It’s finally here! The Emperor’s Children are finally up for pre-order with their delicious looking pre-release army box! Hopefully you managed to grab a copy, but whether you did or not, or if you’re waiting for the full release hopefully this series of articles will help. This is the first of a few pieces looking at making sense of the new Emperor’s Children Codex.

You can find the full series on the links below:

• Part 1 – How Best To Seek Your Thrills
• Part 2 – The Most Twisted Show in Town – Carnival of Excess

For this particular article we’re going to have an incredibly narrow focus and we’re just looking at the Emperor’s Children Army Rule, Thrill Seekers:

Army Rules – Thrill Seekers

If your Army Faction is EMPEROR’S CHILDREN, this unit is eligible to shoot and declare a charge in a turn in which it Advanced or Fell Back, but when doing so:

• It cannot target a unit it was within Engagement Range of at the start of the turn.

• It cannot target a unit that was the target of another unit’s charge or attack this phase.

I think Thrill Seekers is one of those Games Workshop special sort of rules where they’ve managed to concisely set up a rule and quite a few conditions for it, but in doing so have made it quite difficult to really parse what the rule is saying – at least I think so. I think it’s easier to break it down into two separate rules that make this up.

Thrill Seekers – Part 1: Bored of You Now!

If a unit with this rule Falls Back, it is still eligible to shoot and to declare a charge. However, it can’t target the unit(s) it Fell Back from to charge or attack, or a unit(s) that was the target of another unit’s charge or attack this phase.

We’ll dive into what the conditions of this mean in a little more detail shortly, but, this first part just taken on its own is a pretty good rule! If it was a stratagem in a detachment you’d happily part with 1CP for it!

Thrill Seekers – Part 2: This One’s Ours!

If a unit with this rule Advances, it is still eligible to shoot and to declare a charge. However, it can’t target a unit(s) that was the target of another unit’s charge or attack this phase.

Again another rule that you’d happily part with 1CP to use if it were a stratagem. Ignoring the conditions for a moment – as they do complicate things a little – it becomes clear that this is both a powerful rule AND a thematic one. It provides the Emperor’s Children with a great deal of manoeuvrability and additional speed. As a close-quarters army, this is pretty invaluable!
Thematically, the Emperor’s Children are desperate for the thrill of combat and to seek out new sensations so of course they don’t want to re-engage the same boring unit they’ve already fought or that their battle-brothers are looking to fight. I’m sure I saw someone (sorry can’t remember who it was to credit them!) online refer to it as looking for a new dance partner – which is perfect!

We’ll use one of the promotional images from the Warhammer Community page to demonstrate how the conditions of this rule work:

In the picture above, let’s imagine that the Noise Marines began the turn locked in combat. In the Movement Phase the Noise Marines made a Fall Back move thanks to Thrill Seekers. What this means is that the Noise Marines can’t shoot the Blood Angels Intercessors (bottom-right) that they’ve stepped away from and they won’t be able to charge them either. Meanwhile, the Terminators have disembarked from their Land Raider ready to shoot and then assault the second unit of Assault Intercessors (top-right).
In the shooting phase, the order of operations becomes important. If the Terminators shoot the Assault Intercessors (top-right) first then the Thrill Seekers restriction means that the Noise Marines also can’t shoot them as another unit has already targeted them with an attack this phase (and as we established already, the Noise Marines can’t target the unit in the bottom-right). But, if we shoot with the Noise Marines first, they’re able to target the Assault Intercessors (top-right) and then, because the Terminators haven’t Advanced or Fell Back, they’re free to target what they like.
The same will go for the Charge phase should we want to charge with the Noise Marines (that Disharmonist has a Power Sword and he’s going to use it!), if the Terminators charge the Assault Intercessors (top-right) first, then the Noise Marines aren’t able to as they Fell Back and the same restriction will apply as in the Shooting phase. But again, if the Noise Marines pick their target first (the Assault Intercessors on the top-right are the only viable one – that we can see in this picture anyway!) then the Terminators can act freely.

There’s a few things to learn from this example though:

• Remember to action your units that Advanced or made a Fall Back move first each phase as those not affected by the Thrill Seekers rule can choose their targets freely.
  
• Of those affected by Thrill Seekers, plan out your order of operations carefully. You will already have limited targets so don’t limit them further. I reckon it might be worth having some tokens to help work through these.
  
• When you’re Advancing or Falling Back, think about where you’re looking to get to. In the picture example above, if the Noise Marines fell back from the Assault Intercessors then unless that was to remain on an objective but give them the option to shoot then the move could have been a lot more sensible, perhaps moving towards the Assault Intercessors (top-right) and have the Terminators engage the (bottom-right) unit as they weren’t locked out from doing so.

The rule really comes into its own where you have units that benefit the most from charging. For example, the Winged Daemon Prince with their Daemonic Destruction ability:

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh with Wings – Daemonic Destruction

Each time this model ends a Charge move, select one enemy unit within Engagement Range of it and roll one D6 for each of this model’s remaining wounds: for each 4+, that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound (to a maximum of 6 mortal wounds).

Being able to Advance and Charge means you can trigger this rule nice and early, and in the event that the Daemon Prince is charged or is tied up in an ongoing combat, in your turn, you can Fall Back and Charge a new target – handing out some further mortal wounds.

The Primarch himself is another example of a model that can really dial up their abilities with the manoeuvrability that the rule provides. Fulgrim’s Daemonic Poisons really benefit from Fulgrim being able to regularly find a new dance partner:

Fulgrim – Daemonic Poisons

In your Shooting phase and the Fight phase, after this model has finished making its attacks, select one enemy unit hit by one or more of those attacks. Until the end of the battle, that enemy unit is poisoned. At the start of each player’s Command phase, roll one D6 for each poisoned enemy unit on the battlefield: on a 4+ that enemy unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.

D3 mortal wounds might not sound like lots of damage, but it happens in every Command phase. Thrill Seekers gives you a way to jump Fulgrim around, flitting from target to target sharing his poisons with all (again somewhere I think some tokens will come in very handy!)

It also dovetails nicely with some of the detachment rules, for example the Exquisite Swordsmanship rule of the Peerless Bladesmen detachment rewards you for charging with your units and Thrill Seekers allows you to keep them charging:

Peerless Bladesmen – Exquisite Sworsdmanship

Each time an EMPEROR’S CHILDREN unit from your army is selected to fight, if it made a Charge move this turn, select one of the abilities below. While resolving those attacks, melee weapons equipped by models in that unit have that ability:

• [LETHAL HITS]

• [SUSTAINED HITS 1]

We’ll look deeper into the different detachments and their interactions with some of the units in Codex Emperor’s Children in future articles in this series.

One of the biggest benefits though of the Thrill Seekers rule is that Advancing, Charging and Falling Back all get you moving across the board quicker and this will always be useful for getting to the objectives or wherever you need to be for your Secondaries – Victory Points win games and everything else is secondary.