3.5/5 stars - rounded down. The rules are good enough, but as with World Eaters you must get your marines in to close combat and in good numbers to take maximum advantage of them.
Background.
Special to the Emperor himself and fought over by regular humans to become part of their crew due to the amazing concerts (ahem) that they put on within their fleet, this Legion encompassed all that the Great Crusade was supposed to be protecting and delivering. High concepts such as civilization and art gave way to being consumed by trying to achieve excellence in all they did and falling short. In turn, debauchery of all manner followed and their fall from grace was arguably the steepest of the legions given the heights from which they commenced.
As with other legions, this is one that is close combat focused.
Legion Rules Review.
Flawless Execution. The main rule is that the Emperor's Children strike at I+1 on the charge -- or rather at one initiative step higher than they would otherwise - it is not a straight up I+1. This is fabulous for beating other legions to it (literally) in close combat, but the advice here is to take weaponry that can help with this rather than reduce initiative down to 1. For vehicles, they gain +1 to hit for all defensive shots, which is nice, but not mind blowing. Hence I think here we want to be considering weapons such as power swords and especially charnabal style weapons. Paragon blades will feature as well for the fabulous praetors. Larger squads may also be preferred in order to ensure some get into combat.
The Perfect Tools gives access to the Armoury, The Phoenician's Own gives a consul upgrade to a Phoenix Warden that we will review distinctly, and the Exemplars of War gives the Warlord Trait choices.
Advanced Reaction.
The Perfect Counter is a strong reaction all things considered. When a charge against them is declared, they can try to replace the enemy charge with one of their own by rolling higher on a charge distance. This is never wasted though as if they fail, they can shoot back anyway. A great way to pull off a charge without trying, and a good counter with a wall of death torrent either way!
Difference to First Edition.
As with the other legions from First Edition, it has been a very long time since they received a clean up and re-write. Although the World Eaters were more in need of such a re-write, the rules for the Emperor's Children are somewhat comparable - instead of crusader, they gain the initiative on the charge which is a nice way of doing things. I think things here are improved overall since some of the negatives have been dropped and the play style of the legion remains constant. The controlling player need to think about armaments that go at initiative and how to get their units into combat on the charge (lots of transports might be good for this!).
2 comments:
Very important to note here. The trait doesn't give you +1 to your initiative, its that your attacks hit at one initiative step higher than normal. This means power axes/fists, thunder hammers, etc actually hit at Initiative 2 - before anyone else's Unwieldy weapons!
Thanks for the comment - I have tried to be clear in the description, and updated it for added clarity. I might re-write it again still as I'm not happy with how I've worded it still (sigh!).
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