The Emperor’s Children are some of the most dedicated warriors of Slaanesh, and we’ve got all of the rules that they’re getting in the upcoming Faith and Fury release. We’re going to be looking at their Warlord Traits, Relics, Stratagems, and some noteworthy combos so that anyone dedicated to The Dark Prince is ready to fight and earn glory.
WARLORD TRAITS
Stimulated By Pain- Just like it is in the Codex, you get +1 attack for every Wound that you’re missing, up to 3 Attacks.
Intoxicating Musk- All enemy units within 3” of your Warlord receive a -1 to hit.
Unbound Arrogance- You play a mini game with your opponent when your Warlord fights where both players bid a number between 1 and 3, and then reveal both numbers simultaneously. If the numbers match, nothing happens. If the numbers aren’t the same, your Warlord gets a number of bonus attacks equal to the number that you bid.
Faultless Duellist- At the start of the FIght phase, roll a D3. Enemy MODELS (not units) within 1” of your Warlord lose attacks equal to that D3. They can’t go beneath 1 Attack.
Glutton For Punishment- Reduce all damage that your Warlord suffers, to a minimum of 1.
Loathsome Grace- Your Warlord can re-roll the charge distance when Charging, and he gets +1 Strength and +1 Attack in any turn that he Charges, is Charged, or performs a Heroic Intervention.
Glutton For Punishment is, far and away, the best Warlord Trait here. There’s a lot of ways to tool a Chaos Lord or Demon Prince up to be a one man lawn mower, but keeping him alive after the fact can be difficult. Glutton For Punishment drastically lowers the amount of damage your Warlord will be receiving, which makes it easily the best choice. If you’re dead set on making the most offensively powerful Warlord possible, then Loathsome Grace is probably the way to go. It helps ensure you successfully make your charges, and boosts your damage potential to boot. If you think you can outplay your opponent constantly, Unbound Arrogance could result in giving you a couple more attacks, but it’s a huge gamble.
RELICS
The Endless Grin- Your opponent reduces the Morale of all enemy units within 6” of the bearer by 1, and any unit affected by the Morale drop rolls 2D6, discarding a die of your choice for Morale tests.
Fatal Sonancy- 12” range, Assault D6, S6, AP-2, Damage 1 auto hitting weapon that ignores cover.
Armour of Abhorrence- Enemy units can’t fire Overwatch against the Bearer, and any units within 6” fails a Morale Test, one additional model flees.
Remnant of the Maraviglia- This can only be taken by a Dark Apostle, and it gives him a once per game options to broadcast a 6” aura of re-rolling all to wound rolls instead of using a Prayer.
Distortion- This replaces a Power Sword, giving you a Strength User, AP-4, Damage D3 weapon that you can optionally incur a -1 to hit to become Strength X2.
Revulsive Raiment- Just like it was previewed, the bearer can re-roll all Hit, Wound, and Charge rolls.
STRATAGEMS
There are two Relics here that really stand out in the Armour of Abhorrence and Remnant of the Maraviglia. The Armour of Abhorrence provides a tool to get a melee threat into enemy gunlines safely, and since it doesn’t replace any equipment pieces you can easily just pay a CP to have it in games where you need it. On the other hand, the Remnant of the Maraviglia was a Relic that you really have to read twice. CSM have no re-roll to wound access off of Characters short of an Exalted Champion, which is difficult to set up and is melee only (if he could only take a Jump Pack…) This thing applies to all Wound rolls, so your Dark Apostle can provide re-rolls to Wound for some Noise Marines or Deredeos for a turn. Takes some planning, but it’s a really powerful relic, arguably the strongest in Faith and Fury.
Combat Elixirs- Just like it was previewed, this is a pregame Stratagem for 2CP to boost a unit of your choice with +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +1 Attack, or +2 Movement.
Excess of Violence- Unchanged from the Codex, 1CP to make an EMPEROR’S CHILDREN unit make a bonus attack for every enemy model they slay in the Fight Phase.
Incessant Disdain- 1CP, this allows an EMPEROR’S CHILDREN CHARACTER perform a Heroic Intervention into any enemy unit or CHARACTER within 6”.
Honour The Prince- 1CP, After making a Charge roll for an EMPEROR’S CHILDREN SLAANESH unit, change the result of one of the D6’s to a 6.
Excruciating Frequencies- 1CP, Gives one unit of EMPEROR’S CHILDREN NOISE MARINES +1 Strength and +1 Damage to their blastmasters, sonic blasters, and doom sirens.
Cruel Duellists- 1CP, makes an EMPEROR’S CHILDREN unit that isn’t a VEHICLE or CHAOS CULTIST turn all of their natural Wound rolls of 6 to AP-3.
Tactical Perfection- 1CP, redeploy any EMPEROR’S CHILDREN unit. If you move a TRANSPORT, the units embarked inside move with it for free.
The Emperor’s Children have some of the most scattered Stratagems out of any of the Legions, which makes them hard to design around. Instead of having a cohesive gameplan, we have a variety of situational tools. The flip side to this is that each of the tools that the Emperor’s Children have are very powerful. Combat Elixirs is a flexible Stratagem that lets you boost a unit in response to what you’re playing against.
Honour The Prince might as well read “target EMPEROR’S CHILDREN unit automatically succeeds on their Charge roll”, as being able to straight force one D6 to be a 6 after the roll is absurdly close to failure proof. Cruel Duellists lets any unit at least potentially threaten heavily armored targets. Excruciating Frequencies makes a unit of Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters, Blast Masters and some buffs capable of one shotting an Imperial Knight or other TITANIC model in one go. These Stratagems form the backbone of what will make the Emperor’s Children tick.
THE BREAKDOWN
The Emperor’s Children definitely have the tools to be a powerful force on the tabletop, but there is a significant amount of planning that should go into your list creation before you begin. You have a variety of powerful Tools in things like Excruciating Frequencies or Honour The Prince, but to really see success on the tabletop you’ll need to have a plan for these things and how they will play together.
For example, consider a unit of Mutilators (that’s right, I said Mutilators) coming down on Turn 2 followed by a heavier deep strike threat on 3, perhaps Warp Talons or Terminators. Both of these units can take full advantage of Honour The Prince, and keep your opponent on their toes. Normally, landing a charge out of Reserves is really inconsistent which is why these units tend to be looked down on, but Honour The Prince makes that charge practically automatic.
Meanwhile, you have some fire support to take advantage of things like Excruciating Frequencies or the Remnant of the Maraviglia. You also need to have a plan for what you want to use Combat Elixirs on and which buffs you might apply, and possibly even a melee beatstick that you can use Incessant Disdain with to keep your opponents melee threats honest. Now you can cap this off with an aggressive, fast moving threat of your choice like Bikes or some Daemon Engines.
Conclusion
In order to find success with the Emperor’s Children, you’ll need to approach your list creation with an approach similar to this where you have plans to use each and every one of the tools available to you, and you could possibly include a Specialist Detachment if you wanted to kick things up a notch. With some practice and tuning, you can wind up with a very playable and reasonable force out of the Emperor’s Children. All in all, this is a really well designed set of rules that any Slaanesh devotee will want to play with.
If you liked this article and can’t wait to get more awesome content like exclusive battle reports, painting tips from pro painters, and tactics from some of the best 40k players in the world, then you should become a member!
Included in the membership:
- Professional Painting Tutorials by Golden Demon Winner Matt Dipietro so you can save hours of time and show off to all your friends.
- Warhammer 40k Tactics from the best professional players in the world such as Nick Nanavati… you will discover the most up-to-date tactics to be able to crush any competition (including your friends).
- Terrain Tutorials by one of the top terrain makers in Warhammer 40k, Pierre with Paint or Die Miniatures… now you can build an epic battlefield to slaughter your competition on.
- Exclusive Tactics that increase your gameplay + knowledge, Codex Reviews as they are released, FAQ Reviews, painting + modeling techniques from the Nights at the Game Table Team including Adam Lyons.
- Never before seen battle reports that we don’t post anyone else… even on youtube.
- You will also receive the best spill-proof painting mat in the world just for signing up for our yearly membership.
If you want access to ALL of this, then you need to become a member of the Nights at the Game Table by going here: https://page.nightsatthegametable.com/membership
As always a big thanks to Games Workshop for the images provided for our article.
