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HI guys.

After reading the new Emperor Children stuff it's clear that they will be primarily a close combat army.

What units should one field to lead am effective EC army? Their most iconic unit, noise marines, looks ike mostly a ranged unit. I have around 15 noise marines and none of those models is equipped with a chainsword. In fact, not even my normal marines are normally equipped with chainswords.

What do you suggest? Should I make melee noise marines models? That would be very expensive as the noise marines upgrade kit is costly.

(By the way what model am I supposed to use for the doom siren?)

I wouldn't agree that Emperor's Children is a melee army. I think their chapter tactic is most useful when they are getting charged, not the other way around; after all, if you're charging you get the first turn anyways.

Noise Marines and Sonic Dreadnoughts are both incredible shooting units, don't let a melee chapter tactic dissuade you.

If my noise marines are charged they'll get to fight first, but if I'm not equipped to fight in close combat that bonus will be wasted.

Yeah...EC isn't melee. World Eaters is melee.

EC is flexible. Always have been, always will be. Lots of assault weapons to let you stay mobile and, traditionally, shoot and assault. All paired with tons of heavy statlines in case you need to stand and shoot.

EC are what I'd classify a Close Support army. Their sonic weaponry (which you're picking if you go shooty, or else why would play EC!) is all short-medium range and it all ignores cover. Their shooters are designed to get close to the enemy and blast them out of cover. But they're also good at assault too. With pistol/chainswords they're very good at CC, but with the new EC and Slaanesh buffs they're still pretty good even without the chainsword. So it's clear their role is to get close to the enemy, laying down strong fire and then to assault once they reach the lines. If you're facing a gunline then try to assault quicker, using covering fire to penetrate their defensive cover. If yo're facing an assault army then try to shoot them as they close and then counter-attack with your buffs.

They're not super focused on shooting, despite their strong weaponry and strong buffs, and they're not super focused on CC either despite their strong buffs. But they're good at both and Noise Marines with sonic weaponry can be good at both. I wouldn't say they're versatile per say, because their role is very narrowly defined (combi-plasma Chosen or Termies I would class as versatile units) but within their field they'r great. They get in your face and either shoot your or assault you off the table, take your pick, they can do both. But they're coming for you, and they don't stop advancing.

The EC trait is an interesting one, because it barely benefits you if you're the one initiating charges. But it's use is two-fold. Firstly, your opponent is FORCED to charge you, RIGHT NOW. Because if he doesn't, he knows you're gonna charge him and then get a ton of bonus exploding attacks (quite literally in the case of exploding attacks from dead bodies!).So he has to charge because he knows he can't even spend CP's to get the jump and activate one of his units in return (you always go first). So you can pull him out of position by forcing his hand. The other aspect of the trait is that you make it difficult to back out of combat once you're tagged a unit. Your opponent knows, that in his turn after you've charged, your units are still attacking before his. But if he pulls out of combat, he loses his shooting for that unit. And he knows full well that on your next turn you have both the firepower to wipe out that unit and the CC ability to then charge another unit. Once you're into his lines he knows that he'll lose most his unit before they get to hit if he stays in combat and that you can shoot him to death if he leaves it. And a Slaanesh you have the stratagem to grant a 5+++ to a unit being attacked so your Noise Marine squad that's now stuck in the open inside his lines now has a 5+ FnP to help it survive.

Now apply all that to a Hellbrute, or Hellforged Contemptor. Only the Brute can take sonic weaponry but you can take a CC Contemptor and give it Soulburners. Getting these into your opponents lines throws up a big dilemma - they're not so easy to shoot out, especially the Contemptor with it's heal-through-wounding mechanic, it's invul save and the 5+++ you can give it. Throw the exploding hits stratagem on a Contemptor and it can heal up even more wounds!

EC is about getting into your opponents face ASAP and shooting him point blank before sticking him with the pointy end. They're about making your opponent face difficult choices, the same as Khorne and their Berserkers. You know they're gonna wreck face when they have so you need to figure out how to stop them quickly. But where'as Khorne just crashes into them and smashes face, Slaanesh savours it's advance and relishes the meeting of blades when it finally happens. And whilst Khorne revels in the fear of his enemies knowing they're gonna be ripped open very very soon, Slaanesh relishes the thought that his enemies know they're taking their sweet time and giving the illusion of choice of how to handle their survival.

I think EC plays very very well to how I think Slaanesh marines would operate. My first love is Slaanesh/EC CSM. If I wasn't so deep into getting my AL up to speed I'd already be painting up EC right now. Got a load of ancient metal sonic weaponry lying around just waiting for the day... I reckon GW will release some new EC models next year. Revealing Ec first of all the chaos legions was GW displaying to the community that they've not forgotten Slaanesh. Every other cult has had something new lately, it's been a while for Slaanesh though and the rumours of them being squatted didn't help. GW has signalled they're not forgotten. This is great news! So I'll wait for the new models, and build up my painting skills and get the Slaanesh army I always wanted when the time is right. Resisting the lure longer only heightens the pleasure right? :-D

I would agree with Demantiae on a lot of what was said. Emperor's Children is designed for mid-range fighting. A huge volume of firepower (more than most armies) at 24" or less creates a conundrum for your opponents.

If they back away, you can walk or even advance and still fire all of your sonic weapons (Assault weapons). This would allow you to command the battlefield and secure objectives that you need. They don't even need rhinos since they can move+advance each turn and only see a slight drop in shooting efficiency.

If they hold their ground, you pound them with lots of shots, ignoring their cover, until you've thinned their units down to ineffectiveness.

If they advance on you to charge, you shoot them in overwatch (a high volume of shots helps), you possibly go first (Legion trait), then shoot them again if you die (Music of the Apocalypse). Keeping in mind that a noise marine has 2 base attacks. That's as many as on a berserker profile. And if you are facing Imperium, your Icons of Excess can add a significant number of extra attacks.

The sweet spot for those noise marines is about 12-24", preferably supported by a lord for the rerolls of 1s to hit. Move to that distance, pressure the enemy units, and sit on those objectives.

Good Luck!

Depends on what you mean by "close combat", although I suspect you mean charging into assault and bashing heads.

The EC trait, on the surface, looks like something that benefits combat. It is, however, something that instead helps gunlines; if you're always going to strike first, there's no point in charging enemy units unless you want to tie them up for a turn; if you charge them you gain no benefit from your own trait, the enemy gets a round of overwatch against you, and you had to do all of the legwork. The EC trait instead turns this as a sort of sadistic torture against the enemy and where's why.

The Sonic Blaster, the premier Noise Marine Gun, is very close ranged. Close enough that even at max range you'll likely get charged by anything close enough in short order, if only to stop you from shooting. This is because opponents would much rather take 2 hits to the face than being constantly shot at by an assault 3 weapon that ignores cover, especially if they can get the first hit in. Now here's where the EC trait comes in; they don't get to hit first. In fact if they try this, not only will they eat the normal Overwatch from your noise marines, but they will also eat your chainswords before they get their turn. And after all of that, if they kill any of your models, they get to retaliate due to Music of the Apocalypse. By the end of this, your marines could have very well wiped out the enemy unit. *On their turn*.

The proposition of that makes charging your EC Noise Marines seem like a bad idea, since at best it's a one-turn delaying effort; at worse they just gave you an extra assault phase and shooting phase. This can act as a deterrent because your primary objective is to stay out of combat to keep blasting them with your sonic weapons. This also has a lot of tertiary benefits. For example, since your marines have an innately built charge deterrant, unlike other gunline armies you don't need to bring counter-charge units (like cheap cultists or melee specialist) which can free up points to buy other stuff. It can also be used in unexpected ways; it's not limited to just noise marines. Think about how much hilarity there is to be had with a bunch of combi-flamer terminators sitting within fingering distance of the enemy and just constantly wreathing them in flames, daring the enemy to charge into the maelstrom. This trait opens a lot of use for weapons that previously were thought of being basically one-use before you'd get charged, so you can be extremely creative with how you go about it.