EMPEROR'S CHILDREN Faction Reaction | Warhammer 40k Codex Review
Joshy and Jonny dive into the recently unleashed excess of the Emperor’s Children, breaking down their latest faction support—shiny new models, fun detachments, and an extremely flavorful narrative ruleset. Fulgrim has returned, Lucius is lurking, and Slaanesh Daemons are in the mix, but does this release live up to the hype, or is it just a half-baked, drug-fueled soufflé?
From stunning sculpts to questionable roster choices, we explore what Games Workshop nailed and what feels frustratingly unfinished. Join us for a first-look reaction to the depraved 3rd Legion—a psychedelic carnival of chaos, corruption, and just a little bit of existential dread.
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TTP Field Manual is brought to you by Joshy and Jonny, best friends and gaming enthusiasts from their local group, Trust the Process Hobbies. Die-hard fans of the Warhammer universe, we use this podcast as a platform to share our passionate (and somewhat humorous) ramblings about all things Grimdark.
By day, Joshy is a therapist; by night, he's an RPG aficionado who grew up on (not-so) Final Fantasies and crafting his own Dungeons & Dragons worlds. Jonny, a hospitality manager, spends his downtime conquering more video games than Joshy can keep track of.
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Notes:
- The Emperor’s Children are back with some slick new models—but after years of waiting, is it enough to satisfy the fans?
- We break down the absurdity of the new detachments and rules, questioning whether they actually bring anything meaningful to the game.
- Crusade rules introduce a wild mechanic where characters can start battle-shocked if they don’t get their 'fix' of combat elixirs.
- Fulgrim’s model is stunning, but his rules? A bit underwhelming—does he truly shine on the battlefield?
- While the Emperor’s Children embrace pure chaos in theme, their actual gameplay feels surprisingly lacking compared to other factions.
- We can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the new rules—an amazing mix of beautiful models and frustrating roster gaps.
Transcript
Hi, it's TTP field manual time. In today's episode, I am joined, as always, by the lovely Johnny Boy. How are you, my dude, my guy, my boo.
Jonny:I'm doing pretty good. Pretty excited to talk about our topic today.
Joshy:I know on today's topic we have Emperor's Children. They are here it is, the 10th edition second new army to come in or come back or reinvent it or slap on.
I don't know how to exactly put it, but the Emperor's Children just had a release window and we're going to have a bit of a first impressions on it. We haven't looked super in depth. We're not competitive players. We're just like you guys, just casually enjoying this hobby.
Jonny:Fulgrim is back.
Joshy:Fulgrim back. Fulgrim back. Lucius back. Eidolon back. Wait a minute.
Jonny:Right? No, there's definitely some hot takes about this. Emperor's Children is a weird place for me. I.
One of my favorite characters is Fabius, you know, ex Emperor's Children. I think they have some super cool ideas behind them, but frankly, I'm pretty. Not that really interested in them as an army. It's weird.
Joshy:Yeah, that's fair. And why is that, do you think?
Jonny:I don't know. I can't put my finger on it. I think part of it is, you know, all the old memes and stuff. You grow up being like, you know, Emperor's Children.
Joshy:They like sex. They like sex and drugs.
Jonny:In reality, there's a lot more to it than just sex, drugs and rock and roll, you know, but you look at this codex and it kind of just says sex, drugs and rock and.
Joshy:Roll without the sex part and body torture, body horror. That. That stuff.
Jonny:Yeah, there's. There's some body horror in there. It kind of makes me see exactly why Fabius, being the person he is, was kind of like, you know what?
You guys have kind of gone a little icky. I don't like this. So I kind of get it.
I kind of feel for him, you know, But I'm still excited to have a look through some data sheets, some detachments, see what they got. See how we'll go through a bit of the crusade stuff and see how it works.
As people especially who are running our way through a crusade at the moment, it could be interesting to see what we might have to face in the future if someone decides to go ec.
Joshy:Who would that be?
Jonny:I don't know. At this point, depends. If someone takes it out from under him like everything else.
Joshy:Finger on the pulse of society. Uh, cool model reception. Everyone's like, damn, that's sick. With a heaping pinch of but where's everybody else?
Followed up with man, another half baked Codex. But this time it feels really underbaked.
Jonny:I mean, when you look at World Eater's release, which was the one before this for cult factions, there definitely was also a case of where is everybody? And then you look at Thousand Sons and Where is everybody?
And then we go to like other releases that aren't cult marines and it's like Votann, where is everybody? Imperial agents. Where is our army rule?
Joshy:Yeah.
Jonny:You know, like I'm not as excited for these new army releases as I probably would would be in the past because this kind of went exactly where I worried it would go. Sick as hell models, but where is everybody? There's so many missed opportunities.
Joshy:Yeah. When you look at things like World Eaters, you look at Votann, Games Workshop says, don't worry, there will be more in the future.
And you're like, okay, whatever, I'll wait for them for the rest, I suppose.
Jonny:But we're yet to see it.
Joshy:Yeah, like in World Eaters, you know, you got still things like some cultists, Hell Brutes. You could for now at least put in like all the Cornate demons to an extent.
And now we have this book, it comes out and there's like, there's no Predator tanks, there's no Hell Broods, there's no cultists. And they have like a Slaanesh detachment which has like a third of the Slaanesh demons. And the data sheets are objectively worse than the index.
Slaanesh demons, they want you to put these two together, but both halves don't make a good whole.
Jonny:Yeah. The one thing that I was the most excited for in the reveal of these, this entire codex was demon support. In the Codex I was over the moon.
I thought this is the coolest thing. This is going to fix demons for 40k.
We're finally going to be able to like ally in our demons the way they're meant to be, where they actually are affected by army rules and stuff like that. And this is what we got.
Joshy:Real spit in the face.
Jonny:It's not even a case of oh, we could fix it with some patches or stuff like that. No, it's just completely not what we hoped for.
Joshy:It's a very head scratching thing for me. Yeah, this, this army should have been end of 10th edition. Put them in like you kind of did with the World Eaters. Build up to it.
You know, tease them a little bit in the lore, in the community, whatever.
Jonny:They kind of just showed up.
Joshy:Yeah, they just sort of showed up halfway through an edition where a bunch of other armies haven't even got their Codex.
They got these sick ass models that I think we'll talk about next, just to have some positivity, but they got these sick ass models and yet you still have like World Eaters and Thousand Sons and other aspects of 40k that are just like, excuse me, what about me?
Jonny:Yeah. So I really wish they handled these new armies a little more structured, as you said.
I think it would have been a really interesting and more well taken way of doing things if they had World Eaters at The end of 9th edition, obviously released and then maybe made them the bad guy for the first season of the next edition so that their second wave comes out not too far afterwards.
Joshy:Yeah, like, instead of like, you do the Leviathan box, you have the Tyranids and then World Eaters.
Jonny:Yeah, well, instead, maybe push Leviathan or like the Tyranids back 12 months.
Maybe have, you know, the World Eaters be the first bad guy and then Tyranids the second and then Prior Nexus III and then finish up with Emperor's children and then make them the bad guy for the start of the next edition. That way you can do your two release waves fairly close to each other.
Joshy:Yeah. Or you do Leviathan and then you're like, oh, by the way, yeah, Khorne just dealt with it, don't worry.
Jonny:But now you got a bigger threat.
Joshy:You're definitely onto something.
Jonny:I think it would have made for a more narrative way of introducing the army in two phases. Still having time to push out the models and finish up what you've got to do. Have them be like, close to the start of the next edition.
Because as it is, we're sitting here twiddling our thumbs, wondering when what we can expect from World Eaters as a second wave in the hope that maybe Votann sits in a similar light at some point.
Joshy:We're both very passionate about this, aren't we? Where we're like tripping over onto each other.
But I was just going to say they could have even done these trade Allegiance like they do the Space Marine Codex Non Compliance, a supplement to that way you don't need to pamper your Codex with CSM units to make it feel like there's an army. You can just like take them as well as. And looking at what models we received for Emperor's Children, and they do look very nice.
We have a Battleline duel kit. We have two elite units, two generic characters and two epic characters. That's. That's it.
I have seen larger Space Marine Codex non compliant chapters have more stuff come out at once. Yeah, and they got to use all the other stuff as well, I think.
Jonny:And I hoped that with the inclusion of the legions of Excess as they've called them in this book, the demonic entities, we could have had a first wave with enough of the CSM support and inbuilt demonic rules that we could have seen a fully fleshed potential army in the first wave without having to make a whole bunch of new models until their second wave. And we could have had an army that looks, feels and plays very good on the table in all of its different aspects.
What we got was a small handful of Chaos Units missing a lot of the things the other culture chapters have, for instance, predators, you know, tanks.
We got a third of the demons that are available to Slaanesh with under baked rules and they're only available to be used in one of the six detachments. I cry in thousand Son. But yeah, where shall we start?
Joshy:Oh, what a. What an intro to this today's topic, my friend. We still have to see how they actually perform, obviously on the Tabletop.
I know Play on Tabletop did a game and they, they did pretty well. But you're playing with such limited pieces that you have to really like Emperor's children to want to actually like pick them up and play them.
And I. I know there will be people have been waiting for this army for the eons.
You know, all the Champions of Slaanesh special box set is like sold out everywhere I look. That's good. Means they'll do more of it. But for the actual ecosystem of the game, it's a. It feels a little bad.
But what's going to stick around for sure are these sick ass models, as you would call them. Oh yeah, let's talk about that Sick ass models. Let's start with the Tormentors and Infractors. What do you think of them?
Jonny:Battleline? Yeah, These are your ranged and melee version of Legionaries for Emperor's Children.
For a kit that is focused primarily around being a battleline and therefore not really meant to stand out. I think the models are pretty good.
They are detailed enough that they separate themselves from being legionaries while still having that like Chaos Space Marine identity. They have very cool models and you get a fair bit of heavy weapon support in each unit, which I really like.
Do I think that am I disappointed in them? From the perspective of emperor's children, a little bit. But that's mainly because they got rid of the wings.
I really wanted to see the vanity of the emperor's children show through in them still being like, look, we are the chosen of the emperor. Even though we turned, you know, like, I really wanted that, that kind of vibe, but it's underrepresented in their army.
Joshy:I agree with that. I think that I'm a little more optimistic on that design space.
I could definitely see them adding in another infantry type that, like, maybe they're called the Immaculates or the Flawless or something like that. And they are what you said, or.
Jonny:A veteran sort of unit Veteran would be the right way to do it.
Joshy:Veteran. Yeah.
Jonny:Yeah.
Joshy:Upstanding members of the old ways. And then they sort of soft retconned these infractors and tormentors to be like the edgy new kids on the block.
But I really like how they look with the various heads. Some of them are just downright haunting to look at.
Jonny:Oh, they're gross, right?
Joshy:The patchworky color scheme they went with for the official design, I actually quite enjoy with the little pastel green highlight. Very cool. And I do quite like the.
That you can buy this kit and you probably have a little section of bits and bobs left over that you could put on to other chaos things you have. And just in your home games, be like, yeah, this is my. My Legionary squad. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna put them in.
Jonny:Yeah, for sure.
Joshy:I've seen people on Reddit already say they're just going to run other stuff from CSM Codex. Who cares?
Jonny:They're very similar. And that's what I mean. Like, they still hold that identity as like a Legionary. I think in terms of, like, the.
The points for what you get in terms of what we're looking at, they are in a similar point vein to Legionaries, but I think they are significantly better than Legionaries for the most part. You either get infiltrator or scout, which you don't get on Legionaries.
You get multiple heavy weapons on the ranged version, which is a very big step up. And then you also get the. The rupture Lash as an upgrade for the melee unit. You also get keywords coming out your backside.
Every single weapon they have at ranged for the ranged guys and melee for the melee guys has a keyword, for the most part, precision, which makes your infantry units ridiculously good at taking out lead units.
Joshy:I was a little surprised that they didn't double down on the Slaaneshi devastating wounds keyword that permeates Slaanesh demons. Much like how Death Guard go with the Nurgle lethal hits.
But if they really continue with this precision and a lot of sustained hits, I'm noticing as well across their data sheets, if they continue down that road, that gives them a nice bit of identity. If you go up against Emperor's Children, you have to really rethink your strategy.
When 10th edition really loves having characters power up your units. There's a lot of talk about how Emperor's Children are a bit One Trick Pony, but I think from a fluff perspective, a lot of chaos is.
And these guys One Trick Pony is to be very melee focused, like the World Eaters, but they are more finesse about it. They will charge you, fall back, charge somebody else, and just taking heads along the way.
Very much like a sharpened blade as opposed to a brutish axe.
Jonny:I really like their intercessors, both versions. One has sticky, the other one has a very similar ability to standard Legionaries, but just for melee, which is the RE rolling wound rolls.
They also have a baked in way of gaining cp, which I. I think overall makes for some very shenanigan based stuff going on with this army. If this is how good they look.
Joshy:At the battle line level, I'm drooling over the Tormentors.
You can take them as Blobs of five, and even with Blobs of five, you can get the icon of excess war gear, which allows you to potentially gain more cp. But five guys each with precision. Each squad of five with a Meltagun and a plasma gun, which also have.
Jonny:Precision, mind you, a plasma gun with precision and a Meltagun with precision.
Joshy:And they infiltrate.
Jonny:And they infiltrate with sticky objectives. And they move seven like the Tormentors are so overtuned. And on top of that, you still get their power weapon upgrade and a plasma pistol.
Joshy:It's good. Yeah, can't say it's not.
Especially when you'll notice as well Emperor's Children, everything they have that is still borrowed from csm, what they do have, even Terminators move a little bit faster. So if you're used to versing Chaos Marines and then your buddy's like, I'm just starting Emperor's Children. Watch out.
They're going to move faster than you realize. Especially when you consider that their faction rule that governs all units is called Thrill Seekers, which allows them to do a lot of movement.
Advancing, charging, shooting. All of it.
Jonny:Yeah, yeah. Key thing to note, all of Their ranged weapons also have assault because of their army rule.
Joshy:Yeah, True assault. Precision infiltrating battle line.
Jonny:It's ridiculous. With sticky objectives. Oh man.
Joshy:Oh yeah. The ranged ones are the sticky ones.
Jonny:The infiltrators. The melee ones have re rolling wounds.
Joshy:In melee they'll hide in the corner and come at you once you decide to push up.
Jonny:It's silly.
Joshy:They're not the only infiltry. Infiltry infantry. My brain smushing words together. Noise Marines.
Jonny:Perhaps the HAVOC equivalent.
Joshy:Yeah, the very iconic Emperor's Children unit.
Jonny:Anyone who knows Emperor's Children in the past knows Noise Marines. They're iconic.
Joshy:What do you think about their Their new models?
Jonny:The models are really nice. I'm a titch sad that they didn't keep at least one guitar weapon. But at the same time I'm not mad about it because those sonic guns are cool.
Joshy:Guitar Guy will be in the second wave. I promise.
Jonny:He'll be the leader that can lead them. Other than the cacophonist.
Joshy:Right.
Jonny:Which we will touch on. But huge speakers feel very Noise Marine y. They have that kind of slightly wider stance that the Havoks have as well. But the guns are sick. Dude.
Joshy:I love the description for them on their data sheet.
Orchestrating riotous destruction on large scales, Noise Marines saturate the warzone with piercing bursts of shattering noise, thrumming waves of aural destruction and other extreme psychosonic attacks. What does that mean?
These hedonistic worshippers of Slaanesha inured to most stimuli and seek to unleash the most cacophonous destruction to stir their jaded senses. They're just looking for a high man.
Jonny:Yeah. And frankly when you look at it, you get five Noise Marines and the Disharmonist. So you get an extra model on top of what Havocs get.
But in exchange you don't quite get as much versatility in your weapon profiles.
Joshy:Yeah, they're a bit shorter range as well.
Jonny:Yeah, you have. They're kind of like a midfield still moving faster than a Havoc kind of feeling that pushes battle shock and leadership test shenanigans.
The sonic blaster and the Blastmaster have ignores cover. So you're already reducing your opponent's ability to save. But outside of that, they're not vastly superior to havoc's.
I would say they're a side grade. You can upgrade two of the sonic blasters to Blastmasters which do have a separate profile for essentially high toughness or lower toughness.
They have their typical anti tank and anti infantry sort of profiling. You have one that's a strength 102 AP3 damage attack. And you have one that's a six strength 2 AP1 damage but with twice as many attacks.
Pretty pretty stock standard sort of stuff. Overall I'm not super over the top with noise range. I think the models are cool. I think the rules aren't as fancy as their battle line. Holy dooley.
Joshy:That's true. They're not very flashy for their reputation.
Jonny:Yeah.
Joshy:But I think they will catch people off guard still with just how much damage they they can tune out.
Jonny:Oh for sure.
Joshy:And especially when you put them with their leader which might be a good segue or someone that can lead them. I should say he has options. The Lord Cacophonus, which is Noise Marine, but a lord.
Jonny:This is up there for one of my favorite models in this reveal.
Joshy:Yeah. Both of his abilities boost the Noise Marines.
Jonny:Noise Marines with sustained hits. Sounds amazing.
Joshy:And Battle Shock test. Double battle shock tests from Noise Marines.
You could split fire and do several battle shocks with bonus mortal wound damage just because you shot them.
Jonny:Well, it's not a double one. One makes their battleshock tests harder, the other one makes them take one.
Joshy:Ah, my bad. But works together.
Jonny:Sure does. And he himself honestly like not overly impressed with his potential abilities. Abilities are great.
I should say his abilities do exactly what you want them to do. Which is make your Noise Marines go from they're alright to I'm scared of them coming anywhere near me.
His actual combat prowess though little disappointing. He has a pistol and a power sword. And if you want you can swap out his power sword for another pistol.
Joshy:When you don't realistically want to be that close to people anyway.
Jonny:Exactly. So like I'm not too baked on his actual offensive capabilities. But his abilities make Noise Marines scary.
Joshy:They should call him Lord Amplifier. But that takes us to our last of the infantry options. The flawless blades. The spiritual successor to the great Crusade Era, Palatine Blades.
Jonny:These guys are sick. These models are gross in all the right ways. The lore behind them is pretty nice. This idea that they're possessed, but they're not possessed.
They let demons in, but they don't let demons control. I think is super cool. They're so ego maniacal that they will not let someone else take over their body. But give me all the strength you want.
I don't care. These guys scare me every step of the way. As someone who plays a predominantly vehicle army, these guys punch up real good.
Joshy:Why's that?
Jonny:Oh man. They have a 3AP 2 damage weapon. That hits on twos. And they have this really cool ability that I'm actually super impressed by called Demonic Patrons.
This allows them at the start of the fight phase to declare they're using this ability. And then they wound on threes no matter what. In exchange, they get a downside. If they don't destroy a model, one of them dies.
But you're probably not using that ability unless you're mostly guaranteed you are going to get that off.
When you've got up to six of these guys running at you with three attacks each, hitting on twos, wounding on threes into whatever toughness you have, you're gonna be a little annoyed and scared. On top of that, they also have someone who can lead them.
Joshy:Yes. And their ability will also apply to the person that leads them.
Jonny:Yep. Which is kind of scary because the person in question is none other than their named character Lucius.
Joshy:Lucius, the whiny son of a gun from our book club episode. But he's edgier now.
Jonny:His tongue is somehow longer now.
Joshy:I'm not sure if the lash of torment is the thing he's carrying or his tongue.
Jonny:Yeah, well, that's why he's got 10 attacks, right? It's both.
Joshy:But Lucius, the eternal amazing glow up of a model. But even on the tabletop, he may be their best character or their best data sheet. If you run him on his own, he still has an invulnerable 4.
A feel, no pain, 5 up. He he is a lone operative, which means you can't really target him unless you get close enough to him. And if he is alone, he gets fights first.
Jonny:Yep, that's a lot of keywords.
Joshy:He loves to actually be on his own. But if he is with the flawless blades, he does lend a bit more damage to more. So guarantee they actually kill their target or some of their target.
And don't lose a model to the demonic patron.
Jonny:Which I think is really funny for Lucius because he's such an egomaniac as well.
Like, he's so up his own ass about his combat skills that the only people he will let anywhere near him are the flawless blades who are supposedly the rest of the best possible melee in their entire legion. He thinks he can compete with people who are literally demonically infused.
Joshy:And he might be able to, considering his ability. A challenge worthy of skill means when just him.
So he doesn't give this to the flawless blades, but if just him is fighting and he's targeting either a character, which again, he does have a precision weapon, or a monster or a Walker, you can re roll the hit roll and you can re roll the wound.
Jonny:Roll, which he just got to get a kill.
Joshy:It doesn't matter if it's a big tyranid or if it's a dreadnought. It's just like, I'm just gonna stab you and I'm gonna kill you.
Jonny:He is so cool.
Joshy:His armor is looking horrific though.
Jonny:Always has. But now it just, it's a real glow up.
Joshy:We have a bit of a new lore tidbit on Lucius which makes him even more terrifying.
Jonny:Oh yeah.
Joshy:Do you know what his whole shtick about being eternal is?
Jonny:Yes.
Joshy:If he dies in battle and his opponent was proud of it, the whole Slaaneshi powers take advantage of that pride and hubris and Lucius is rematerialized as that person. He starts to take over them. He sort of becomes them from the inside out and then they are locked away as another face on his armor.
Jonny:Yep.
Joshy:He's not invincible. He'll just come back and wear you inside his armor.
Jonny:It's really concerning that every time he has been killed, they have gloated, they have been proud of it.
Joshy:There was like even a story where he got blown up by a landmine. And the random person in the hive factory that built the mine was pretty proud of his work, you know, supporting the Imperium with his arms.
Well then he became Lucius after that.
Jonny:Wasn't even there. Still gets possessed. That's. That's concerning.
Joshy:But the narrative, I'm not sure if it's always been the case or if it's evolving, but it doesn't even necessarily have to be a fleshy thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be like another Astartes that bested him in combat or anything like that.
There's lore, tidbits of him being slain by a Canoptic construct and him just materializing out of the living metal of a Necron Cryptek just birthing his way out from the Necrodermis of the Technomancer that was kind of controlling the Canoptek structures.
Jonny:I love that. That's great.
Joshy:Imagine your 60 million year old space wizard and some dude's hands and long little tongue just start like warping itself out of you.
Jonny:I don't want to. That sounds terrible.
Joshy:That's Lucius. There's only been like one person that he didn't really come back that way that we know about, I think.
And it's one of the Raven Guard named characters back in the Horus Heresy that slew him. But he didn't like he wasn't proud of it. He didn't, you know, think, heck yeah, I beat Lucius. He. He's just like very cold and calculated.
Like that guy needed to be put down like the rabid dog he was. Alright, next.
Jonny:And how did he come back from that one?
Joshy:Slaanesh magic, I suppose.
Jonny:Of course.
Joshy:But that's Lucius. We have someone else.
Jonny:They do have a generic Chaos Lord model. The Lord exalts.
Joshy:Yes, of course.
Jonny:I will edge you more than Slaanesh does. Okay, I know where you wanted to go.
Joshy:Sure. All right.
Jonny:This is their generic infantry leader. This is the Chaos Lord for Slaanesh. And he has the most glorious cloak. This model's cool. I don't think it's cacophonous cool, but it's cool.
Joshy:I think it's definitely Lord of your force cool though.
Jonny:Yeah, for sure. He gives lethal hits to whoever he is leading.
So just another keyword to add to everything that you're tormentors are doing or your infractors are doing.
Joshy:Man, that's excessive.
Jonny:Yes, it is called the Perfectionists.
Joshy:Oh, it is too.
Jonny:And he kind of has another version of what the Chaos Space Marine Chaos Lord has as well. He has a once per game melee buff for himself.
This one instead of giving plus one to a whole bunch of different stats, it gives plus three attacks and plus one ap. So he just starts going ham. This is your generic captain. He has your four UP save.
He's still faster than the Chaos Space marines equivalent at 7 inches of movement. And he has a few weapon options. So he can either have a Power Fist, a Rupture Lash, or a spear or a Power Sword as his melee weapon.
Joshy:Extra attacks Rapture Lash.
Jonny:Rapture Lash does. So if you want, you can have a Power Sword or a spear and the Rupture Lash, you do lose your ranged option.
The other one is you could potentially go with like the. The plasma pistol and also a screamer pistol. Again if you wanted like two pistols. Probably not the way people will run this guy.
Joshy:Three pistol was a joke. At some point your choices are a.
Jonny:Power sword with precision, a lance spear, or a power fist. Like your options are decent for a melee. Dude, on top of that, if he's leading all of these things have lethal hits.
And once per game your power fist could just go ham on someone with eight attacks at strength. Eight with ap. Three once per game. Like that's. That's a scary power fist.
Joshy:I think power fists are very scary, but I never think they are cooler than spears and swords and lashes.
Jonny:I completely agree but you could have your power fist and your lash.
Joshy:True that.
Jonny:But the spear also just seems almost as good, if not better because of the lance part. You charge in, it gets a buff. It's already got lethal hits and you're hitting on twos.
It's only one less strength than a power fist and its AP and damage are exactly the same.
Joshy:Alright, I'm gonna have a spear.
Jonny:It's. In my opinion, it's probably spear and lash.
Joshy:Yeah.
Jonny:Unless you're using him with the ranged guys. In which case you probably keep a pistol, just in case. In which case you get a plasma pistol.
Joshy:Or you just leave them as a melee threat, in case someone thinks to charge that unit to get rid of them, only to be met with Lord Exultant.
Jonny:Yeah. And then on top of all of that, he also just gets the infiltrator or scout keyword that the other models have, so he can still infiltrate. Sick dude.
Cool stuff. Pretty good. Generic Chaos Lord.
Joshy:I'm very impressed with the models we've received for them.
Jonny:But that's. That's all we got for new models, right, Josh?
Joshy:I mean, of models that you would consider taking automatically. Yes. The other one is more of a funsies pick.
Jonny:I don't know, I can't see it. Like, I get it. He's not as competitively choosable, but not even competitive.
Joshy:He'll be an expensive model and take up a lot of points.
Jonny:Yeah, but that's what primarchs are for.
Joshy:That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, coming in from the great rift in the pleasure palace and his giant 3D chessboard, it's Snakeman Fulgrim.
Jonny:He's finally here. We've asked for it for a long time and they gave us a model. And you know what? I'm pretty okay with this model. It is a nice looking model.
The 30k model they released was also very well done from like a perfectionist. Fresh boy, 30K. Fulgrim, freshly demonified. It was a cool model. This guy has seen some shit.
Joshy:Yeah, this guy definitely looks like he's in late stage addiction.
Jonny:Yeah, he definitely gives me crack addict vibes. And a lot of people are like, oh, but that's not my Fulgrim. It's like kind of is nowadays.
Joshy:People who say that are never gonna be happy though.
Jonny:You know what I mean though, right? Like, everyone's like, oh, he doesn't look as attractive as he used to. I'm like, it's because he spent the last 10,000 years high as a kite.
After being virus bombed in the face.
Joshy:He's stayed home the whole time. He's playing, like, YouTube clips of his best battles on his homeworld. He is torturing people for funsies, even.
Like many other demonic primarchs, they have an edgy phase and their offspring are like, we'll just. We'll just leave dad to his weird hobbies. He'll come. He'll come out when he's ready. And that's also Fulgrim.
Yeah, but he's got the Slaaneshi serpent tail that's erupting into little spikes and barbs. He's got bits and pieces of his old armor that are barely on anymore as his body explodes into wings and multiple arms.
He's got a loin piece that is stretching as far as it can and then hooking into his actual tail, which is no longer really protected. It's open, it's slithery, it's slimy. And like, his hair looks a little disheveled. His wings look like they need a moisturizer.
His face looks like, you know, he's. He's just done a bunch of lines in the bathroom. Like, he's a. He's a mess.
Jonny:He is a mess, but what a cool looking mess he is.
Joshy:Very intimidating silhouette to put onto the battlefield too, because he is huge.
Jonny:He is huge. He is angry. He is ready to go. Ham points wise, based on what we know so far, he is the cheapest of the demon princes.
Joshy:I'm not sure.
Jonny:Hold on. No, sorry. Mortarion is well under. Here's the second cheapest. The. In Codex, points is at 385.
Now, obviously we don't know where that will sit once they have an actual points update, but to put in perspective, Magnus and Angron are both over 400 and mortarion sits at 300.
Joshy:Wow. Okay. Fulgrim seems like a big distraction. Carnifex. He doesn't grant a whole lot of benefit to his force around him.
Jonny:He doesn't play well with others.
Joshy:He's got a bunch of attacks himself. He moves the fastest of the demon primarchs. He can inflict lingering damage over time. Poisons with his weaponry, specifically his shooting weapon.
He has a few abilities you get to pick from like every round, such as being minus one to hit, so it makes him a little bit stealthy. He could have fights first if you're planning a big charge.
Jonny:Well, they're all very defensive abilities. Yeah, which is strange for Fulgrim.
From what I gathered, defense ain't really his style, but These are very defensive abilities and you do select them in your opponent's command phase, not yours.
Joshy:I feel like the poison ability was meant to be stronger than it actually is. Lock people up in a fight with him. Almost like, no, I'm just a widdle. I'm a wittle snake man.
You can take me on and just these poisons are sapping you the longer you're in fight with him. But I don't think that really is actually the case.
Jonny:Yeah, yeah. It's still only a 50% chance that you do any damage. It is nice that it lasts to the end of the battle.
So you could potentially do hit and run tactics and try and lock up as many people with poison as possible. He has an impressive stat block at 16 inches of movement and 11 toughness. 16 wounds. He hits a whole bunch.
He has sustained hits and an extra attack tail. A key thing to always remember is he also has advanced shoot and charge.
Joshy:Yes. Very zippy.
Jonny:So you've got a 16 inch dude with a D6 potential extra movement and then two D6 charge. This is a candidate for like turn one charges. And on top of that he has deep strike as well.
Joshy:Yeah. So if you're up against a knight tyrant, you can just hide him well.
Jonny:No, if you're up against a knight tyrant, you don't hide him. You put him on the battlefield and you charge that tyrant.
You don't deep strike it 9 inches away or 12 inches away because of it's a tyrant, you know.
Joshy:Alright, you have counted my joke with logic.
Jonny:But like he's impressive.
Joshy:Oh yeah.
Jonny:But he's not Magnus levels of impressive.
Joshy:Alright.
Jonny:In terms of on the battlefield. The model itself though, I would say is my. It's a very nice model and I think it's my favorite of the primarchs just for the amount of detail.
Mortarion is very nice, but he's a little icky in the right way.
Joshy:Yeah. You can do some amazing paint jobs with Mortarion that I've seen.
Jonny:Yeah. I think Mortarion has the most artistic of the primarchs in terms of what you can do with him. Angron is just a big red demon.
There's nothing really fancy about him. Magnus feels like he was the first one they did and weren't really sure what to do with them yet.
Joshy:That is the case.
Jonny:And Fulgrim is like, how much detail can we stick in this guy?
Joshy:I love that they really went with the bat out of hell approach for Fulgrim.
Jonny:Yeah, he looks absolutely crazy and I.
Joshy:Love that he has so many melee attacks, but he's a little, like, unfocused in his role, which is. It's still a good role, but compared to the other demon primarchs, he's definitely like this master swordsman. You can see it in his melee attacks.
He's going to take a lot of things down with him, but he's just this big. Ah, look at me. I'm here. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab.
Meanwhile, like, his other brother's doing poisons, the other brother's being resurrected in blood, his other one's doing spells.
Jonny:But no, I really like it. And that's all we got. That's new. So do we talk about what's not in the Godex?
Joshy:We're running a little long. Let's leave what could be for another topic.
Jonny:Okay.
Joshy:Because we don't, you know, we'll just talk about what we got.
Jonny:Yeah. We also want to talk about detachments and crusade rules. So let's touch on that then.
Joshy:I mean, we don't really need to gloss over the generic units. Like, we don't really need to. They are there.
They might have a bit more speed, they might have a couple of keywords, but if you see sorcerer, you see Terminator, you see land raider, it's like more of the same.
Jonny:It's basically a CSM equivalent with a.
Joshy:Little bit of speed.
Jonny:Yeah.
Joshy:But we have several detachments. We have six, which is the holy number of Slaanesh, if you did not know.
Jonny:Which makes me curious if they're going to do eight for Khorne.
Joshy:Oh, with what models, Johnny?
Jonny:That's why I'm, like, curious. And then seven from death.
Joshy:God, what was nine was nine. Thousand sons.
Jonny:Thousand sons.
Joshy:Yeah. Good luck.
Jonny:Yeah, good luck getting nine out of them.
Joshy:But the six we got. I'll do a little blurb, and then you pick one to talk about.
Jonny:Yeah, cool.
Joshy:So every faction tends to have its basic detachment, its sort of generic approach to the army as a whole. Its ability and its stratagems tend to be able to apply to most of your army. Or there's one thing for everybody, that's the mercurial host.
It's not very flashy, but it's existing.
We have the peerless bladesman that really goes into the melee focus of the faction, which they definitely like doing, giving them even more keywords. In that detachment, we have rapid evisceration. They like to hop in and out of transport tanks. In that detachment, hitting better because of it.
Gotta go vast.
We have the coterie of the conceited, which Is a bit of an oddball, but it works around making a pact with Slaanesh itself to get even stronger by doing arbitrary killing amounts.
Jonny:But also a sick name, I just want to say.
Joshy:Oh, very fun. We have Slaanesh's chosen, which is all about a favored champion mechanic. And that's nice.
And then the carnival of excess, which is, hey, if you bring some, but not all, some of the Slaanesh demons, you'll get a lot of sustain hits for being near each other. That's it. Where do you want to go?
Jonny:Well, because we're going to rapid fire this a little bit because time, I do want to touch on the carnival of excess, so why don't we start there and get it out of the way?
Joshy:Okay.
Jonny:This is the poor interpretation of what we were hoping to get. This is your demons detachment. This is half of your army can be legions of excess demons, Although you've only got a handful of options.
And while your emperor's children and legions of excess units are near each other, they get sustained hits and crits on fives. That in and of itself is very cool. That is a good thing to have sustained hits on 5s is very nice.
Joshy:That's on fives. If it already has sustained hits, though.
Jonny:Yeah, Sorry.
Joshy:That's okay.
Jonny:Which quite a few of the stuff that you're doing does have sustained hits. That's your noise marines with crits on fives.
Joshy:You know, noise marines are at the carnival, like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing and bing. Like the big top music.
Jonny:I would have really liked this detachment if it didn't have the legions of excess claws. If you could just include demons as part of your army full stop, instead of only in this one detachment, I probably would have been like, cool.
There's only a few. Who cares? At least we got some.
I would have been happy, but the fact that they're literally stuck in one of six detachments just felt like a cop out to me.
Joshy:And they're worse. Yeah, they're worse. Data sheets.
Jonny:Yeah.
Joshy:As someone who just did a Slaanesh Grotmas list in a recent episode, I looked at the data sheets. I'm like, I swear the shellaxiel bane was better. Oh, look, she was.
Jonny:Oh, look, she is just not here. Yeah. But the idea behind the detachment is really cool, and I kind of dig it. It's just got bad taste in my mouth.
Joshy:You know, they could have had a secondary faction rule, which is, hey, if you do have Slaanesh demons, they gain.
Jonny:The legions of excess keyword. Instead of legions Demonica. Full stop. That's all you need.
Joshy:Full stop.
But they could put the sustain hits aura on them still as a way of like, maybe you want the weaker data sheets because you want still Chaos demons to have their own fun. Maybe you do weaken them and tweak them for this codex, but you can put them in all detachments. They still do the sustain hits thing.
Then the Carnival of Excess, you tweak a little bit more towards the ranged approach.
Jonny:Yeah. But this is what we got. Moving on to Mercurial host, they got the simplest potential option for a detachment rule.
Their detachment rule is they reroll advanced rolls. That's it.
Joshy:Good.
Jonny:Good.
Joshy:But boring.
Jonny:Very good. Very boring. Works very well with the fact that they can advance and charge, advance and shoot.
It basically means that you are running across that board as fast as you can. They do what they do just a little bit better. Looking through their stratagems.
They are very spread out amongst when you can activate them, so they can reliably do their thing and have something to do during it. Very simple, very basic. This is what would have been their index. If they had an index.
Joshy:Yeah, classic stuff. Better moves, better wounds. Get out of dodge, hop up into strategic reserves. Just a lot of generic approaches to the core rules, which is fine.
Jonny:Do you want to talk to us about Coterie of the Conceited?
Joshy:I love Coterie of the Conceited. I would play this just because it seems janky, but in like a fun way.
Jonny:It seems super fun. I love gambling.
Joshy:You basically at the battle round, you say, hey, I'm going to destroy this many of your units. If you do, then you get a bunch of packed points equal to how many units you destroyed. Like this round, I'm going to kill three of your units.
If you kill three of the units, you get three pact points. If you kill four, you get nah, too many. And if you fail your pledge, your warlord suffers.
Jonny:Hold on, hold on, hold on. You just have to beat the number. If you get four and you said three, you still only get three packed points.
Joshy:Oh, whoops. Yeah, I. I bamboozled anyway. But yes, you can do that. If you don't hit the point, then you do take the damage.
Jonny:Yes. And it's D3 mortal wounds. It's not a small amount of damage in the grand scheme of things.
Joshy:No. But if you do lose your warlord, I'm pretty sure you can still keep the actual pact.
Jonny:But once your warlord is dead, you can't keep getting points.
Joshy:No.
Jonny:So what do you get for your points? Joshi.
Joshy:So you start with reroll hit rolls of one at one pact point. If you're at three packed points, you also get reroll wound rolls at one.
You really want to get to five packed points so that melee weapons get lethal hits and sustain hits. One.
Jonny:Oof.
Joshy:But if you get to seven packed points, then every model in the unit gets a critical hit on 5s.
Jonny:So if you get to 7, you get to reroll 1s on hit rolls and wound rolls. You have lethal and sustained hits and critting on 5s. So you can crit fish for days.
Joshy:But that requires you to accurately predict killing up to seven units before your.
Jonny:Warlord dies, which isn't terribly hard, depending on what you're fighting into. It's more a case of, like, this doesn't scale up or down based on your points. So if you're in a 1k game, you might not get to 7.
Your opponent might only have 6 units.
Joshy:Correct.
Jonny:Whereas if you're in a 2 or 3k game, it might not be too much of a challenge to get to seven.
Joshy:Do you have a stratagem to increase your pledge on a specific unit?
So let's say you really need something to die, but you're at like four packed points and you're in melee with your flawless blades, you're like, this thing needs to die. Whatever it might be, it could be a big boy. You pop your unbound, arrogant stratagem, and then suddenly they're at five pack points.
Like, there are little tweaks like that, and the. There are some, you know, strats to give feel no pains and stuff.
Jonny:But the key thing you're missing there is it happens after you destroy a unit, so you can't use it preemptively. You have to kill someone first and then be like, oh, that was my fifth. I said four. I want that extra pledge.
Joshy:Yeah. Not a lot of their units do both shoot and then fight, so.
Jonny:But, yeah, I think it's the most interesting of the detachments for sure.
Joshy:Evidently a little confusing to get right if you first read it like we just did.
Jonny:But I think it's also the one people will get caught off guard by the most because they're like, oh, by the way, that's also lethal and sustained. And you're like, wait, what? It's gonna have the most. Hold on. How many pact points do you have?
Yeah, that takes us to the next one, which is rapid evisceration.
Joshy:So something up your alley.
Jonny:Transport one. I'm actually not that interested in it.
Joshy:Oh, okay.
Jonny:Only for the reason of you're probably gonna want to run land raiders, which are always super overpriced point wise. And Rhinos, which, they're fine, they, they perform a job, but they don't do much outside of that job.
And also requires you to be getting in and out of your transports a lot because the models will. Only after they disembark do they get reroll, hit roll of one and reroll a wound roll of one.
So it's incentivizing you to put everyone into transports, which means now you're probably spending like 200 to 250 points per unit to set them up at the start of the game if they're in Rhinos, more so if they're in land raiders, meaning you are very elite at that point because you've got like three infantry all in transports with leaders pushing up the board. And then what, you're going to try and jump in and then the next turn jump back out.
And it just seems a little slow and clunky for something that's so fast.
Joshy:All the stratagems for this detachment seem to revolve around manipulating how transport rules work. So like one of the stratagems is like rapid re embarkment basically. And a lot of things like you can also charge after the embarkment thingy.
You know, all that sort of like tweaking of the rule. Something I really like is that there's a Dark Mechanicum enhancement in here.
Jonny:Yeah. The Heretic.
Joshy:The Heretic added, choose one of your excessive Slaaneshi boys to also be a Dark Mechanicum agent. I guess make your vehicle take zero damage from one of the attacks. It's okay. That's cool.
Jonny:Yeah, it's fine. But like, you are super CP heavy in this detachment, in my opinion.
Joshy:Yeah. Whoever gets the hang of this detachment, I think will be very effective.
Jonny:Oh yeah, for sure. And especially if you can utilize your icon bearers as much as possible to get that extra CP once per round.
Like you're going to be pushing for that to keep fueling your engine.
Joshy:Yeah. Big brain Strat.
Jonny:Yeah. High skill ceiling big brain. And then we come to flawless blades detachment. The Peerless Bladesman.
Joshy:I thought we were looking at differently written detachments. For a second. I'm like, it's Peerless Johnny.
Jonny:Yeah. But it's, it's the detachment for your flawless blades.
Joshy:Let's be real. I gotcha halfway through. Don't worry.
Jonny:This again has a fairly simple but effective detachment rule. It's just when your dudes charge, they get lethal hits or Sustained hits is good. It feels very cornate.
Joshy:Yeah, it does.
Jonny:But in a very still functional way for them. This is your melee army focus. This is your flawless blades, your scouting infantry.
This is getting in your opponent's face and hitting them with your weapons. You even get an enhancement to give the model a model fights first.
There's not a lot to say about this other than you're gonna be fighting like a Khorne Berserker, but cooler, because flawless blades are pretty cool. If you like the flawless blades and you want three units of flawless blades, this is exactly where you want to be.
Joshy:I think it's really nice that they managed to squeeze out a detachment for all of their four or five units.
Jonny:That's why they needed six. Right. One generic and one for each.
Joshy:We do have one more though.
Jonny:That takes us to the last one. Talk me through Slaanesh's chosen.
Joshy:I read this one a little bit longer than the coterie, so hopefully I understand this one.
Jonny:It's got a few more words in it too, somehow.
Joshy:Basically, this is your character detachment. Several armies have one of these where you go a little bit heavier into bringing characters, whether with or without them, leading other units.
Anyway, the basic rule is that you're encouraging your characters to compete against each other, and they do so by ignoring any modifiers to their move and advance and charge roles, which several armies have characters to apply a very defensive ability to limit that. So that's particularly scary that they're just like. I don't care.
What the main shtick is though, is that starting with your warlord, someone is Slaanesh's chosen and they are your favored character. They get this sort of pseudo keyword right. It replaces other keywords just while they are the favored champion.
And that keyword swaps to a different character the first time in each player's turn, the first that another EC character destroys an enemy unit, and what ends up happening then is that your favorite champion you can re roll wound rolls. And several of the enhancements in stratagems, which are fairly normal.
Emperor's Children flare, lots of movement, shenanigans, re rolling stuff, keywords, fighting on, death, etc. If you're targeting the favored champion, there's like an extra level to the stratagem, like a secondary tier to the stratagem.
Like this stratagem is good, but if you're targeting your favorite champion, it's better. Like you go from plus one to plus two or something like that.
Jonny:So I love the flavor of it. I think it's so Slanesh. It's so Emperor's children. It's so ego driven.
You know, every single turn someone else is going to be the favored because they killed the most recent person. It really shows that vibe I would have liked for maybe if you could choose before that unit attacked to be like, okay, I'm going to be the chosen.
Now I get the buff. Because as it is, you're probably using your chosen character to shoot or fight first because you're going to want them to have their reroll.
And then you're going to use a different character. They are going to accomplish this feat. That first one will lose that keyword. This one will gain it. Oops.
They don't get to do anything till next turn with it.
Joshy:Yeah. You kind of have to plan a few moves ahead, don't you?
Jonny:Yeah. And then you're also planning for what you can do in your opponent's turn.
Like, I need this character to have the keywords so that I can get the benefit out of this stratagem on my opponent's turn. Okay. It's my opponent's turn. I need to fight with this character first so that I can give it to them so that I have it for the benefits of my turn.
Like there's this. It's. It's really back and forth and very plan ahead kind of gameplay.
Joshy:Yeah. There's even like things like beautiful death. A fight on death stratagem. But you are more likely to have it if they are the favored champion.
You have other things too. Like you can pop diabolic majesty on a brand new favored champion. Champion to do small aura battle shocks.
And there's a lot of manipulation like that. But I much like the coterie. I think this is your big brain stuff.
You need to be able to know your army inside and out and the general tempo of the game. You got to be pretty on the money with knowing how the game progresses and being able to plan for it for sure. But that's all six.
Jonny:That's the detachments. I think we should take a quick look at the Crusade rules.
Joshy:Firstly though, which detachments would you play?
Jonny:Kotri. Let's be real.
Joshy:I would say that. Or Slaanesh is chosen. I like the the convolutedness of them.
Jonny:I would want to try and make carnival of excess work. And I would probably give up in the middle of list building.
Joshy:Yeah.
Jonny:Just because I'd be like, but the demons are bad. What do you mean? I have to spend 115 points on these demonettes when I could just get 95 points for some more battle line units.
Joshy:Yeah.
Jonny:I think Mercurial Host will surprise us and people are like, yeah, it's just good. But I think coterie will be the most fun.
Joshy:Probably. Yeah.
Jonny:We know how much I love to gamble.
Joshy:Yeah, I don't. So I would be a little anxious the whole time.
Jonny:For sure. For sure.
Joshy:Combat elixirs is the Crusade rule.
Jonny:This is interesting. The little bit that I've looked through it. It's in depth, funky, but I kind of dig it.
There's some really interesting little rulings that are in there that have a lot of that Emperor's children flavor.
Joshy:Do you want to explain to the audiences how elixirs work or are you still like me reading it?
Jonny:I have glimpsed over it, so I might mess this up. But over the course of your battles, you are going to gain ingredients, usually through winning or accomplishing agendas, things like that.
You are then going to use those ingredients to equip your characters and army with these like buffs, these elixirs, these drugs.
Joshy:Drugs.
Jonny:But there are a few key caveats that you have to remember. If you do not give anyone or your army an elixir, they start the game battle shocked.
Joshy:Oh no.
Jonny:They are drug addicts.
Joshy:Oh dear.
Jonny:You missed that part, didn't you?
Joshy:Yeah, yeah.
Jonny:They are battleshocked for the entirety of the first round.
Joshy:No sticky objectives for you.
Jonny:No nothing for you, mate. No turn one stratagems. You also cannot equip the same elixir to a character or your army. Two games in a row. There is no Best in slot.
Joshy:I like the names they have for these things. You know, you have common ingredients and rare ingredients which are just whatever. Then you have exotic ingredients which can.
Jonny:Only be gained from agendas.
Joshy:Oh, that's how we get them. Okay.
Jonny:Yeah.
Joshy:Concentrate of tormented souls. Dilution of false hope. Distillate of hatred. Essence of fear. Extract of xenomatter. But I like this next one. Infusion of traitor's blood.
Jonny:Right. It's super cool. And guess what? They're racist. You get them differently based on who you beat. Alright, so back to where I was.
You cannot equip your army or any characters with the same combat elixir. Two successive battles in a row. The reason is they always crave the thrill of fresh experiences and that's boring.
They're so drug addled that they can't have the same drug in a row because it's. They build an instant immunity and need to let it cool off a bit.
Joshy:That's hilarious. Some of these Elixirs are insane, though.
Jonny:They are some serious buffs. Just remember, quite a few of them are locked behind specific agendas.
Yeah, Some of the army buffs, well, the army buffs include like, plus two to your movements, plus one to strength characteristics of melee weapons, plus one to toughness, plus one to attacks of melee weapons, improving your AP and your ballistic skill and weapon skill or leadership and objective control. That's army wide. Only two of them don't require a exotic and there's different quantities that you need for the different ones.
So for instance, some of them will need one common and then either a rare or an exotic. Others might need two commons and a rare. Like you kind of have to build up your toolkit before you can use them.
And you're going to be pushing to make sure you're not starting games. Battle shocked. On top of that, each character can have one of six, which can give things like fights first, reducing stratagem costs.
We have one for two up invuln save, which requires up to two exotics. There is one that inflicts mortal wounds when they deal damage. There's one that forces battle shock tests on nearby enemies.
And there's one that gives them the ability to move, shoot, move.
Joshy:Oh, yeah. One of the requisitions available is to get drug ingredients. That's fun.
Jonny:Yep. So there are a few different ways that you can get ingredients.
One is through a requisition, which can give you a couple of commons, some rares, maybe let you swap out for a different rare or exotic, just so you can tailor your bucket of goodness. And then you also get some after your battles. So after every battle you'll roll a D6, adding two if you won.
And on a four plus you will get a common ingredient. On a six plus you will get D3 common ingredients. And then at the end of the battle, you will roll a D6, adding one to the result if you won.
And on a six plus you'll get a rare on top of that.
Joshy:That's very cool.
Jonny:Yeah, right. On top of that, you have your agendas, and your agendas are kind of your way to get ingredients as well.
You have an agenda called Feeding the Addiction. And what this agenda does is each time one of your units destroys an enemy unit with a melee attack, that Emperor's Children unit gets an experience.
And at the end of the battle, consult the table below to see which ingredients you add to your combat elixir's stash. You do get all that apply, and it comes down to which enemies you are fighting.
If they're Chaos Units, you can get a rare or an infusion of Traitor's Blood. If they are Imperium, you can get Dilution of False Hope. If they are essentially Xenos. So not Imperium or Chaos, you can get Xenomatter.
And if it's six or more units you destroy, you get D3 common ingredients as well. It's neat. Like, it's a neat way of doing things. You feel like you're being productive throughout the game because you're trying to collect things.
And then you've got everything else that comes along with being part of a Chaos faction. You have Chaos Boons, you have Ascension to Demon Prince.
You have all these other mechanics that you'd be familiar with if you've looked at a Crusade supplement.
Joshy:Boons of Slaanesh. They also allow you to gain potential drugs as well.
From what I'm seeing, instead of a normal battle trait roll for characters, you can roll a D3 3 to get a Boon of Slaanesh. Such basic ones include Fickle Speed, which is add one to advance and charge rolls, or Perfection of the body.
This model has the Feel no Pain 6, but you could also get something such as Razor claws. Improve the AP of melee weapons by one.
And if the model destroys one or more units with a melee attack during a battle, but not if it's Imperium or Chaos. So a Xenos opponent. Then at the end of the battle, you gain an extra extract of Xenomatter. And you have a couple others like that.
Jonny:And it still has the spawned of mechanic. So if you do roll the same boon more than once, you explode into a Chaos spawn.
It's very typical stuff in terms of what you have outside of that combat elixir. You've got battle traits for infantry and monsters, Noise Marines and Cacophonists. Characters, vehicles.
Joshy:I'm very into the Crusade.
Jonny:Yeah, the Crusade supplement's sick, dude.
Joshy:One of my favorites.
Jonny:So flavourful too. The fact that you can't use the same elixir two battles in a row. So sometimes it's like, oh, I really want the fights first for this specific fight.
So I can't use it in this one because I'm gonna want it next time, you know.
Joshy:But what if you don't have any ingredients for other drugs and you can't start battle shocked.
Jonny:Well, that's the thing. You might be like, ooh, I really need to make sure that I have this specific elixir for when I fight BOB next week. But I'm up against Joe this week.
So maybe this is the fight where I can afford the Battleshock turn one so that I can save up my ingredients and ensure that when I go up against someone in the future who I need fights first against, I have it. Or who has a lot of AP attacks.
And you're like, I really need that two up invuln save, you know, but also, you're equipping one of these to each of your characters, potentially. So you can also just save up a few, take a couple of turn one battle shocks, and then be like, okay, this is the fight where I'm gonna go all out.
Joshy:Hell yeah.
Jonny:Yes. I love it. I think it's great. I think they hit the nail on the head here.
Joshy:Well, we started this episode with a pretty excessive tirade. How are we feeling now that we sat down for over an hour? We've broken down the models, the detachments, the Crusade. Where are you at now?
Jonny:I'm still down on their detachments. I am up on the data sheets, except for excess.
I think their actual Emperor's Children data sheets feel very good for what seems to be or implies to be similar point costs to the equivalents from csm. Their Crusade supplement is one of the cooler ones.
Joshy:Oh, for sure.
Jonny:I think we might have given it a worse wrap than we probably should have at the start. I'm a little under baked on Fulgrim.
I was expecting a little more, but lore wise, it kind of makes sense that he does what he does and doesn't do what you'd want him to do, because personality wise, like, he's had a rough time of it and he'll still do well.
Joshy:And if you like the model, just get it. The rules always change.
Jonny:The model's sick.
And if I was collecting ec, it'd be one of the first things I buy because the model is sick and you're gonna have an absolute anxiety attack painting it. But you're also gonna have a blast painting it. You know, it's got so many different elements between flesh and wings and trinkets and armor and hair.
And, like, it's got all the things that you can really let your artistic pleasures out, for lack of a better word. You know, we're in the sea. Land.
Joshy:That was a good word, good phrase.
Jonny:And your army's gonna look really good. I think as a coherent unit, it's gonna look really impressive because all of your battle line have, like, interesting, unique little bits about them.
Your noise Marines can have a couple of different weapons and look really intimidating.
You've got the Lord Exorcist who is a really cool looking model that's going to look like a really nice character sort of centerpiece outside of your actual named characters. Lucius's model is very nice and very well detailed. I just think as a whole, like they did a good job. It was just not what anyone hoped for. Quite.
Joshy:Mm. Yeah. I was really on the EC train before they announced all their stuff. I'm still not against them.
I think seeing what we've got, I'm less interested in them. I was personally hoping for a couple of more models with how much they were really teasing and pushing Emperor's Children for a couple of years now.
They've been edging us. Stop using that phrase.
Jonny:But anyway, hey, it's fitting here, it's fitting.
Joshy:We'll talk another day about what they could gain.
But there are some legitimate historic Emperor's Children models that aren't around the beloved Sonic Dreadnought and things like that I think would give it a lot more personality. Warmer reception.
Jonny:Yeah. Wave two. We'll see what comes in wave two.
Joshy:But I think the thing that really is putting a big old thorn in the reception is just what they did with the Codex and that's the big foundation of what you and I think were most upset over. There's a big, a few big holes in the actual roster of Emperor's children.
Jonny:Those holes feel unnecessary is the thing.
Joshy:And to hype up this big box, you get the Codex when you buy the big box and then people receive the codex and like, oh crap, half empty.
Jonny:Where'd my predators go?
Joshy:Yeah, no people legitimately were on the EC subreddit people leading up to all the leaks and rumors and stuff. And also if you're leaking stuff, take better like photos of Texas. I swear to gosh. Oh, iPhone 4s or what. But thank you for your sacrifice.
I hope Games Workshop treats you well.
But like people were actively painting new predators and kitbashing hell brutes and putting together cultist mob because they were in every other Mono God chaos faction.
Jonny:They felt like a safe bet.
Joshy:They felt like a safe bet. And then people are having to resort to just like asking their game group if they can just do CSM data sheet, which most people would be fine with.
But to do it in the first place doesn't feel right.
Jonny:Yeah, for sure.
Joshy:But not too bad of a start, I must say. I think they've super much nailed the aesthetic of a modern day faction that's not just sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Yeah, I think they have Nailed the direction of a rule set as well as the narrative ruleset for them. I just think we're gonna need to wait a little bit longer to really say that Emperor's Children is of a caliber of some other factions.
If that makes sense.
Jonny:Looking at you Death Guard.
Joshy:You dirty boys.
Jonny:You dirty boys with some beautiful models.
Joshy:Any other remarks, my friend?
Jonny:That's it, my friend. That's it. That's Emperor's Children for us today.
Joshy:Wow. A little bit of a last minute decision to put this episode together. Bit of a first impressions. Not too bad of an idea.
We might do it something like this maybe next week or week after when they do the balanced data slate. That's inevitable. Where they apply a live service patch to this game.
Jonny:I'm pretty excited to see what changes, honestly.
Joshy:But besides that, we have just started a book club of sorts. We are doing Fulgrim of Horus Heresy.
Jonny:So I'd suggest you start reading or listening because I'm already halfway through.
Joshy:I haven't bought it yet.
Jonny:And it'll be very fitting after Emperor's Children, right? To then be like. And also Fulgrim.
Joshy:Yeah, get into it. We're here for the. For the modern time. Let's go back and look at how it all came together and then maybe.
Jonny:We will have to read the new Fulgrim when it comes out.
Joshy:Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea. Sweet. Alright, cool. Love that. Awesome. Saw some. Also, I think I figured out where the cultists went.
Jonny:Huh? We don't talk about where the cultists went. It's Emperor's Children. You might not like the answer.
Joshy:They're in the green vials.
Jonny:Yeah, exactly. They're drugs now.
Joshy:I'm glad you clued in. Alright, cool. Well, we'll talk to you later then, I suppose.
Jonny:Have a lovely hobby week. Try and get some paint on something. And don't do drugs, kids.
Joshy:Enjoy your screamer juice.