The Emperor’s Children. Once the only Space Marine legion privileged enough to bear the Emperor’s own symbol, and 10 thousand years ago they were seen as the pinnacle of perfection across the Great Crusade. But perfection turned to obsession, and with the taint of Slaanesh corrupting the legion from it’s core, They fell into decadence and hedonism, fueled by pleasure and pain and the need for experiences to feed their hunger.

Today, the Emperor’s Children Army Set is up for pre order, containing not just the brand new Codex, but also a whole host of brand new models that finally make this a brand new army of a scale seen with the World Eaters, Death Guard and Thousand Sons.

In this article we’ll be doing a full unboxing of the army set and a deep dive review into the Codex to see just what makes this new army tick, what tricks they have and how exactly the daemon side of things folds into them.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us free review copies for the purposes of this article – If you would like to support the site then why not order your Emperor’s Children goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the Army Set, which you can see over on YouTube or just down below! In this video we also go through the whole Codex too, so make sure to check it out!

So without further ado, let’s dive into the brand new Emperor’s Children Champions of Slaanesh Army Set and see just what depraved secrets it holds…

Emperor’s Children – Champions of Slaanesh Army Set Unboxing

I think it’s safe to say that while the last few army sets such as the Death Korps of Krieg and the Gitmob have had great value, some people have been disappointed by the model count in them. I feel with the Champions of Slaanesh Army set however, people are going to be very eager to pick them up as it contains a whole lot of models for the £145 sticker price!

The box is jam packed with brand new miniatures. You get a Lord Exhultant, 2 units of 6 Noise Marines and 20 Marines that can be built as Tormentors or Infractors. Based on similar units from the World Eater range I reckon the plastic along comes in at around £200 worth of models, and that’s before you include the other bits in the box!

As ever with these kind of boxes, you of course get the full Codex with a limited edition cover – this time with metallic purple edging and spot details which makes it look really nice! You also get a full set of data cards. These cover every unit in the book and not just those within the box, which is a nice touch compared to the cards you used to get in early Army Sets. There’s also a brand new Emperor’s Children transfer sheer. One of my only complaints about this box is that you don’t get more of these – as with one sheet along you’re going to have have to give some units pink shoulder pads and others black, as you don’t quite get enough of one colour on a single sheet – though that is a minor complaint and the transfers themselves are gorgeous, with some nice variation to the symbology to give a full unit a nice bit of variety. The studio army alternates colour placing between units too, so this is easily done across the contents of the box – just personally I’d like to be able to distinguish between Tormentors and Infractors for example by having different colour shoulder pads for each.

So what of the models themselves?

We’ll start with the new character, the Lord Exultant. This is a really nice kit that actually has a nice assortment of weapons and heads that allows you to make three very distinct silhouettes. One armed with a spear, one armed with a sword or one armed with a power fist. For my first model I decided to go with a combat loadout of spear and whip, but we were lucky enough to have been sent a second one to build up with pistol and sword too. Both of them while build around the same core body have a different enough look to feel like a different unit, and the same goes for arming it with a powerfist too – and obviously you can switch out all these bits to your hearts content too if you wanted a whip and a sword or a fist and a spear for example. I really like kits like this and certainly makes it worth it if you;re able to pick up an extra set without feeling like you are building the same model twice.

On the subject of multiple boxes, you get 2 units of 6 Noise Marines in the Army Set, but you can only take 3 units of 6 max in an army. While this will leave you with a spare unit of noise marines, i do still think this is an excellent box to pick up 2 of it you want to put together an entire army – coincidentally, 2 of these boxes, plus one of each kt coming in wave 2 (Fulgrim, Lucious, Lord Kakopknist and Flawless Blades) gives you enough models to do a 2000 point force.

The Noise Marines are a great kit, and surprisingly they are units of 6, no more and no less and are pretty chunky on a terminator sized base. All of the weapons and speaker stacks are interchangeable, giving you a lot of variety even if you do take the full 18 models in an army, combined with a lot of different heads on the sprue too! the leader can take a screamer pistol and close combat weapon or just be given a Sonic Blaster too, and one model per squad can be swapped out for a Blaster Master.

Infractors and Tormentors use the same core kit, but have parts for both the close combat and ranged options – with the Tormentors in particular being able to take both a Melta and Plasma gun per 5 models, making these a pretty well equiped Battleline unit.

Having built up two of each unit, there’s a lot of variety here – and I feel a mix of both types of unit would be good to fulfill different roles within the army. Again there’s a lot of different heads and shoulder pad designs, and even the weapons go together in a couple of different ways to lead to some variety in the units on the tabletop.

I think most people will want a couple of each unit, so I’d probably build one of each out of this box to cover all bases!

While we still have some more Emperor’s Children kits to come (and we’ll look at their rules in the Codex shortly) I feel that we get a really nice assortment in the Army Set and this really feels like the best way to start a brand new Emperor’s Children army at the moment, especially since it’s £145 for all this including the codex and cards!

But what of the book itself? What is the Codex like and what tricks can you pull off with this army? Let’s dive into it next!

Emperor’s Children Codex Review

While the other gods have had their own aligned factions for a while, this is the first time that Slaanesh have their own god-aligned Space Marines Codex. We’ve seen Noise Marines in other books, and ways of running a pure force, but the release of Codex Emperor’s Children finally gives us the chance to play a full army in 10th Edition, and there’s a lot of new stuff to support that. This is also a book that works as a template for the future God Specific legions, with a detachment that allows Daemons, and Daemonic profiles in the book itself without needing to resort to external sources to play all your units.

So what’s inside the 112 pages?

The Lore

A codex is always a great place to explore the lore, and this is never more true in what is essentially a brand new army. While old school 40k players and Horus Heresy fans will know the background of Fulgrim’s Legion, the book covers the lore of the Emperor’s Children through 37 pages. Covering everything from their time prior to the Horus Heresy, through to the current date. We learn about the various units introduced in the book, background about Fulgrim and Lucius and even some lore covering the sonic weaponry with speculation about their background. I like how we get nods towards the Horus Heresy, but with the reminder that we never really know the full ins and outs of what happened back that, and nothing is set in stone. A great example to this is when talking about sonic weaponry there are nods towards the background seen in the Heresy books, but a disclaimer that no one really knows the truth.

As well as traditional background we also get some narrative too, including a story about a unit of Kakophani facing the Aeldari, and the pleasure they have in exacting punishment on Slaanesh’s unwilling parents…

As with other Codexes, we get a centre section filled with gorgeous shots of all the new models, and the book is filled with some absolutely gorgeous art work! From illustrations of the various unit, to details of the sonic weapons, moody flavour pieces that capture the feel of the Emperor’s Children, to a brilliant double page spread in purples and blues depicting the entire legion led by Fulgrim amassing against the Astra Militarum – This is one in particular I hope comes to Warhammer Art, as I’d love it on my wall!

Combat Patrol

So before we dive into the core army rules, let’s take a look at the Combat Patrol for the Emperor’s Children, and even if you don’t play Combat Patrol it looks a pretty good box! You get a Lord Exhulant, which as mentioned earlier you can quip differently to the one you build in this box as there’s lots of customisation. The Combat patrol one is armed with a spear and a fist, which seems a little heavy on close combat weapons to me personally, but I suppose it does give you the utility of being able to choose with weapon you’d go for from fight to fight.

You also get 10 Infractors, which are a great unit – and again if you’re not building them to use in Combat Patrol you could always build them as Tormentors for some ranged support.

Finally you get 6 Flawless Blades, and these are without a doubt the best unit in the book! We’ll see a little more of what they do later in the review, but I think these are going to be super popular with people fitting in as many as they can in a list – you don’t need dedicated anti tank when you can wound a Titan in close combat on a 3+…

The Combat Patrol gets the Thrill Seekers rule seen in the main rules – essentially this allows you to shoot and charge after advancing or falling back (with some restrictions on who you can target), with the leader getting the option of giving his unit stealth and making them only targettable within 18″ or to reroll advances AND be able to move through enemy models – both of which are pretty cool.

Secondaries are pretty straight forward too with you being able between trying to kill the enemy warlord as quickly as possible, or claiming objectives you didnt control at the start of the turn.

Forces of the Emperor’s Children

But now it’s time to dive into the core rules for the Emperor’s Children and see what exactly they can do in the game

As we touched on in the Combat Patrol section, Thrill Seekers is the main rule and this allows you to shoot and charge after advancing or falling back – this is massive but it does have some restrictions. Firstly, you can’t shoot or charge anything any models that were in engagement range at the start of the turn, and you cant target a unit that was the target of another charge or attack this turn – essentially this means you’re able to drop out of combat with a unit, but you have to then head into a fresh unit that you weren’t previously in combat with and that hasn’t been charged by another unit. Now, there are ways around this – if you charge with your units that were in combat first, your units that were not in combat do not have any such charge restriction, while if you moved those units the opposite way round that would be illegal. Paying attention to the order you shoot and charge will make a big difference in games with the Emperor’s Children.

Emperor’s Children are also able to take some Slaanesh Daemons along with them, but only in one specific detachment, you can’t just add them to any army. For those worrying about Daemons no longer having their Codex, I personally don’t think this is a concern, this is just a continuing trend of armies getting access to “allies” in specific detachments, and Games Workshop making sure the rules for those models are included in the book – So hold on to your Daemon armies for now!

As with other books we get 6 new detachments offering a range of different play styles

Mercurial Host looks to be the default one, and with this you can re-roll advance moves, which pairs nicely with the army rules. This is a quick detachment with strats allowing you to advance 6″, or move after an enemy unit moves. There’s also some punch with a CP allowing for Sustained hits

Peerless Bladesmen is a little more offensive, allowing charging units to gain Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits. What’s great with this is that you can pick and choose to what suits from unit to unit. there’s some great tools here too, such as the Rise to the Challenge enhancement allowing a unit to fight a second time at the end of the combat phase once per battle, and stratagems such as Cruel Bladesman increasing your AP in combat.

Rapid Evisceration is all about mechanised combat, and grants units that disembark rerolls of 1s to hit and wound, which can be very strong considering you can assault from both Rhinos and Land Raiders. You can even do things such as remove transports from the battlefield and place them back into reserve, or even move through enemy units with your vehicles.

Carnival of Excess is the Daemon detachment, allowing 50% of your points to be spent on Legions of Excess (Daemon) units in the book – again, this is the only detachment that is allowed to take these units, and this doesnt stop pure daemon armies being a thing, they instead use their own rules. While a daemon unit is within 6″ of a non daemon unit (or the other way round) then the units get sustained hits 1, and if they already have it then it instead triggers on a 5+ (making things like Fulgrim absolutely bananas. There’s some really cool strats in here such as the ability to return destroyed models to daemonette units, or allow your units to make a fresh charge after they kill something.

Coterie of the Conceited is an interesting one. Each turn you declare how many units you are going to destroy – if you equal or beat that number you get Pact Points equal to what you pledged, but if you do not meet the pledge you instead take D3 mortal wounds on your warlord. Pact Points increase over the course of the battle and give you different buffs – so for example 1 gives you a reroll to hit of 1s, while 3+ gives you reroll 1s to wound, 5+ gives you sustained hits and lethal hits, and 7+ makes those trigger on a 5+. This has the potential to be very powerful if you are confident you can kill units each turn – and is made stronger still with the use of things like Flawless Blades who want to kill a unit every turn anyway. I think this is going to be a super powerful one in the right hands

Finally we have Slaanesh’s Chosen. This one ignores any modifiers to charging and advancing, and also allows your warlords unit to reroll wounds. Has the potential to be powerful, especially if you made your warlord Lucius and had him leading a 6 man unit of Flawless Blades rocking 3+ to wound anything with a reroll… And if they need some help, you can give them Sustained Hits too for 1 cp…

Datasheets

So what does everything do in the new book? Let’s take a look at each of the new units!

Fulgrim is absolutely bananas, as you would expect from the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children! He hits like a tank with 6 shot S8 ranged attack followed up by bucket load of attacks in close combat – his strike does 6 S14 attacks at Ap3 each dealing D6+1 damage, or double the attacks for S8 Ap2 2 damage, meaning he can deal with whatever he goes into. Adding insult to injury at the end of the shooting phase and the fight phase, you select a unit that was hit by him and declare them poisoned. After this point at the start of each command phase on a 4+ each poisoned unit takes D3 mortal wounds. Insane, and a gorgeous model to boot!

Lucius The Eternal is another fantastic model with great rules! He has a frankly mental 16 attacks and a potential 28 damage output a turn! On top of this he gets to reroll all hits and wounds against a character, monster or walker, and with S8 on his main weapon he’s got a good chance of wounding a lot of them. You can give him a unit of Flawless Blades (Which i would do due to earlier discussed shenanigans) but if you take him by himself he gets Fights First

Lord Exultant can join Infractors or Tormentors, and gives the unit Lethal Hits, which is really nice to have on either. The unit he joins also gains Infiltrators and Scouts 6″ too. As we mentioned earlier he has a range of weapon options from his Spear with Lance to a power sword that hits at lower strength but has precision, it feels you can really tool them out to fulfill different roles. Once per battle he can increase his attacks by 3 and his AP by 1, which is very tasty too

Lord Kakophonist is our noise marine character, and he grants his unit Sustained Hits 1 – interestingly he can also join Chaos Terminators if you want to give them a little more punch too! His Doom Siren is pretty good – you roll 3D6 and for each 4+ you cause a mortal wound and a battle shock test

Sorcerers are here and can join Infractors, Tormentors and Noise Marines, though honestly I’d probably take a Lord Exultant over one.

Daemon Princes can be taken with or without wings – the wingless version is very good as he gives nearby units extra AP on the charge, which can make the already nasty Flawless Blades very nasty. With Wings he instead can do some impact hits with a maximum of 6 mortal wounds dealt to a unit he charges. He also reduces incoming damage by 1

Flawless Blades are without a doubt the strongest unit in the book, and I fully expect people to take multiple units of 6. I’ve seen some moaning about the lack of anti tank in the book, but these guys are anti-ANYTHING! base combat stats are pretty tasty with 3 attacks hitting on 2s, AP -3 and 2 damage. Now they are only S6, but you can opt to give them Critical wounds on a 3+ at the cost of if you don’t kill a unit when they fight then you lose a model. So just to be clear, that means they will wound anything in the game on a 3+. A unit of 6 of these will get 18 attacks and I dont think there’s many targets that will survive in a round of combat with them so I would always opt for the buff as the risk of not killing whatever you are fighting is so small. Use the example earlier with Slaanesh’s Chosen and you can quite easily one shot Knights every turn with these guys.

Tormentors are your basic Battleline ranged unit, and they are very good for basic troops – they have sticky objectives so they can tag an objective and move off, but what makes them really good is that they can take 2 melta and 2 plasma in a unit of 10 and every single weapon has precision! Wander up to a character attached to a unit and just melta then in the face until they go away! Very strong and a few units of these is a no brainer.

Infractors are the close combat variant of battleline troops, and they get to reroll wounds of 1 in combat, or reroll all wounds if they are fighting an enemy close to an objective. With 4 attacks each and precision they are very good at removing specific models of characters in close combat. They are also scout 6 too, so will be getting in the thick of things very quickly.

Noise Marines are the last new unit in the book, and these are a reliable high damage ranged unit, with the basic Sonic Blaster having 3 S5 shots that cause 2 damage each, and the Blastmaster able to fire a trio of high strength high damage shots, or a barrage of lower damage ones. Adding a Lord Kakophonist to give them sustained hits boots them further too. These are iconically Emperor’s Children, so will always have a place in my armies!

The book also contains some units returning from Codex Chaos Space Marines with Chaos Spawns, Terminators, Land Raiders, Heldrakes, Maulerfiends and Rhinos getting reprinted here.

There are also 5 Daemon units here too, Shalaxi Helbane, Keeper of Secrets, Daemonettes, Fiends and Seekers – these have different profiles and keywords than the pure daemon ones, and are included just for the purposes of filling the mixed detachment. I don’t believe these profiles replace those for a “regular” daemon army and I’m not terribly convinced by the rumours of stand along daemons being discontinued at the moment – this feels just like a fun opportunity for Chaos armies to include daemons alongside them

Crusade

Narrative play is one of my favourite things about the recent editions of Warhammer 40,000 and we see some really fun mechanics in the Emperor’s Childen book. Their main mechanic revolves around Combat Elixirs, the combat drugs that fuel their raids and assaults. In order to concoct these rare and exotic blends of chemicals though, they have to gather various ingredients from various sources. Over the course of your Crusade your army will gather common and rare ingredients, and occasionally they will face an opponent that allows them to gather a particularly exotic ingredient. So for example fighting a Chaos army gives you the opportunity to gather Traitor’s Blood, alien races offer up Xenos-Matter or fighting Eldar might give you Essence of Fear. I really like the encouragement here to fight different armies in order to get the ingredients for the elixirs you are necking during a battle!

We also see some gifts of the gods, with Slaanesh able to offer boons to your units – with some pretty cool stuff such as increasing toughness, movement or attacks – but there’s always risks, and if you roll up a boon you have already got then your character is instead turned into a chaos spawn – so is the price of Chaos!

Summary

So what do I think of the new Emperor’s Children Codex and Army Set? I think a lot of people have been looking forward to Emperor’s Children for a long time, and I’m happy to say that the book looks great fun with a number of different play styles. I do feel that these are going to be very strong, with Flawless Blades and Tormentors in particular looking like no brainers to take in any army. It’ll be interesting to see how the points balance out for these as they are pretty cheap in the printed points in the back of the book for the damage output they can cause!

The models are stunning and Games Workshop are going from strength to strength on new kits, and I’m very excited to see what the next wave of kits look like in the flesh, in particular Fulgrim and Lucius!

I’m also really interested to see what changes we get for the other 3 God specific Chaos Space Marine Legions – I hope that there’s a 50% daemons detachment for each of them, as that would allow players with a large daemon collection be able to pick up just a couple of kits in order to put together a fun army, with the options of expanding out that 1000 points further in future.

As with all these boxes, this will only be available while stocks last, so if you’re tempted I’d act sooner rather than later, as value wise this looks to be one of the best of recent months!

The Emperor’s Children Champions of Slaanesh Army Set is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 15th March

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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