Keyword Conundrum

[Arufel87]

The question is can I take daemonettes and noise marines as troops in an Emperor's Children army? Edited July 5, 2017 by Arufel87

[Khornate individual]

Looks like you should be able to.  With keywords being Slaneesh and Emp. Children noise marines become troops instead of elites and daemonettes are listed as troops in the daemon section of the book.

[Sception]

When you make your army, you select a faction keyword and all units in your army that are not unaligned (ie, everything other than generic fortifications) must share that keyword.  Whether you can include noise marines and daemonettes as troops in your army depends on the keyword you select.  eg:

 

CHAOS:  If you select CHAOS as your army faction, then you can include any units with the CHAOS faction keyword, including daemonettes, noise marines with the EMPEROR'S CHILDREN legion as troops, noise marines with some other legion as elites, renegade & heretic earthshaker batteries, a renegade knight titan, an Iron Warriors Sicaran, Abaddon the Despoiler, etc etc.

 

SLAANESH:  If you select SLAANESH as your army faction, then you can include any units with the SLAANESH faction keyword, including daemonettes, fiends, EC troop noise marines, non-EC elite noise marines, Abaddon the despoiler, slaaneshi dreadclaws, etc.  You cannot include any renegades & heretics, even ones with the slaanesh covenant, because they do not have the SLAANESH faction keyword.  You cannot include any renegade knights, because they can't have the SLAANESH faction keyword either.

 

EMPEROR'S CHILDREN:  If you select EMPEROR'S CHILDREN as your army faction, then you can only include units with the EMPEROR'S CHILDREN faction keyword.  So you could have troop noise marines, but not elite noise marines.  Neither could your army include any slaaneshi daemons as normal unit selections, but you could still leave reserve points aside and use them to summon slaaneshi daemons during the game using the daemonic ritual rules.

 

 

So when you say 'can my Emperor's Children army field daemonettes as troops', well, if by 'Emperor's Children' army you mean an army based on the EMPEROR'S CHILDREN faction keyword, then the answer is 'no'.  But if by 'EMPEROR's CHILDREN' army you mean a CHAOS faction army that just happens to include a bunch of Heretic Astartes units with the Emperor's Children legion then the answer is 'yes'.

 

Right now, there is no in-game benefit for selecting a more restrictive faction for your army, so you might as well just play a CHAOS army and include whatever CHAOS units you like.  That said, the CSM codex is right around the corner, probably not more than a month or two away, and it is likely to provide some mechanical incentive to stick to a more narrow army.  Again, though, even if you play a super restrictive EMPEROR'S CHILDREN faction army, you can still summon daemonic units via the daemonic ritual rules, so it's probably worth your time to become familiar with them.

Edited July 5, 2017 by malisteen