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The all-tens and instant win **** surrounding him has grown tiresome. The Emperor, powerful as he was, almost died getting choked by an Ork, so such sarcastic crap like all-tens is completely out of place.

I propose better stats that would be more suited to his status.

[WS8] [BS5] [S6] [T6] [W4] [I6] [A4] [LD10] [SV2+/3++]
- WS8: he has had over 30000 years to hone his skill wih physical weapons, it only stands to reason he'd be good, dropping it to WS7 would be acceptable
- BS5: good as it gets, no point in going over as rules-wise the re-roll isn't that great
- S6 and T6: he has lived so long, no doubt his physical form would be exemplary
- W4: any more than 4 would be a stretch, after all, he is human and not a Tyranid
- I6: physical strength and psychic power would make this reasonable
- A4: seems standard and acceptable
- LD10: well of course he'll have LD10, since he is the Emperor

Wargear:
[Sword of Burning Light & Talon of the Aquila] Attacks always cause Instant Death and force successful Invulnerable saves to be re-rolled. The TotA is a Lightning Claw, but its effect is covered by the Titanic Might special rule.
Inspiration for this goes to the Swarmlord's Bonesabres entry.
[Armour of the Golden Age] Confers a 2+ Armour save, a 3+ Invulnerable save, and is also equipped with a Psychic Hood.
The armour would already be exceptionally strong, and combined with his powers, it justifies both saving throws. Psychic Hood is also standard to have a chance at stopping enemy powers.

Special Rules:
IC, Acute Senses, Counter-Attack, Eternal Warrior, Fleet, Relentless, Deep Strike, Titanic Might
[God of War] As per Calgar's entry. I'd imagine the Emperor as having massive experience and he'd know when to retreat or push forward.
[Godly Presence] Basically a combination of "Rites of Battle", and a "global-range Chapter Banner".
[Psychic Supremacy] Basically a combination of an Eldar "Ghosthelm" (ignore PotW on 3+) and "Runes of Witnessing" (psyker test on 3d6 discarding highest roll). The Emperor would know much about the Warp and thus could manipulate it as such.
(note: feel no pain was not included, because he is human, and I'm guessing felt pain when that Ork was trying to choke him)

Psychic Powers:
Since the GK descend from his "gene-seed", I'd imagine the Emperor as being able to use all of their powers. Not only the army-wide ones, but those that are unique as well: Sanctified Flame (Draigo), Zone of Banishment (Stern), Astral Aim (Purgation Squads), Cleansing Flame (Purifiers), Holocaust (Paladins), Warp Quake (Strike Squads), and anything else they have that I may have forgotten. Also, I'd see him as being able to use up to four different powers per turn.

For all of his powers and buffs to the army, I would say put the saves to a 2+/3++
This way he is reasonably difficult to put wounds on but not impossible. Otherwise this is completely reasonable, like the rules. Good job!

I find these rules make him seem like a weakling....

Great White wrote:I find these rules make him seem like a weakling....

How so? The tales about the Emperor may have been exaggerated to who-knows what degree.

Exaggeration or not, his is the geneseed that produced the primarchs. They are but distillations of his greatest traits, each in turn but measures up to him. Though one might be of similar bent in ferocity or psychic might, none are his match in all things. Even his most powerful and favored son could but wound his body into failing, tethered to the material plane by his eternal, unbending will. Say what you want about the imperium, but the emperor deserves to be 'up there' in all of his stats, between having the best equipment, genetics, and technological improvements in the galaxy, and being the most powerful psyker.

That is to say, look at commonly 'accepted' primarch stats and take the best from all of them, it should give you a pretty decent idea, as well as access to most, if not all, psyker powers in the marines codecies, and even some in the eldar and chaos 'dexes.

Nice try and toned down compared to some entries on this subject, yet you make a common mistake. When people look at the Emperor they should think this should be a more broken version of Teclis, not a more broken version of Tyrion. the Emperor gets medieval with primarchs because he is in a confined space at close range and because noted opponents like primarchs are immune to psychic powers. In normal battle the guy is a psychic god and should be played that way. The Emperor would have S4 T5 at most, and probably doesn't even have that. I would actually tone his stats down.

My take on the Emperor, and primarchs for that matter is that they should have stats of Space Marine heroes, with extra points of WS, BS and I to show their consummate skill. Vulcan could have S5 because its his focus. The actual skills should be awesomely high Ws7-10 Bs7-10, they dont miss much. I should also be high. In any event model them as tougher versions of Phoenix Lords.

However this is where things change.

Leadership should be through the roof, that is to say anyone within sight of a Primarch or the Emperor is unbreakable, conversely to balance if the primarch dies everyone in sight immediately fails a morale test. The roll to rally normally under the normal rules and procedures. Pretty much any one dice roll per sequence of attacks or saves made should be rerollable because of their skill, on a 6 they should do instant death/destroyed in close combat against any monsterous creature or vehicle except another named character with Eternal Warrior (so a common hive tyrant has no defence).

Furthermore each should be able to predict attacks negating or forcing rerolls of any one successful attack against them once per turn. This function also doesn't work against other primarchs.

The Emperor should go further, he is perhaps the most powerful psyker in the mundane universe, he gets an unnegateable unmodifiable 2+ save against anything due to a combination of foresight and psychic shielding, he can negate a vortex missile by will alone, he trumps that trump (unless he rolls a 1). We can call that his Divine save. Divine save doesnt work against close combat attacks from godlike beings. That list would be short, including C'Tan, Primarchs and the named special greater daemons, also maybe possibly Asuryan. Against those he still has terminator armour or artificer armour (it doesnt matter which) and an Iron Halo, and those work normally. Any form of attack by a qualifying model (like the Nightbringer) that bypasses both of those can be saved against by the Divine save. So the Emperor always gets a save, the worst it can get is a 4+ and its takes a primarch or equivalent in close combat to reduce it that low. He is immune to psychic attacks as the Avatar is immune to melta hits and can confir a 2+ save against psychic attacks to the unit he is with, or even a 6" bubble. Reasoning behind that is that some titans blessed by the Emperor during the Great Crusade still have their 3+ psychic ward.

The Emperor or his location cannot be targeted by any enemy over 18" under rules similar to night fighting. Whether this is due to awe, dazzling brightness, or shroud like mists the Grey Knights have differs according to surviving eye witness testimonies.

The Emperor may make one psychic test a turn, using any power known to any imperial character plus a few more besides. He may make additional attacks, each costing one attack this round. All these powers may be cast normally even with upgraded effects for normal psykers automatically without chance of failure. However if a psychic test is passed and depending how well its passed the Emperor can apply one or more of the following effects: Choose a target in range even if there is no LOS including those inside transports. increase the template used to the next size up, small to large to 7" to 10", or flamer template to apocalypse flamer template. Or make the range of the power unlimited. Each power chosen after the first reduced the Ld by 1 or 2 for template increase for the purposes of the test. The Emperor doesn't suffer Perils from the Warp, no matter how many Eldar gadgets you wave at him. The warp might suffer Perils from the Emperor, but thats a story for another time.
So the Emperor may choose to fry the contents of an ork gargant over the horizon by making the LOS irrelevant (he sees them with his seer sight) ]Ld10], upgrade Holocaust template to signify that it will be able to fry all the occupants [Ld8] at a stupidly long range [Ld7], evens chance. he could fry a mob in his LOS a long way away with a double upgraded Holocaust template on Ld6 by the same calculation.

To finalise the Emperor can can discount any one attack dice roll either to wound or to hit from every unit or that attacks him as he resists the energy or simply is not where he is supposed to be due to his precognition avbility. This does work against Primarchs and equivalent powers.

Other than that he is little tougher than an average space marine chapter master.

Points cost?

Orlanth wrote:

Spoiler:

Nice try and toned down compared to some entries on this subject, yet you make a common mistake. When people look at the Emperor they should think this should be a more broken version of Teclis, not a more broken version of Tyrion. the Emperor gets medieval with primarchs because he is in a confined space at close range and because noted opponents like primarchs are immune to psychic powers. In normal battle the guy is a psychic god and should be played that way. The Emperor would have S4 T5 at most, and probably doesn't even have that. I would actually tone his stats down.

My take on the Emperor, and primarchs for that matter is that they should have stats of Space Marine heroes, with extra points of WS, BS and I to show their consummate skill. Vulcan could have S5 because its his focus. The actual skills should be awesomely high Ws7-10 Bs7-10, they dont miss much. I should also be high. In any event model them as tougher versions of Phoenix Lords.

However this is where things change.

Leadership should be through the roof, that is to say anyone within sight of a Primarch or the Emperor is unbreakable, conversely to balance if the primarch dies everyone in sight immediately fails a morale test. The roll to rally normally under the normal rules and procedures. Pretty much any one dice roll per sequence of attacks or saves made should be rerollable because of their skill, on a 6 they should do instant death/destroyed in close combat against any monsterous creature or vehicle except another named character with Eternal Warrior (so a common hive tyrant has no defence).

Furthermore each should be able to predict attacks negating or forcing rerolls of any one successful attack against them once per turn. This function also doesn't work against other primarchs.

The Emperor should go further, he is perhaps the most powerful psyker in the mundane universe, he gets an unnegateable unmodifiable 2+ save against anything due to a combination of foresight and psychic shielding, he can negate a vortex missile by will alone, he trumps that trump (unless he rolls a 1). He is immune to psychic attacks as the Avatar is immune to melta hits and can confir a 2+ save against psychic attacks to the unit he is with, or even a 6" bubble. Reasoning behind that is that some titans blessed by the Emperor during the Great Crusade still have their 3+ psychic ward.

The Emperor or his location cannot be targeted by any enemy over 18" under rules similar to night fighting. Whether this is due to awe, dazzling brightness, or shroud like mists the Grey Knights have differs according to surviving eye witness testimonies.

The Emperor may make one psychic test a turn, using any power known to any imperial character plus a few more besides. He may make additional attacks, each costing one attack this round. All these powers may be cast normally even with upgraded effects for normal psykers automatically without chance of failure. However if a psychic test is passed and depending how well its passed the Emperor can apply one or more of the following effects: Choose a target in range even if there is no LOS including those inside transports. increase the template used to the next size up, small to large to 7" to 10", or flamer template to apocalypse flamer template. Or make the range of the power unlimited. Each power chosen after the first reduced the Ld by 1 or 2 for template increase for the purposes of the test. The Emperor doesn't suffer Perils from the Warp, no matter how many Eldar gadgets you wave at him. The warp might suffer Perils from the Emperor, but thats a story for another time.
So the Emperor may choose to fry the contents of an ork gargant over the horizon by making the LOS irrelevant (he sees them with his seer sight) ]Ld10], upgrade Holocaust template to signify that it will be able to fry all the occupants [Ld8] at a stupidly long range [Ld7], evens chance. he could fry a mob in his LOS a long way away with a double upgraded Holocaust template on Ld6 by the same calculation.

To finalise the Emperor can can discount any one attack dice roll either to wound or to hit from every unit or that attacks him as he resists the energy or simply is not where he is supposed to be due to his precognition avbility. This does work against Primarchs and equivalent powers.

Other than that he is little tougher than an average space marine chapter master.

Over the top as this might seem, I agree with the approach. If an alpha+ psyker can control the minds of the inhabitants of an entire planet then the Emperor should be through the roof (and before anyone brings up the Ork Warboss at Ullanor, he was the leader of the single biggest Waaagh! ever recorded, a Waagh! so big that the Great Crusade turned in the favour of the Imperium after his defeat. Every single one of his underlings would see him as the greatest Ork in existance, meaning he'd be no "mere" Ork but rather someone to match the Emperor in psychic might because of how Orks work. Fortunately, he's now dead.)

Farseer Mael Dannan wrote:Points cost?

Ok, I suppose i have to answer this.

The Emperors points value is Infinite. You dont buy the Emperor for points cost. He is deployed free and comes with 500pts extra in Custodes free which may be equipped as you see fit. Every custodes is equal to a two wound hero (Rogue Trader era rules), For want of rules for custodes I would choose custodes from every type of two wound hero available to the Imperium, Guard, Sisters, Assassins, SM etc etc a bit like a Court of the Young King .

This is a handicap for the opposing player, unless they have something like Horus on the tabletop.

However in compensation all victory conditions change, the victory conditions are shifted two degrees away from you. So a major victory becomes a Draw a Minor Victory becomes a Minor Defeat. To register as having won you need a Decisive victory by the points. This is fair because the Emperor cannot be seen to be beaten by any amount, its bad for morale on a cosmic scale. If the Emperor is 'killed' he is rushed off the battlefield by his custodes to recuperate and the game immediately ends with an opposition Decisive Victory, no matter how well you appeared to be doing up until then.

If you want custom Custodes, and why not, look to give them stats as a human hero probably around 5's. They may have T and S of 4 but it will be to account for their exotic armour not geneseed. They are all normal humans, but each and every one is a noted hero before he joined and have W2. They have Ld10 of course and cannot fail leadership tests of any kind while in the presence of the Emperor. Some act as a unit around the Emperor, this unit is mandatory and the Emperor cannot join another unit, however Custodes can be split off to temporarily join other units as as the same way as Wolf Guard did. Think of it as ensuring political reliability. If the unit has a bike or jump pack equip the Custodes accordingly at additional points costs, otherwise they have power armour and nemesis halberds as according to the old rules and fluff. But they are not Grey Knights, they are tougher than that.

Godly Presence is fine, because he's inspirational. God of War is not. The Emperor was certainly a smart man, but he invented the Primarchs and Astartes to lead his galactic was. That God of War is currently a rule of the student of the Primarch that rejected the Emperor's and Horus' war methods (which the Codex absolutely does), implies this is something the Emperor would not be capable of.

Remove that rule and this is great.

I'm sorry, the only emotion I'm capable of is sarcasm

Seems quite reasonable, maybe underwhelming to some, but very reasonable.

Weapon skill 7 !!!??? if this was true the sanguinior would be a better combatant than the emperor and methiston has 5 wounds and initiative 7.

this is so unreal.....

I think I love you Orlanth.

Both of your posts are probably the best, most accurate, most fun way of playing the Emperor in a game of 40k. I tip my hat off to you, good sir.

looks reasonable to me the only thing I'd add is probably something related to reserves or more specifically teleporting. He does guide ships through the warp maybe part of godly presence allows units teleporting not to scatter withing 6" of him. kinda fluffy kinda useful not sure.

Orlanth wrote:
The Emperor should go further, he is perhaps the most powerful psyker in the mundane universe,\

Most powerful Human psyker. His humanity is certainly debatable, but that's the only scale he's ever been judged on.

Orlanth wrote:he gets an unnegateable unmodifiable 2+ save against anything due to a combination of foresight

Two things:
1. He had barely any precognitive powers. He wasn't even as good as most human psykers at that particular endeavor. This didn't bother him much since he wanted to make the future, not be slave to destiny. But the fact was this was an area he was not sufficient at, let alone brilliant.

2. If he was so divinely infallible, howcome that Ork almost killed him?

We're talking about an Ork that could probably have swatted Ghaz aside with little to no efforts, it was a big one.

Bobthehero wrote:We're talking about an Ork that could probably have swatted Ghaz aside with little to no efforts, it was a big one.

what? Ghaz isn't big enough?

Blacksails wrote:I think I love you Orlanth.

Both of your posts are probably the best, most accurate, most fun way of playing the Emperor in a game of 40k. I tip my hat off to you, good sir.

you only say that because you have the same Avatars

Orlanth wrote:If you want custom Custodes, and why not, look to give them stats as a human hero probably around 5's. They may have T and S of 4 but it will be to account for their exotic armour not geneseed. They are all normal humans, but each and every one is a noted hero before he joined and have W2. They have Ld10 of course and cannot fail leadership tests of any kind while in the presence of the Emperor. Some act as a unit around the Emperor, this unit is mandatory and the Emperor cannot join another unit, however Custodes can be split off to temporarily join other units as as the same way as Wolf Guard did. Think of it as ensuring political reliability. If the unit has a bike or jump pack equip the Custodes accordingly at additional points costs, otherwise they have power armour and nemesis halberds as according to the old rules and fluff. But they are not Grey Knights, they are tougher than that.

Paladins are stronger than garden variety Grey Knights...

The custodes are not normal humans, they're extensively modified to an even greater degree than the Astartes, in fact, your average custodes stands somewhere between a Primarch and a normal space marine in height and size. These guys in general make your average space marine look like a wuss.

Bobthehero wrote:We're talking about an Ork that could probably have swatted Ghaz aside with little to no efforts, it was a big one.

No, that's aggrandizing the situation. We're talking about an Ork who was essentially Ghazghull.

Blacksails wrote:I think I love you Orlanth.

Both of your posts are probably the best, most accurate, most fun way of playing the Emperor in a game of 40k. I tip my hat off to you, good sir.

Yeah no. They might be realistic, but they sure as hell aren't balanced or fun. Sometimes it is fun to lose a hundred guardsmen to kill a hero, losing a dozen greater daemons to kill a hero is significantly less fun.

LD10?

This dude is the top of the food chain, only to get screwed over by double 6?
Come on, the head of the imperium of man should have LD12.

OP? Yes. But he is the friggin Emperor!

DarknessEternal wrote:

Bobthehero wrote:We're talking about an Ork that could probably have swatted Ghaz aside with little to no efforts, it was a big one.

No, that's aggrandizing the situation. We're talking about an Ork who was essentially Ghazghull.

No, just no.That was the biggest Waaagh! ever recorded. That Warboss would've had so much Waaagh! energy backing him that he'd be the Ork equivalent of the Emperor. He's not just "some random Ork", he's not "essentially Ghazghkull", he's so much more than that.

Leman Russ (the tank) sized and up or so I heard.

Orlanth wrote:If you want custom Custodes, and why not, look to give them stats as a human hero probably around 5's. They may have T and S of 4 but it will be to account for their exotic armour not geneseed. They are all normal humans, but each and every one is a noted hero before he joined and have W2. They have Ld10 of course and cannot fail leadership tests of any kind while in the presence of the Emperor. Some act as a unit around the Emperor, this unit is mandatory and the Emperor cannot join another unit, however Custodes can be split off to temporarily join other units as as the same way as Wolf Guard did. Think of it as ensuring political reliability. If the unit has a bike or jump pack equip the Custodes accordingly at additional points costs, otherwise they have power armour and nemesis halberds as according to the old rules and fluff. But they are not Grey Knights, they are tougher than that.

Um, just to nitpick, but...

Custodes are, by any standards, NOT normal humans. According to all fluff an individual Custodes is AT LEAST the equal of an individual Space Marine, precisely because of genetic engineering similar to the idea of 'gene-seed'.

Where did you read that?

What little we have on Custodes indicates they like halberds and had the stats of a 'minor hero (rogue trader era).
The write up at the time, which hasnt been changed since, is that Custodes are drawn from heros from thoughout the imperium, however once indicted into the Custodes they never leave the presence of the emperor (I am guessing so that they can never be corrupted).

Since the Emperor was entombed on the Golden thrown the Custodes have never left the palace, which is why its currently pointless for Gw to make up any stats for them.

I suppose its possible they have Grey knight geneseed added, its also possible that they are part recruited from Space Marines. However IIRC some are normal humans albeit heroic ones, so as 'normal' as Gaunt or Yarrick or an assassin.

The stats of GK Paladins seem right for Custodes. Just bump up their WS and BS (or just WS), give 'em a Guardian Lance (Halberd w/Storm Bolter), and they're pretty much good to go.

He needs WS10 and 10 wounds.

Other than that, he's fine.

I'm not not kidding.

These are great rules. I respect you for making them.

ArbitorIan wrote:

Orlanth wrote:If you want custom Custodes, and why not, look to give them stats as a human hero probably around 5's. They may have T and S of 4 but it will be to account for their exotic armour not geneseed. They are all normal humans, but each and every one is a noted hero before he joined and have W2. They have Ld10 of course and cannot fail leadership tests of any kind while in the presence of the Emperor. Some act as a unit around the Emperor, this unit is mandatory and the Emperor cannot join another unit, however Custodes can be split off to temporarily join other units as as the same way as Wolf Guard did. Think of it as ensuring political reliability. If the unit has a bike or jump pack equip the Custodes accordingly at additional points costs, otherwise they have power armour and nemesis halberds as according to the old rules and fluff. But they are not Grey Knights, they are tougher than that.

Um, just to nitpick, but...

Custodes are, by any standards, NOT normal humans. According to all fluff an individual Custodes is AT LEAST the equal of an individual Space Marine, precisely because of genetic engineering similar to the idea of 'gene-seed'.

Off of Lexicanum (I don't have any BL literature or what not so please bear with me)

"Generally, the Custodes are larger and more powerful than Space Marines, but the differences are only noticeably significant in a few specific cases... 3 p.29" (Cited from Blood Games)

"Custodians were the first genetically and psychologically altered warriors created by the Emperor during the Terran Unification Wars."

"The genetic enhancement that forms the Custodes is different from and predates that developed to create Space Marines.3 p.29"

"The individuality of each Custodes is further promoted by the fact that the processes required to produce them is not as refined or as simple as that of the Astartes and thus are not "mass-produced" as the Astartes are; meaning that each Custodian is a unique investment for the Imperium."

I'd say that all indicates that the Adeptus Custodes are NOT normal humans.

I'm very pleased that someone else on this forum remembered the story about the Emperor almost getting choked to death by an Ork, but I still think WS8 is a bit excessive if a WS5 (6 assuming he was a special character) Ork Warboss beat him in close combat.

I'd propose using Eldrad's stats as a guideline for the Emperor; he's supposed to be a miraculously brilliant psyker, not a brute-force combat monster...