Starting emperors children with the box

[templargdt]

Hi gents, diving into 30k.  I bought the box and have a spare contemptor, plus a sicaran amd other contemptor I can paint over.  Can anyone give me some starting tips on running emperors children, strategies, what I should think about picking up to get to a solid 3k list?  Thanks!

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I would purchase a weapon support and heavy weapon support upgrade set.

Lascannon upgrade sprue for a 10 man sun killers squad.

From the box you can customize a lot of the tactical marines. I would take the navigation upgrades from the spartan tank gunner and use that to convert a Master of Signals for a support squad. Rotor cannons are very  synergistic with a MoS.

I'd also get some Apothecary bits off a bits buy and just use another couple of the torsos to make those for your army.

A couple rhinos (if you have Mars patterns) are not a terrible idea either to get your support squads where they need to go.

From there you want to build around combat due to how Flawless execution works.

[templargdt]

If I'm running Maru skara seems like MoS is not needed or is that just for morale and pinnings?

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Master of Signals gives you BS 5 on your support squad. So a 10 man squad of rotor cannons are 40 shots hitting on 2s. More hits increases wound allocation increases chance to successfully pin a unit. 

[Brother Kraskor]

I will respectfully disagree with the advice so far. It is good advice for a general legion setup but I think there might be ways to tease out the EC theme a bit more, whilst making use of your solid 40 marine bodies.

Rotors & Master of Signal are good but they are generic. If you want a more thematic multi-shot pinning unit we have Kakophoni (though Traitor only). You could either go FW for the models or convert some tacticals with a 3rd party bitz site for sonic weapons.

Three Contemptors will be a very strong foundation, make sure each has a fist, they will strike at I5 on the charge and can really hurt some big stuff, shooting weapon to taste (though melta will synergise with their melee target well). 

A good solid base of tacticals is always good. EC have the biggest Apothecarion of any Legion, two 15-man squads of Tacticals with an Apothecary each will be very hard to shift off objectives with 4+++. 

I'm not sure you will need/want both the special & heavy weapons really. Some lascannons would be good and they are a strong choice. I was going to recommend FW but I've just noticed that 10 Lascannons, 10 Volkite Culverins, and 10 Autocannons are actually cheaper via GW than 10 Lascannons only from FW. Get the set for the lascannons, assemble ten guys with it, but probably don't run them as actual Sunkillers as they are ruinously expensive.

Cataphractii are strong, sadly they can't Sweeping Advance, but here you really want to make use of the EC trait. If you charge with these guys and they have power fists, they will strike at Initiative step 2 - ahead of enemy AP2 weapons. This is huge. I would go hard on power fists for these guys. Ranged weapons to taste/not at all to save points. 

TL;DR - here is what I how I would recommend you utilise the boxset:

- 2x 15-man Tactical squads to hold your objectives

- 10-man Lascannon Heavy Support squad (will require the heavy weapon set from GW) very strong longrange firepower, upgrade with Augury scanner and intercept key enemy reserves

- Cataphractii terminators to taste but strong recommendation for power fists to make use of the EC trait

- Contemptors to have a fist to get stuck in and make use of EC trait (plus ranged weapon to taste though melta is cheap and syngergises)

 

Build on this with a 20-man Tactical box, to build:

- 10 Kakophoni (3rd party bitz for sonic weapons, alternatively from FW direct),

- convert 4 Apothecaries for your squads so far,

- leaving 6 bodies to convert into a Command squad if you can find a banner and some weapons to taste (again power fists likely a strong candidate here) to accompany your Praetor

 

You will also have the Spartan of course, a natural choice for transporting the Cataphractii. Might even be worth converting your second HQ into a Primus Medicae (again leaning on the Apothecary theme) to accompany them and they will be practically impervious to small arms/anything below S8. I appreciate you are keen to try Maru Skara, it is thematic but reserves are easily penalised in this game by armies with lots of Augury scanners - they can freely shoot your units when they arrive and tend to be found in units with lots of firepower. So your reserves will take a real pounding for free before they can do anything - YMMV of course.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Brother Kraskor

[templargdt]

I appreciate the advise from both of you guys, thanks.  I ordered a tactical squad, the heavy weapons box, and a tartaros box with a coupon I had from frontline gaming.  If I built the volkite culverins in the heavy box as Kakophoni would anyone object?  

 

Couple of other quesitons:

Where does the 4+++ come from?  Apothecary is 5++, correct?

If I have a character not in cataphracti armor with the cataphracti, can he sweeping advance?  Thanks.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Might see if there's a way to make the volkite weapon a little different, but I doubt there'd be too many objections, especially if you make it look more like a sonic weapon. Maybe fill in the coils on the volkite weapon? They helpfully include decals for most of the unique units (sunkillers, palatine blades and kakophoni at least), so you can make your own with that. The Kakophoni decal should be the harp.

The 4+++ comes from the heart of the legion special rule that the tactical squad has, which increases any existing FNP by 1 when on an objective, or gives a 6+++ if there is no existing FNP.

Edited October 1, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[Brother Kraskor]

1 hour ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

Might see if there's a way to make the volkite weapon a little different, but I doubt there'd be too many objections, especially if you make it look more like a sonic weapon. Maybe fill in the coils on the volkite weapon? They helpfully include decals for most of the unique units (sunkillers, palatine blades and kakophoni at least), so you can make your own with that. The Kakophoni decal should be the harp.

The 4+++ comes from the heart of the legion special rule that the tactical squad has, which increases any existing FNP by 1 when on an objective, or gives a 6+++ if there is no existing FNP.

Totally agree with this, the Volkite weapons could definitely stand in for sonic weaponry. Any conversion work to highlight this wouldn't go amiss but certainly not necessary. You could even convey they are Kakophoni by painting them slightly differently, armour a bit more garish/early signs of the pink/black scheme coming through. And if you have the FW transfer sheet, get the Harp symbol on their shoulders as Wrath says.

For the rules question, either the whole unit can Sweeping Advance or nobody can, so a character running with the Cataphractii will be prevented from doing so. 

Tartaros are cool and very EC (not that they didn't have Cataphractii also but they prefer mobility where possible). You could even convert the Tartaros into a Command Squad if you prefer that to a regular command squad. Command Squads get banners, which crucially provide Line so they can score. With WS5 and a sonic shrieker upgrade they will also paste enemy WS4 who will need to hit them on 6s for the first round of combat.

With all that you'll probably be close to/exceeding 3k points! 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Brother Kraskor

[templargdt]

Follow up on this, what's the benefit of the medicae primaris?  It has a narcithum, but the terminators do not have IWND, so what's the point?

[Brother Kraskor]

The IWND is very much secondary. Apothecaries have nartheciums yes, but they cannot join a unit in Terminator armour. Only Primus Medicaes can, meaning they are the only way of getting a Feel no pain into your Termie units. Not essential by any means, but EC are known for their Apothecaries so it would be thematic.

[templargdt]

Whoa, I didn't know that.  What rule prevents apothecaries from joining TDA units?

[Lord Krungharr]

On 9/30/2022 at 4:27 PM, Brother Kraskor said:

 

Cataphractii are strong, sadly they can't Sweeping Advance, but here you really want to make use of the EC trait. If you charge with these guys and they have power fists, they will strike at Initiative step 2 - ahead of enemy AP2 weapons. This is huge. I would go hard on power fists for these guys. Ranged weapons to taste/not at all to save points. 

Alas, because of the Multiple Modifiers rule on page 147 of the Age of Darkness Rulebook, power fists always hit at Initiative 1 because Unwieldly makes it a set value of 1 (it doesn't say hits at -3 initiative).  

[Lord Krungharr]

Oh and to the OP I'd recommend making 10 of the marines in the starter box into a Command Squad w combat shields and charnabal weapons of various types.  That would be very fluffy for the EC, and give them Warhawk Jumppacks too (perhaps magnetizing with backpacks too for versatility).  You can get good 3rd party jumppacks, or even 2nd hand Sanguinary Guard ones would be good.  The Warp Talons jump packs are pretty nice for 30k looks, I just shaved the teeth off the top.

[Eternal Despair]

5 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Alas, because of the Multiple Modifiers rule on page 147 of the Age of Darkness Rulebook, power fists always hit at Initiative 1 because Unwieldly makes it a set value of 1 (it doesn't say hits at -3 initiative).  

The EC bonus explicitly states it comes after all other modifiers which would include unwieldy hence initiative 2 power fists 

[The Scorpion]

On 9/29/2022 at 12:26 PM, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I would purchase a weapon support and heavy weapon support upgrade set.

Lascannon upgrade sprue for a 10 man sun killers squad.

From the box you can customize a lot of the tactical marines. I would take the navigation upgrades from the spartan tank gunner and use that to convert a Master of Signals for a support squad. Rotor cannons are very  synergistic with a MoS.

I'd also get some Apothecary bits off a bits buy and just use another couple of the torsos to make those for your army.

A couple rhinos (if you have Mars patterns) are not a terrible idea either to get your support squads where they need to go.

From there you want to build around combat due to how Flawless execution works.

Unlike most units, Sun Killers get more expensive at max size so I would run them at min size.

If you want a 10-man squad, any regular HSS does only marinally less damage for considerably less points.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

3 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

Unlike most units, Sun Killers get more expensive at max size so I would run them at min size.

If you want a 10-man squad, any regular HSS does only marinally less damage for considerably less points.

I would counter this by saying a BS5 base with ignoring cover and mitigation rolls is more than just marginally different damage output.  Points scale, you are basically paying for a Master of Signals and if you add a Master of Signals to a 10 man lascannon HSS (which most people do) there is a 15 point differential at that point, and with the rise of Knights and GMC a la Kha'Banda on the horizon, I would argue that Sunkillers are better.

[Brother Kraskor]

18 hours ago, templargdt said:

Whoa, I didn't know that.  What rule prevents apothecaries from joining TDA units?

It's in the Apothecarion detachment special rule in the Liber. Apothecaries cannot join units with any TDA (though they could, for example, join a power armoured unit which you then attach a TDA Independent character to).

  

17 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Alas, because of the Multiple Modifiers rule on page 147 of the Age of Darkness Rulebook, power fists always hit at Initiative 1 because Unwieldly makes it a set value of 1 (it doesn't say hits at -3 initiative).  

11 hours ago, Eternal Despair said:

The EC bonus explicitly states it comes after all other modifiers which would include unwieldy hence initiative 2 power fists 

Yep exactly this. EC rule explicitly states after all other modifiers. It would require extreme mental gymnastics to interpret this as "after most but not all modifiers". Unwieldy weapons definitely strike at step 2 on the charge.

Re: Sunkillers, horses for courses, I'd probably field them if I had the spare points but as I don't I run mine as regular Heavies.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Brother Kraskor

[Dont-Be-Haten]

14 minutes ago, Brother Kraskor said:

It's in the Apothecarion detachment special rule in the Liber. Apothecaries cannot join units with any TDA (though they could, for example, join a power armoured unit which you then attach a TDA Independent character to).

  

Yep exactly this. EC rule explicitly states after all other modifiers. It would require extreme mental gymnastics to interpret this as "after most but not all modifiers". Unwieldy weapons definitely strike at step 2 on the charge.

Re: Sunkillers, horses for courses, I'd probably field them if I had the spare points but as I don't I run mine as regular Heavies.

Once you have a biomancy death star that can get FnP rolls off S9 because they are T5. Stopping mitigation is much much more appealing.

I promise they are worth it in the long run.