting +1 AP to go with their upgrade profiles and [IGNORES COVER] sound like an absolute nightmare, and these are likely to replace Rubric squads as your go-to option to pop out of rhinos as they’re also more durable.
Heldrake
Heldrakes are back! They move the same, and lose their +1 to hit against FLYing targets in exchange for being able to do mortals when flying over enemy units. The big change here is that they’re now T10 with a 2+ save when you take them in Emperor’s Children. That’s a big upgrade, and makes them much more durable – they can potentially skirmish and then stick around for a bit.
Maulerfiend
Emperor’s Children have Maulerfiends but no access to Forgefiends, for reasons that are just completely inscrutable. These Maulerfiends get +1 to hit against targets below Starting Strength and +1 to wound against targets below Half Strength.
In the Emperor’s Children army Maulerfiends serve a heightened role as one of only two units capable of hitting in melee at Strength 12 or more. This gives them more utility than you’d might expect, even if their output isn’t anything more than you’d see in other Chaos Marine armies. They can get some real benefits out of being in a Peerless Bladesmen Detachment, and they’re sneaky good in some of the others.
Chaos Rhino
EC Rhinos move normally but trade out their regeneration for the ability to drop off units after Advancing – those units count as having made a normal move but can’t Charge that turn.
Where Rhinos shine is in the Rapid Evisceration Detachment, where they become the cornerstone of your strategy, ferrying units around the table, dumping them out for bonuses, then picking them back up to cart around again. The Rhino is one of the game’s most versatile units and it’s even better in Emperor’s Children lists.
Daemons Datasheets
There are five datasheets for Daemons in here – Shalaxi Helbane, Keeper of Secrets, Daemonettes, Fiends, and Seekers. Four of these have been tweaked. Specifically, they’re worse, but points-wise, most of these have come down quite a bit to compensate. That’s a mixed bag on the Keepers, but a decent trade-off on the Daemonettes and Fiends. Here’s what changed:
- Shalaxi Helbane loses the 5+ Feel No Pain, instead gaining a 3+ armour save. They also lost the Cloak of Constriction, exchanging it for the ability to re-roll Advance and Charge rolls. This makes her much less durable overall.Monarch of the Hunt has been changed as well, going from re-rolls to hit, wound, and damage against monsters, vehicles, or characters to picking a unit to be your quarry at the start of the game to get re-rolls against (but only hits and wounds) – you can pick a new target each time the current one dies.
- The Keeper of Secrets loses the Feel No Pain 5+ from taking a Shining Aegis and instead gains a 3+ Armour save if they take one, making it more desirable to take the knife or whip instead.
- Daemonettes drop to OC 1 and lose the ability to re-roll hits, trading it out for the ability to force Battle-shock tests at -1 at the start of the Fight phase for enemy units within Engagement Range.
- Fiends here are a bit worse – they no longer give enemy units -1 to hit, but they force non-Monster/Vehicle units falling back to take a Desperate Escape test, with an extra -1 if that unit is battle-shocked.
- Seekers are unchanged from their Index incarnations.
Sample Lists
The updated points for the Emperor’s Children largely drop costs from what you see in the back of the book. We’ve included one list here, but there are more in the Detachment Focus articles to align with those rules – click on the links above for those.
Rob’s List
It’s tough to build good lists from this book without looking elsewhere – the units you have access to just aren’t always going to get there and you need to be able to crack transports open before your models declare their charges. That said, if you do something that goes hard on the army’s best Datasheets, this is what I think you can end up with:
Peerless Bladesmen (2,000 Points)
CHARACTERS
Fulgrim (385)
Lucius the Eternal (140)
Winged Daemon Prince (205)
– Enhancement: Distortion (+1 A, +1 D)
Winged Daemon Prince (195)
– Enhancement: Faultless Opportunist
Daemon Prince (195)
BATTLELINE
Tormentors x5 (85)
– Meltagun & Icon
– Plasma Gun
– Champion: Plasma Pistol
Tormentors x5 (85)
– Meltagun & Icon
– Plasma Gun
– Champion: Plasma Pistol
Tormentors x5 (85)
– Meltagun & Icon
– Plasma Gun
– Champion: Plasma Pistol
OTHER UNITS
Maulerfiend (130)
ALLIED UNITS
War Dog Brigand (165)
War Dog Brigand (165)
War Dog Brigand (165)
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
TheChirurgeon: Taken as a whole, there’s a lot of cool stuff in this book. The new models look fantastic, and there are definitely some eye-popping combinations when you first lay your eyes on it. Things like Infiltrating Tormentors with Precision Meltaguns seem like they’re going to cause some real heartburn in fun ways, while Noise Marines have some real chops on them.
That said, it’s hard to look at this and not wonder if the whole thing together comes up short. You’re really at a loss for ranged solutions to pop transports and while there are some solid melee threats in here, they’re not that good – Flawless Blades look pretty lackluster compared to Eightbound or Exalted Eightbound, the Lord Exultant really comes up short without Devastating Wounds, and I’m not sure it’s worth trading out two power fists on Legionaries for Scouts 6” and Precision. There’s a very real question I keep coming back to, which is “What armies will Emperor’s Children do well against?” and few answers come to mind. The good news is that you can fill those gaps with Brigands from Chaos Knights but it’s never a great feeling to start your list with three of those.
The updated points come in low enough to provide some real help and the Emperor’s Children feel like a pretty fast, elite melee army which is going to have trouble clearing screens and popping transports, and while that isn’t a dealbreaker – It’s not as if World Eaters pop transports at a distance, either – they also really lack the ability to deal with heavier armor, and for a melee army, their multi-damage output is pretty limited. Vehicle-heavy lists and Terminators are going to give this army some real problems. In that sense, Emperor’s Children seem unlikely to create a degenerate or broken threat to the meta – they have real limitations and downsides that stop them from having all the answers or being able to do everything. This positions them more as a middle-of-the-pack army with upside for skilled players with several fun options for more casual players – though I don’t think we’re in danger of it becoming the next big bad in the meta any time soon.
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