Emperor's Children Gameplay Feedback

[Prot]

I think my thread (which is primarily hobby based) was getting a little side tracked with my games. So I'd like to steer that back to more hobby than gaming, and I thought we could have this thread to go through some of our gaming experiences.

 

So far I've had a handful of games. Some competitive, some only mildly competitive. I have done okay, but I've had to adapt to work around codex limitations and the fact that these are NOT World Eaters. As strange as it sounds, playing these guys just like WE will get you in trouble (This is my personal feeling as a WE player personally.)

 

Well my last game was just as hard as I have not fought marines yet. (Oh what I would do to face a 2 wound, T4 army right now... or T3!!!)

 

Thus far my grind has felt.. uphill with a plethora of T5 armies with far greater numbers than my EC. This in fact (I believe) is our second worst matchup. (I think someone loaded in armour is going to be worse since I've had a lot of trouble with vehicles.)

 

Anyway last game was Votann... yes, more T5, multiwound models that LOVE the 18" range fight. Luckily I have an army that's T4 and loves to get closer. 

 

As a side note, we have a few guys in our group that play very competitive Deathguard, and I am terrified of facing these guys with E.C.

 

So I played my typical setup, but I made one adjustment: The landraider is gone. This is something I didn't want to do, as it's fun, and actually has a place in this army but the expense of it was driving down my model count too much. Instead I've gone up to 3 Rhino's (Love 'em) and 2 Maulerfiends. (As you'd guess, 1 just never reaches its target.)

 

 

Coterie of the Conceited

Basically Lucius, 2 x Exalteds, D.P., Kakophonist.

 

1  x 10 Infractors (Ex goes here) in Rhino

1 x 10 Tormentors (Ex goes here) in Rhino

1 x 5 Tormentors

1 x 5 Tormentors

2 x 6 Noise marines (Kak goes here) in Rhino

 

1 x 6 Flawless Blades (Lucius walks behind these guys usually)

 

2 x Maulerfiends

 

As mentioned I pulled the Landraider, and I typically really like their Spawn, but had to pull them to get more 'sticky' objective troops in.

 

 

I can't remember the Votann entirely. It's a pretty basic codex, but this guy always runs 2 units of Hearthguard, and 2 of the big Goliath tanks with a ton of infantry that he can fit around his three vehicles (one transport.)

 

I end up going first, and to be honest, I thought to heck with it... I'm going all in towards him to see if I can exploit our deployment (we played the map with quarters.)

 

I did reach a 10 man troop squad with an HQ aboard with my Rhino full of Infractors and Lord Exultant. (LE in the future) He was shocked, I did warn him about the speed many times during deployment, and kept warning him about Precision. (Something I do in every game.)

 

But good news for him! Between my LE, and Infractors I could not even kill his HQ so he was fully okay to return his attacks. This happens to me a lot and it reminds me that these guys are not World Eaters... but over and over again I give them a task that's probably beyond their means. To be honest, I keep thinking I can take out an HQ, and fail miserably the only thing I did was put the LE's attacks on the squad (because I have to) and therefore killed 3-4 dudes. The good news for me is his squad isn't really close combat oriented, aside from his HQ.

 

Here's perhaps the biggest reason I did the assault above: When I consolidated I tagged 2 vehicles and screwed his firing sequence up badly. He realized this and really started to worry.

 

In his return volley he kills most of my Infractors. The rest of my army took positions on the objectives. I did pull the secondary where you need quarters which is fun with this army, and another with "Kill" units.

 

Votann hit back hard. I've lost that Infractor squad and some of my Flawless blades. At the end of his turn, I of course failed to kill anything so for that Battleround my Warlord takes 3 Mortal wounds (Lucius) and this game is off to a shaky start to say the least!

 

 

----------------------------------------------------

Turn 2+

 

I'm really disappointed, because my gambit failed to produce any kills. For Coterie I Pledge 2 Kills which I get (easily since his squad was nearly dead with the HQ.) I should have said higher, but manage to kick in the reroll 1's to hit which is sorely needed as I'm rolling incredibly bad. 

 

I'm still reeling from his resilience though. I just can't kill anything and his Hearthguard. are now in play and they (combined with berzerks) kill all but 1 Flawless blade. 

 

My 10 man Tormentor squad comes out of a Rhino and finishes up his remnant squad that my Infractors could not. Maulerfiend 1 reaches one of his bike squads and mulches it up big time (hitting on 2's rerolling 1's).

 

On my right side though his other bikes/troops are mulching up badly. My troops are dying there, and my D.P is already brought down to 1 wound!!! Ouch.

 

----------------------------------------------------------

Mid Game:

 

So at this point I'm really struggling against his Hearthguard. My first Noise Marine squad can't really do anything to them. They are T6 and have a rule where you're -1 to wound if you hit with higher strength so you can imagine what a squad of mostly S5 shooting is doing to them with their 2+ saves at T6.

 

I send in my last Flawless blade, and Lucius. They bounce badly. (Lucius as really disappointed me in my last 2 games... I don't think he likes T6 very much.) I just didn't have a better target as he was screening with tanks.

 

It becomes apparent that my army is far from 'Flawless' and my gameplay is not living up to Lucius' standards, but I have one thing going for me... my DP won't die. I have no idea why, and I gave him the enhancement to get back up from death on a 2+ which I have been warning my opponent about. Inadvertently this appears to have given my opponent the sole purpose of killing my DP with his army. This is just silly but the DP would not die. My DP swoops in, kills the Berzerks and a transport. This opens things up a bit and I can get through his screens, but I'm losing models, and the second Maulerfiend goes down without getting a fight in.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

End Game:

 

Now I've got an issue; his second Hearthguard squad has dropped in my neighbouring quarter. Not my quarter, but right next to it. And the Hearthguard proceed to blow up my Rhino, and the plasma shots just rip my homebase Tormentors in half.  

 

The carnage at this stage is pretty bad. Fulgrim is going to have a LOT of spare parts to work with.

 

I intentionally kept my other Noise Marines and Kak in reserve, waiting for his Hearthguard to come in. The Kak has the change any dice to a 6 enhancement for extra cheese on a Blastmaster (sustained 1).

 

Surprise! It doesn't work! I roll in the very edge he did the previous turn to try and take that objective back but all shots and the mortal wounds, etc just really don't do much to that T6, 2+ save unit. Plus he has an HQ attached that is going to rip me apart.

 

My DP goes down. I've lost my troops. I can't interact with his big Goliath tanks. Lucius is dead along with the Flawless Blades. I have 2 Rhino's and a Maulerfiend with a hell of a limp that looks like a gold fish in its last hours.... 

 

We look at the board state and he can't catch up to me. He can do his secondaries, and I have the odd model left which is nearly useless but I still have my home objective stickied. (I forgot to mention my Rhino bound Tormentors stole his home objective for one turn!)

 

So it basically means I won two games now just due to early Primary leads. In the last 3 games I've been nearly tabled. 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Post game:

 

I think Lucius is a bit over costed. He's super fun, but to be honest I'd rather have Titus' build here. Titus is comparable to me to Lucius but he's better at killing infantry than Lucius and actually helps a squad immensely. The 'fightsfirst' is good, but Lucius is a little weak for it to really dent anything other than a mid character or entry level troops.

 

The Flawless blades. I keep coming back to these guys, but I just think they're bad. Really mediocre unit that in my opinion falls far short of Eightbound, but more importantly even though they are cheaper they just don't feel like 'awesome bladesmen'.  

 

While I'm not sure Maulerfiends are 'great' I will say two is a must. I know that's just common sense but I just got a second one. :)

 

So far when I win it's a blood bath on my side, and I'm grabbing my points very early. I feel like if I take my foot off the gas pedal I will die to attrition, and lose my point lead advantage in early game. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the feeling so far. This is NOT a late game army the way I'm playing it. It doesn't survive first impact very well. 

 

Truly it reminds me of White Scars where you look amazing in the early game then you meet your equal (or superior) in melee and it can all go sideways pretty quick. (Again, I'm terrified of the Deathguard meta I will have to face. I just can't see competing against it in any meaningful way.)

 

So I'm not going to change anything list wise for a while. I will switch my enhancements back to the way they were before though..other than that I'll see how this list fairs my next game. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sume]

Thanks for the game updates.  I been seeing your other reports. It's a shame about the Flawless blades.  I sort of been feeling the same way with them.  When I see your battle reports.  I do agree it seems 2 maulerfiends aka Dinobots seem to be a must take.  I think that is bad design.  I am wondering if the early pressure if the way to go.  You are also correct this is not World Eaters.  I also feel that this army book is going to struggle against anything that is a dedicated melee army.  The landraider and dinobots seem sort of must include.  Due to the abundant of armor in most metas.  Maybe, GW will decide to add back in sonic dreadnaughts and predators or something later.  I also, have this thought that maybe all the four cultbooks will end up like this one and this is a preview of 11th edition.  Like it was written to work with that ruleset and the current.  

[Prot]

I think you're right... the other codexes (minus DG) will probably be just as restrictive. 

 

As far as early pressure, I'm just experimenting at this point. The issue I have with waiting on close combat is that I lose the table coverage advantage, and I may never get it back. (Keeping in mind I have been facing T5 armies so far.)

 

And yea, I definitely fear the real CC monsters out there. I was just talking to my Blood Angels buddy and the melee tricks he has are pretty strong. That's another army to add to the category of "I'm not sure I want to charge this." 

 

That's why I compare this opening experience to White Scars. The big difference is we don't have much of a codex to fall back on for shooting. I foresee a lot of players taking shooty Wardogs. I really don't want to go this route though.

 

The Flawless Blades: Just my opinion but they are my favourite sculpts in the new release. This makes it doubly hard to see how they are doing in their current state. If I was going for the most competitive build I could imagine... they certainly don't make the cut. 

 

As a side note I have been a huge fan of the Transport based Detachment (I forgot the name, don't have my codex with me.) Coterie is a lot of fun though. I still want to try the vehicle detachment. (It's CP hungry but has some really good tricks I think.)

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Trust Prot to get couple of games in before I even have a single model painted.  I'm a bit surprised about the 10 man tormentors in your list - I personally would have gone with a second unit of infractors myself.  Your list is also a bit "hero hammer" for my own tastes - I rarely go with more than 2 or 3 characters, though I can't say my lists are necessarily better for it.  How did you kit out your Exultant's, BTW?

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.  As others have stated, it kind of confirms what I had suspected just looking at the datasheets.  I'm really worried about how I'll do with my army once I have it built and painted, as we seem to be a melee army with some tricks (namely character elimination) and speed, but less potency than even the base CSM codex, given that they've stripped out the main damage dealing weapons (the heavy melee) out of our base melee squad, and it doesn't seem like Flawless Blades are as potent, for the price, as Chosen.  I'm really hoping they give the power weapon in our Battleline an extra point of strength to put in line with pretty much every other marine carried power weapon in the game and actually give a reason to take it over the whip, but I doubt that will happen before our next codex - and even that doesn't make up for it not being a heavy melee weapon.  That, combined with an almost complete lack of efficient antitank makes it feel a bit like we are chaos marines fighting with one hand tied behind our backs (kind of fitting for EC, in a way, but potentially frustrating).

 

I think that lack of depth is also what makes the lackluster of the flawless blades even stronger - on top of the models being really nice, we don't really have anything to replace them with as an elite melee unit in our list.

 

As it is, against my one friend's foot orks and my other friend's destroyer heavy necrons, I think my only real game plan is to sticky the mid objectives first turn, and then put pressure to hold them off 2nd and 3rd turn so as to hopefully be ahead enough on primaries to eke out a win when they inevitably wipe out my army.

 

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that our sticky objectives are quite a bit worse than everyone else's, in that they go away at the end of the phase when an enemy gets on it, rather than the end of the turn.  That means, for example, a unit can deepstrike onto one, remove our control, then charge off of it that same turn - where for other "stickiness" they would need to forgo the charge and stay there until the end of the turn to remove control. 

Edited April 10 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Tallarn Commander]

Thanks for the battle report Prot! It was very interesting. 

 

I do have one question: what do you think would have happened if you had started with your other Noise Marines Squad and Kakaphonist on the board? Would it have helped you very much? I really like the Kakaphonist's buffs.

 

On Saturday I will be playing against an Emperor's Children army with my melee-oriented Blood Wolves Chaos Marines. So my opponent will have plenty of T4 2W models to slice through unless I roll +1T on the Creations of Bile augmentations chart. I'll let you know how the EC list performs from the perspective of a casual opponent. The Emperor's Children player has said he is probably going to bring the Carnival of Excess detachment (the daemons one).

[Rain]

Why Coterie? It seems like a really janky detachment. Gaining buffs only after you’ve already killed things, and having to call your number of kills ahead of time seems bad. What am I missing?

 

Also, have you tried Mercurial or Bladesmen?

[Slaanbull]

Adding to the others, thank you Prot for the report and thoughts. I agree (as most of us do I'd imagine!) with EC strength of hitting hard and getting a lead, but lacking resilience for the pushback. This requires target saturation and a good grasp of positioning so when you do get caught, it doesn't hurt too much (love our faction rule by the way). Daemon Prince resilience however seems to be quite reasonable, as Prot experienced against the Votann as well.
Because of this I sadly agree that we often have to drop our land raiders - even though I think the rules are fantastic - in order to have more rhinos for example. I share all of your skepticism for the faultless blades as well, and can only imagine (as of now) fielding them as a three man group to provide Lucius with 3+ critical wounds for punching upwards*. 

 

So far I have only played against orks. And while the toughness wasn't too much of an issue what I find quite distressing is our lack of volume. Having played Noise Marine heavy lists since 6th edition I've been so used to rolling tons of dice and wiping screens, while plinking armour with damage 3 blastmasters, that my biggest challenge right now is changing the way I approach the enemy, as I cannot readily chew through a screen. Either because I'll do it with a melee unit that lacks the toughness to withstand the return fire, or because I'll feel like I'm wasting my Noise Marine shooting on something small.
 

5 hours ago, Rain said:

Why Coterie? It seems like a really janky detachment. Gaining buffs only after you’ve already killed things, and having to call your number of kills ahead of time seems bad. What am I missing?

 

Also, have you tried Mercurial or Bladesmen?

My challenges with changing playstyle is exactly where I feel like Coterie has some merit. Initially I've been very drawn to Rapid Evisceration (always having had 3-4 rhinos in my lists and being quite comfortable juggling embarkation and disembarkation shenanigans). But after having played (only a bit) with the new book I think that Coterie is quite strong.
I don't need the 7+ unlock - as you're saying Rain we're probably either winning or so far ahead on points if we kill seven units before the end of the game - but if I get the first three kills we have a detachment rule that is better than the others already (in my opinion), every bonus after this is just that. Suddenly I don't mind killing a screen to get the initial kills, or chase after a distraction unit with my own fast units. If the enemy castles up to prevent the snowball to start rolling you probably have enough space on the battlefield to get ahead on points instead, meaning that you're alright with not getting an early bonus to your offensive output.
Adding to that, the enhancements and stratagems in Coterie is just really strong (Pledge of Fortune and Servitude are the strong contenders here). Armour of Abhorrence being 1 CP, Unbound Arrogance for when you pledge carefully but get that extra charge off or similar, Embrace the Pain which is crazy if you're fielding a lot of smaller units. 

*Giving up that Fight First lone operative is quite tough, and for my playstyle I predict that I will usually have him alone.

[Prot]

That's a good point about the sticky objectives. There's really no chance to answer someone standing on your stickied objective. 

 

Although there's a lot of experimentation in my lists. I think I'm going to step back a bit and play my World Eaters for a while. I want to do a more valid comparison of the two.

[Prot]

19 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

Thanks for the battle report Prot! It was very interesting. 

 

I do have one question: what do you think would have happened if you had started with your other Noise Marines Squad and Kakaphonist on the board? Would it have helped you very much? I really like the Kakaphonist's buffs.

 

On Saturday I will be playing against an Emperor's Children army with my melee-oriented Blood Wolves Chaos Marines. So my opponent will have plenty of T4 2W models to slice through unless I roll +1T on the Creations of Bile augmentations chart. I'll let you know how the EC list performs from the perspective of a casual opponent. The Emperor's Children player has said he is probably going to bring the Carnival of Excess detachment (the daemons one).

 

Sorry I missed this question.

 

So the issue I've had in my last two games is the primary/favoured target I had for the Noise Marines happened to be T6 and inherently had -1 to wound against shooting that was above S6. This means my 'to wound' rolls were pretty abysmal. I'm not sure if it would have helped to start both squads on the table because he had this large squad of Hearthguard in reserves with an HQ. I knew I'd have to deal with it. What I did not anticipate is that even my reserved squad with Kakophonist would struggle so much to do damage to that squad. 

 

11 hours ago, Rain said:

Why Coterie? It seems like a really janky detachment. Gaining buffs only after you’ve already killed things, and having to call your number of kills ahead of time seems bad. What am I missing?

 

Also, have you tried Mercurial or Bladesmen?

 

Yes I have played Bladesmen once. It definitely benefits from making your list nearly 100% melee. (At the time I still had a landraider in the list). It's 'good' but feels incomplete to me.

 

Coterie, to me, has the best Strats by far. Very powerful tool box of strats. 

As far as calling kills: remember you can go character hunting. Find a weaker target with a character attached. Kill the character, then the squad (or even two weak characters in different squads) and you have a very strong buff up and running army wide.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

You also missed my question about how you kit out you Exultants - at the moment, the spear/lash build seems like the best, so I'm curious to see how you do yours as non of them (except maybe the 3 pistol build, which I am still totally building) seem horrible.

 

Another nice thing about coterie is the strat that lets you "bump up" your bid in case you overshoot it, which allows you to bid a bit more conservatively and still capitalize from your success, though at the cost of a CP.  It also helps that the buffs at the bottom of the kill chain are quite good, and really benefit the Sustained and Lethal Hits we can get pretty easily through characters.

Edited April 11 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Rain]

Thank you for your thoughts @Slaanbull and @Prot. I bought the codex and some models just out of love of the art and designs, but I am considering expanding it out to an army. If I do so, I would want to focus on a specific list and detachment, and not just buy "what seems cool" as at my extremely slow rate of painting that wouldn't yield a workable army until the 11th ed codex rolls around. 

 

I had originally wanted a ranged/sonic focused force to offset my unga bunga World Eaters, but I'm not sure how workable that would be, given the available detachments and bonuses. My melee loving heart says Peerless Bladesmen, but that might play too much like Diet World Eaters. On the other hand, rumor is that WE are losing +2" movement and Advance and Charge as Blessings bonuses to "make space" for EC as the "fast" Chaos Legion. While it's just rumor, this is exactly the kind of nonsense that would make sense to a GW rules designer. I'd have to see the full rules of course, but I'm not really sure how WE would function as an army without their current level of speed. Sorry, just thinking out loud. Keep the detailed info coming guys, it's really useful to all of us slow and steady folks that take forever to build an army, and play far fewer games than you to help us determine what to invest time and money in.

[Prot]

3 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

You also missed my question about how you kit out you Exultants - at the moment, the spear/lash build seems like the best, so I'm curious to see how you do yours as non of them (except maybe the 3 pistol build, which I am still totally building) seem horrible.

 

Another nice thing about coterie is the strat that lets you "bump up" your bid in case you overshoot it, which allows you to bid a bit more conservatively and still capitalize from your success, though at the cost of a CP.  It also helps that the buffs at the bottom of the kill chain are quite good, and really benefit the Sustained and Lethal Hits we can get pretty easily through characters.

 

Sorry. Yes, I'm using the Spear/Whip build. I cannot imagine deviating from that build. It just has incredible volume. Further to that (the way I read it) the once per game bonus extends to those weapons. The 3 pistol build would not get any use from that so I'm steering away from that.  Even in my Tormentor squad, it's a great character to use for an emergency assault, or a 'get out of jail' card when you are caught on the wrong end of an assault.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks. As for the once per game buff, it does apply to both weapons except for the boost in attacks - as per 28 of the Core Rules, attacks with weapons with the [Extra Attacks] ability can't have their attacks increased by other rules.  Even so, I agree with you that combo still seems best.  It would be closer between the spear and the fist if you could combo the fist with the whip... but as you can't, the loss of 1 S seems to be more than made up for by the [Lance] keyword, especially in an army that wants to be charging most of the time.

 

I also agree that any sort of melee weapon is better than the 3-pistol build - I'm building mine to amuse myself (though I'm doing so in a manner that I can field him as a Cypher stand in for my regular CSM army) more than because I intend to use him. 

 

Same reasoning also applies, IMHO, to the Lord Kakaphony - I've given mine a power sword rather than a second pistol, as I think the added combat power is worth more even if I don't really intend to charge the unit into combat.  Likewise on the noise marine champions, I feel the sword and pistol combo is better than the sonic blaster loadout as it is worth loosing 6" in order to gain those better melee attacks.

Edited April 11 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Sume]

48 minutes ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Thanks. As for the once per game buff, it does apply to both weapons except for the boost in attacks - as per 28 of the Core Rules, attacks with weapons with the [Extra Attacks] ability can't have their attacks increased by other rules.  Even so, I agree with you that combo still seems best.  It would be closer between the spear and the fist if you could combo the fist with the whip... but as you can't, the loss of 1 S seems to be more than made up for by the [Lance] keyword, especially in an army that wants to be charging most of the time.

 

I also agree that any sort of melee weapon is better than the 3-pistol build - I'm building mine to amuse myself (though I'm doing so in a manner that I can field him as a Cypher stand in for my regular CSM army) more than because I intend to use him. 

 

Same reasoning also applies, IMHO, to the Lord Kakaphony - I've given mine a power sword rather than a second pistol, as I think the added combat power is worth more even if I don't really intend to charge the unit into combat.  Likewise on the noise marine champions, I feel the sword and pistol combo is better than the sonic blaster loadout as it is worth loosing 6" in order to gain those better melee attacks.

I was under the same impression for the Noise Marine champions and LK.  The squads dont have enough melee ump if they happened to get charged.  So, having a melee weapon in there helps to clear out chaff or whatever.  At least the unit really cant get tied down.

[Progenitor]

I'd love it if the Lord Exultant could go with the Noise Marines as it seems like Lethal Hits on them would be disgusting rather than the frankly appalling Sustained 1 from the Kakophonist. I just don't see a valid reason to take the LK at all. 

Agree with Sume though, I'd rather have the ranged options on the Noise Marine champion as if I get my unit charged then I've messed up so a few power sword attacks aren't really going to get me out of that. 

[Tallarn Commander]

I played against an Emperor's Children Peerless Bladesmen detachment on Saturday in a local league. I brought a casual (Defiler, full-sized Legionaries Squads) Chaos Marines Creations of Bile list. The EC went through me like a hot knife through butter.

 

My opponent thought that EC would struggle against competitive top-tier lists. They said EC were a solid mid-tier army with lots of tricks to keep things very interesting. They were sad that so much was dropped from the list, but think you all have enough to be a solid army with your limited units, strats, army rules, and unit rules. For example, they said your termies getting to re-roll charges was not better or worse than my termies getting to re-roll hits if we dark pacted, it's just different.

 

For the EC list and some photos:

 

 

[Sume]

After relooking at the terminator datasheet.  I wonder if myself and everyone here dismissed them.  They dont appear to be something hot at first glance.  The reroll charge is actually nice if they shoot the same unit with all their guns . The thing makes me want to give them a chance is the fact they're the only thing really carrying power fists in the army outside of the EL and with the overall lack of heavy weapons.  I wonder if they be any good.  Could potentially make them with sustained hits in carnival too if you deepstrike demonettes in with them or ride up seekers or fiends.  

Load out I wonder is do you go with the autocannon or the heavy flamer?  Then also do you grab a pair of the accursed weapons.  I want to say go with the autocannon, powerfist, 2 combi bolter with 2 powerfists, a pair of accursed weapons and then a combi bolter and chainfist.  My reasoning for the autocannon is to help soften up something that you plan to run these into.  Mostly tanks or what not.  The pair of accursed weapons can just help if you are needing to cut through normal stuff due to thrill seekers.  These guys are probably meant to be our anvil.  Only question I guess is if you attach a KL to them.  If you do, you're doing so to bring an enchantment most likely and then they're going to need to be in a land raider.  

Edited Tuesday at 12:43 PM by Sume

[Progenitor]

I think that's the main issue with EC termies, the tax of needing to bring the LR (unless you want to deep strike) and the fact that you can't take 10 of them. I do have a hankering yo try them out myself as I think along the same lines that you do that they've just been kind of dismissed but may actually have a specific place designed in our line up that nothing else can fill. 

[Rain]

The unit cap may be too small to be an anvil unit. I have a 10-brick of World Eaters Termies, and they are fun, especially in Vessels of Wrath. They’re hard to kill, they get buffed when some of them die, and they have good shooting grading on the very harsh curve of World Eaters. It’s a big points investment, but they are the tankiest infantry in the army, and are a great “big distraction” especially if you’re not running Angron.

 

I’m just not sure how well they would work as a 5 man. Especially as EC can’t give their Termies FNP (WE might be losing that soon too) and as both WE and EC lack a Termie Lord to attach to beef out the unit.

[Sume]

I hear that.  Due to painting time to get myself 1500 points of EC and my friends Orks done before the Dallas narrative event.  I started looking at the box of terminators and was like well with the land raider thats a huge chunk of my points.  I figured if I painted them up first and then get the orks done.  I could then try something else.

The KL if joined makes the unit definetly require the land raider.  He does bring in 6 str 5 attacks.  The only drawback really is he denies them deepstrike.  I am not sure if posed blade is worth it on the KL in caravel.  Them only being a 5 man unit really did miss the mark of being a brick.  I cant see someone using 3 squads of 5 but they may have their uses.  Right now, I am favoring them for the fact that its less models to paint.

I still do wonder if when the other cultist books come out.  Their terminators are also going down to 5.