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Been considering starting up a minor force and I've always wanted to try Emperors Children, specifically Noise Marines. I just wondered how they'd hold up in a competitive situation. I wouldn't mind Daemon allies but mostly I'd prefer it to be CSM. Just curious on what people thought as I have been out of the Chaos loop for a while now as I play Necrons anymore.

They're not bad, second only to Nurgle I'd say. Blastmasters are fun, but Doom Sirens are awesome as well. Also, I've toyed with the Emperor's Children Dreadnought tuned up to shoot twice, and it does some work.

Competetive? Nope.

No. Blastermasters, their only good weapon, are far too expensive to get a lot of them.

Now, you could always get a few Sonic Dreads with your Plague Marine troops. That might be okay.

That's disappointing. I wondered how they were with access to FNP and most of their weapons having ignores cover. The Dreadnought looks awesome and I've always liked how the Noise Marines looked but was curious if they'd hold up in any competitive setting besides using Plague Marines.

They aren't as versatile as plague marines with plasma guns, so I suggest not overinvesting. The rest of your army will have to work a little bit harder.

If you want to run them I'd suggest 5 with blastmaster in a rhino, possibly with a single sonic blaster to make that second fire point a little more efficient. The rhino will likely be better protection than the icon.

I found the doom siren to be effective at disincentivising enemies charging the squad, and good at killing bunched up marines (deepstrikers, caught in tight terrain, exploding vehicles, etc). Perhaps worth it if you have the points spare.

The icon is not really worth it on such a small squad. I took one just so I could freehand a rolling stones symbol on a banner . The times it was most useful was when my Lord's escort had taken a beating and he hopped over into the noise marines for late game protection.

I go for a nice expensive group of ten with an Icon of Excess, 2 Blastmasters, and Sonic Blasters on the rest. Sure, spending points like that you'll get your teeth kicked in by competitively built lists (Scatterbikes, Gladius, Decurion) but in a more casual environment with regular lists they really can bring the pain.

I'd also suggest a Rhino to get them in range, or (if you want to be really annoying) get a Sorcerer on Steed of Slaanesh and just have them walk onto the table from the edge.

See that's the big kind of squad I'd like to run but at 300+ points it's hard to justify. Would two large groups of 10 with the icon sitting in the back/slowly moving forward work if they had support either from other Slaaneshi CSM or Daemons more? I'm not super familiar with how Slaanesh Daemons are to begin with.

Well, they're not bad in a squad of 20 with melee weapons, syren, icon and Cypher. You're basically paying 40 pts for fearless which is not too bad for such a large squad. Ideally, you'll need to infiltrate them with Huron or Ahriman. And here comes the main problem. You also need sorc to make them frightening. And lord to make them troops. So, i'd just go with regular slaanesh marines that are 40 pt cheaper, can get meltas but aren't fearless (fixable with Huron) and can't get siren. This way you can skip a slaanesh lord.

 koooaei wrote:
Well, they're not bad in a squad of 20 with melee weapons, syren, icon and Cypher. You're basically paying 40 pts for fearless which is not too bad for such a large squad. Ideally, you'll need to infiltrate them with Huron or Ahriman. And here comes the main problem. You also need sorc to make them frightening. And lord to make them troops. So, i'd just go with regular slaanesh marines that are 40 pt cheaper, can get meltas but aren't fearless (fixable with Huron) and can't get siren. This way you can skip a slaanesh lord.

If possible I'd rather stick with the Noise Marines. While I see exactly where you are coming from I'm just tired of running base marines with marks. Though that's just my opinion

There's no big difference for marines in this case, really. The difference is a mandatory slaanesh lord that's not overly amazing.

MoS is overall not impressive anyway.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
MoS is overall not impressive anyway.

Actually its not that bad, in fact it means your the only chaos champ that may survive and win challenges. It also means using grenades on most walkers first, I agree it's not amazing but it isn't that expensive either.

I am planning on using them with demons. Taking two 5 man siren squads in rhinos and two 5 man marked squads with melta/combi melta in rhinos with dirge casters so the four 10 gal demonettes and huge seeker unit don't take overwatch, now that's money. Basically demons gets you a much better unit then cultists, faster, has an invuln, quasi fearless, brutal in assault while holding objectives and having deepstrike.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
MoS is overall not impressive anyway.

that's true.

Check out this article, it has a ton of info on making Noise Marines effective, especially with allied Slaanesh Daemons. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/271966-making-noise-marines-scream/

That article was junk. I don't recommend reading it.

Apart from Plague Marines the other cult troops are just too situational for what they cost.
Picking them in a non competitive game is fine though, it's what makes Chaos fun to use, even then you'll do well to get the most out of them.
One unit in a Rhino as suggested above is just about the only way you could squeeze them into a competitive force, give them a target and hope for the best, let the enemy worry about them and perhaps divert his attention from your more important units.


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Oh, and the Bolter and chainsword article linked above is too old to be of much use

Huron black heart wrote:
Apart from Plague Marines the other cult troops are just too situational for what they cost.
Picking them in a non competitive game is fine though, it's what makes Chaos fun to use, even then you'll do well to get the most out of them.
One unit in a Rhino as suggested above is just about the only way you could squeeze them into a competitive force, give them a target and hope for the best, let the enemy worry about them and perhaps divert his attention from your more important units.


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Oh, and the Bolter and chainsword article linked above is too old to be of much use

The article wasn't of no use, it demonstrates that in order to make slaanesh units work they need to synergize well with one another and I think most of the philosophies still apply.

I think Noise marines work best when complimented with demon allies, which that article goes into depth on. Super heavies are a bitch still however and I think you may consider a chaos knight to help combat that.

Noise marines are one of the best units in the CSM codex but that's damning with faint praise. I 5 is mostly irrelevant, fearless is worse than ATSKNF and this is all you get for 1.3 Codex Marines that have combat squad, ATSKNF, and chapter tactics which are arguably better. Sonic blaster? 1.5 marines for 1.5 as many bolter shots that ignore cover. Blastmasters are cool but they cost twice what a missile launcher does for small blast and ignores cover. They are too fair and balanced to be competitive.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
No. Blastermasters, their only good weapon, are far too expensive to get a lot of them.

Now, you could always get a few Sonic Dreads with your Plague Marine troops. That might be okay.

You'll get no argument from me that Blastmasters are to expensive. But you can reasonable get a good number into your army relatively cheaply as CSM go. A MSU of 5X noise marines camping in a ruin with a Blastmaster only costs 125 pts. Take a Slaanesh Lord of a bike, to make them troops. Then take 4X MSU units. Now you've got Fearless Objsec troops that can reach out 48" and decimate: bikes, MEQ, hordes, and shake vehicles. Not sure why you'd want plague marines especially in an EC army. Noise Marines are better at objective camping than them as they can reduce any threats coming at them and then strike first even if charged.

Sonic Dreadnoughts are good if overpriced; assuming you have other vehicles to draw fire. At 190 pts for a Blastermaster and a Warp Amp they are 60 pts more efficient than taking two a MSU/Blastmaster units of noise marines. On the other hand the dreadnought can be one-shoted, and die easily fist turn. So you'll want at least two, and some vehicles more dangerous than rhinos to draw fire. While the noise marines are Fearless so their Blastmaster will keep firing until all of them are dead. If you want to run Sonic Dreadnoughts, and why wouldn't you? Take a Chaos Daemon Grand Cavalcade Formation. You can take 7 Seeker chariots for 310 pts, and they most definitely will not be ignored and will make a mess if they are.

If your wanting to run Emperor's Children your gonna want some Daemonettes and Seekers to take along for your assault element. Both are fast, cheap and deadly. Far more points efficient and effective in assault than anything CSM can field in Troops or Fast Attack. Noise Marines have very good synergy with Slaaneshi Daemons. Use those Blastmasters to flush enemy units out of cover so you daemons can strike first with their high initiative.



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 Tyno2025 wrote:
See that's the big kind of squad I'd like to run but at 300+ points it's hard to justify. Would two large groups of 10 with the icon sitting in the back/slowly moving forward work if they had support either from other Slaaneshi CSM or Daemons more? I'm not super familiar with how Slaanesh Daemons are to begin with.

You are will definitely need to lean hard on the Slaaneshi Daemons. Which is fine they're all effective in assault and fast which is what you want them for really. Take Daemonettes and Seekers over CSM for objective taking units their both WS5/I5, with Fleet, +3-6" to run moves, and Rending. They're champions are not forced to accept challenges, are WS5/I5, with 3 attacks and can take AP2 at initiative weapons. If you take a Herald she's WS7/I7, and can take an S5/AP2 strikes at initiative sword, with 6 attacks on the charge. If she take a Loci she allows the whole unit to re-roll to hit, and she can force any enemy to accept challenges. She also gets to choose who accepts. If she takes the Forbidden Gem she can reduce a character to WS1/I1 in a challenge. If she takes the mark of excess she gains a permanent +1 attacks for each character kill.

I'd just stick to the Slaaneshi daemons but it you want to boost you Noise Marines shooting you can take some Tzeentch daemons. But Nurgle and Khorne are just not worth it.




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 Tyno2025 wrote:
That's disappointing. I wondered how they were with access to FNP and most of their weapons having ignores cover. The Dreadnought looks awesome and I've always liked how the Noise Marines looked but was curious if they'd hold up in any competitive setting besides using Plague Marines.

The Icon of Excess is cost efficient only on larger squads and bikes. Large squads of noise marines kitted out for assault while fluffy is not effect or point efficient at all in comparison to similar points invested in Slaaneshi Daemons. But T5/I5 bikes with a FNP is better in assault that nurgles bikes, are nearly as resilient, and more cost effective once your above 5 models. Your Slaaneshi Lord on a bike joins them giving the fearless. Also run your CSM out of the Crimson Slaughter supplement. They'll all gain the Fear USR, yeah not very useful. But very fitting for EC and it can be effective when fighting pesky space elves. Your lord can take the Daemonheart for a 2+ save and IWND, Slaughters horns for Furious Charge, Rage, and Hammer of Wrath, and The Blade of the Relentless for +2S/AP2 at initiative after that first combat, and a sigil of corruption. You'll also want 2X meltaguns and melta bombs for your bike squad.

You'll want some Obliterators of course to open up vehicles so your Daemons can assault them and your Blastmasters to vaporized them. Since they're daemons they can DS off any Icons your Slaaneshi daemons brought with them with only a 6" scatter.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That article was junk. I don't recommend reading it.

I have to disagree. While allot has changed since the early 6th ed. The points are all still pretty valid, since we still have the same codex and same imbalanced units. Sonic Blasters are still trash in comparison to blastmasters and bolters. Noise marine and MOS CSM geared for assault are still inferior to Daemonettes. So, if you want to play to the fluff of the Emperors Children that thread still outlines how you do it. CSM simply aren't competitive without either Daemons, Forgeworld, or allot of house rules. My own Emperor's children lists barely have any CSM in them, and are mostly daemons now. Since Daemons actually got a Decurion and formations that were worth taking. Which is fine, as it still fits the current GW fluff: war-bands and cultists corrupting worlds so that the imaterium can spill though.

Side note: I can't believe they brought back Null Zone and gave every Loyalist marine book access to it. I was bad enough when it was just Grey Knights. Also why a -2 invulnerable penalty ? A -1 penalty is more than enough when all daemons have a pitiful 5++ save.