Horus Heresy Review: Emperor's Children - Legion specific Wargear and Units (updated)

How do,

EDIT: Updated entries in this post will be in extra bits of red to draw your attention to them

Today I will be going over the units and special wargear that are unique to the Emperor's Children Legion in 30k. They have some fantastic pieces of wargear and units that really show of the artisan nature of the EC in pursuit of perfection of all things in war, but most notably the honour of close combat.

Legion Specific Wargear

Sonic Shriekers: This wargear is the prelude to the entirely slannesh devoted EC of the 41st millennium. Experimental psycho sonic weaponry was developed during the Age of Darkness which boosts the combat potential of the wielder to unknown levels for the standard Astartes. 

A sonic shrieker gives -1 WS to your opponents

Phoenix Power Spear: This is an amazing piece of wargear in mu opinion. Any EC Astartes with access to a power fist can take one of these instead for the same price. They have the following profile.

Phoenix Power Spear - S +1/User  AP 2/3 Melee, Two Handed

The first side of the profile (i.e. S+1 and AP2) is only in place on the turn that you charge, Thus making it imperative that you make the charge! As then you will be hitting at initiative with a S5 AP2 weapon. This is an excellent counter for artificer armour wearing sergeants with power fists that might try to challenge out your better characters, you will hit before them and wound on 3's still. I would really recommend you give these to your sergeants instead of power fists and then just slap a melta bomb on them to take care of tanks!

Legion Specific Units

The Emperor's Children have 3 unit choices that are unique to them.

Phoenix Terminator Squad: The EC's specific terminator squad. Basely comprised of 4 Phoenix terminators and a Phoenix Champion (the sergeant). Terminators with phoenix power spears, implacable advance, stubborn, Living Icon and Sudden Strike.

Living Icon - This unit count drawn combats as a victory! As does any unit with at least one friendly model within 6 inches of this unit. Bloody brilliant for breaking a deadlock combat!

Sudden Strike - This unit gains +1 initiative on the charge. As I said in my intro article, the EC have many many ways, like this, to augment their combat ability. And this gets even better... see below.

The entire squad may taken Sonic Shriekers for a measly 15 points. Now this makes the squad closer to 300 points than you would like, especially when you give the Champion a grenade harness as well (need those). BUT what this means is that on the charge you will have 4 terminators at I6!!! Putting out 12 attacks total at WS4 and then the champion putting out 4 attacks at WS5. ALL strength 5 and AP2. 

This will rinse through a lot of 2+ units like you wouldn't believe, AND importantly because you are striking before all of them apart from maybe an IC then you will drastically reduce the incoming wounds to you as well!

This unit can also take a proteus, phobos or spartan tank as a transport, but personally I would go cheaper and stick them in a dreadclaw...

Overview: Expensive but hells tits they are a great break in the counter/counter counter moves of 30k with a low strength but high initiative low AP option to make a decapitating strike on key units in the opponents army. I really like these guys and in any high points game they should definitely be taken! Also beautiful models.

Palatine Blade Squad: An elite force of close combat specialist with 4 warriors plus a a prefector (sergeant) as standard. These guys have much the same profile as the terminators above except a 3+ save and EVERYONE has WS5 standard. Very tasty indeed. The prefector has artificer armour as well. As chosen warriors they can all accept challenges.

Standard wargear is a bolt pistol and a charnarbal sabre, which just doesn't cut it for me personally, it fine, but just not dependable enough. However these guys have the option of swapping their weapons out for either power swords, power lance or Phoenix Spears! Additionally they can also take sonic shriekers for 2 points a pop each AND can take jump packs. 

I really like the full flavour of this squad with jump packs and sonic shriekers for a fast pace an high initiative attack. The weapon swaps are per member not as a whole squad, so would a put 2-3 of the phoenix spears in and leave the rest as is so that the expense doesn't become prohibitive.

Additionally they have COUNTER ATTACK. And as the sonic shriekers gives +1 initiative when you charge I presume this works when you count as charging too! Makes sense to me and makes these even more brutal than the Terminators as you don't have to guarantee the charge. Though if you can use your jet packs for the charge you will be getting all of your attacks plus hammer of wrath before the opponent has even raised his sword...

Overview: Another wonderful example of brutal and fast close combat efficiency. I love both these and the terminator squad, But if I were to take a big pimped out squad I would go for the Blades. The jump packs give them mobility without a big points sink on a transport and they can still wreck absolute face in combat, hitting and wounding on 3's against any T4 WS4 models and even if you just give them power swords they ignore power armour!

Kakophoni of the Emperor's Children: A heavy support choice that can become troops using the Rite of War I described in the last post. These are the first that fell hard and fast to the temptations of the Dark Prince and their experimentation led them to become devastating yet unpredictable engines of war. 

The squad consists of 4 chora and an orchestrator (sarge). They come with bolt pistol and power armour as standard, though the orchestrator can also take artificer armour as well as a power fist (so phoenix spear) and they also all come equipped with sonic shriekers! So +1 initiative on the charge. These guys are also stubborn and can take a rhino as dedicated transport, and you are going to want a form of transport to make use of their main weapon. The Cacophony.

The Cacophony - 36 inch, S6, AP5, Heavy 2, Gets Hot, Pinning, Bio-psychic Shock.

The Bio-psychic Shock special rule makes any unit that has lost at least 1 wound from The Cacophony take a leadership test at the end of the shooting phase UNLESS they are fearless. They have a negative modifier to their test equal to the number of wounds lost. So 3 wounds lost would equal a modifier of -3. 

If the test is failed then the squad immediately suffers D6 AP2 instant death wounds with no cover save allowed. The controlling player of the unit picks the casualties. Holy fuck shit this is an awesome rule. You can target incredibly tough squads and if they lose even one wound you have the potential to truly decimate them. This is however mitigated by the AP5 as well as the gets hot roll, so lets not think you can win a war with this squad. 

Overview - the Kakophoni have the potential to be brilliant, but they will work much better in a troop selection than their current heavy support which you can achieve with The Third Company Elite rite of war, an excellent start to any EC army.

I hope you guys enjoyed the second post in this series, I am looking forward to writing the rest up soon!

Peace out,

Rob