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Hi!

So, I've been curious about 30k for a while, but can't really find any resources for just sorta curiously dipping my toe in.

When kill team dropped, I thought very seriously about picking up the Palatine Blades and Lord Commander Eidolon, to make a distinctive little unit, as I'd always kinda liked the models. Realizing now that I probably couldn't use them for KT, and also having let my idea gestate into adding on a bunch of marines with my leftover possessed marines bits to make some chaos marines that had maybe fallen victim to the legion's gene-experiments.

Naturally, this made me wonder about 30k. I can't seem to find any reasonable resources on how to get started, and don't really want to fork out for the rule books before I get a flavor of the game.

How do Emperor's Children tend to play? Are there any decent core builds to base an army off? What tends to be the standard points limit of a 30K army? All of the ones I've seen online seem pretty huge tbh, and while I said I'd never have large armies for 40k either, I'm not sure I wanna commit to that much expensive resin.

Also! WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE VOLKITE GUNS?

Cheers for looking!

Welcome to 30k!

As a first resouce, I'd recommend 1d4Chan as the best. Some of the language is a bit blue, and the tactics are questionable and/or illegal, but it's still the best summary of the army.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marine_Legion_List_(30k)

Emperor's Children are neat. Your main thing is +1 Initiative on the charge, which applies to pretty much all your models. This is a colossal advantage when it triggers and so EC tactics absolutely demand getting the charge off.
A secondary benefit is being able to deliver AP2 damage at Initiative, which is a hugely understated advantage when it comes to certain matchups.
Emperor's Children like to tear people apart on the charge, emasculate their opponent in a duel, and then catch the rest in a Sweeping Advance. They fold, hard, if you cannot set up this condition reliably.
Other advantages include Running faster, being able to Outflank units in one of their special army builds, and having a very versatile and cost-effective Primarch.

Your core should always start with a HQ and 2 Troops. In the case of EC, there is a very strong case to make for Assault Squads as they place so much emphasis on the charge, although Tacticals can work if you'd prefer something cheaper.
Your HQ should probably start generic. The best starting points are a Praetor or a Delegatus if you want to experiment with the Rites of War. Alternatively, a Chaplain or Forge Lord make good commanders in small games.

Once you have the core settled, the sheer scope of the Legion army list makes advice a little redundant because there are so many directions you can take the list in.
For what it's worth, Palatine Blades have recently received an enormous buff in the latest FAQ and are now a fantastic melee unit. Kakophoni are middling but unlock a nice Rite, and Phoenix Terminators are sadly behind the power curve.
Eidolon is excellent, Saul is horrible, and Fulgrim is great if you can afford to take him.

Standard game size is 2500-3000pts for a casual, more like 1500-2000pts for a timed event. Smaller games tend to use special formats like Centurion rules or Zone Mortalis.

The standard points limit for 30k is usually around 2500.

EC are usually a melee focused army with fast striking units.

You can check out the tactics page here: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marine_Legion_List_(30k)

Read the EC specific section.

Edit: Damn, ninja'ed by a much more in-depth post

 posermcbogus wrote:
Hi!

So, I've been curious about 30k for a while, but can't really find any resources for just sorta curiously dipping my toe in.

When kill team dropped, I thought very seriously about picking up the Palatine Blades and Lord Commander Eidolon, to make a distinctive little unit, as I'd always kinda liked the models. Realizing now that I probably couldn't use them for KT, and also having let my idea gestate into adding on a bunch of marines with my leftover possessed marines bits to make some chaos marines that had maybe fallen victim to the legion's gene-experiments.

Naturally, this made me wonder about 30k. I can't seem to find any reasonable resources on how to get started, and don't really want to fork out for the rule books before I get a flavor of the game.

How do Emperor's Children tend to play? Are there any decent core builds to base an army off? What tends to be the standard points limit of a 30K army? All of the ones I've seen online seem pretty huge tbh, and while I said I'd never have large armies for 40k either, I'm not sure I wanna commit to that much expensive resin.

Also! WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE VOLKITE GUNS?

Cheers for looking!

Emperors children tend to focus heavily on melee combat, especially on challenges and charging. they have bonus initiative in challenges so they will ususally strike first and winning challenges gives buffs though conversely losing challenges causes malluses. To aid this they can give their characters and Palantines phoenix spears which are essentially 2 handed power swords that become ap-2 on the charge, which synergizes well with eidolon. That being said if you go 3rd company elite you get very good shooting infantry with the bonuses the Kakophonii get. Alternatively Maru Skara allows for guarenteed reserves which can be fun if you like controlling the flow of battle and mind games.

Regarding points most games i've seen are 2500-3000 points except for zone mortalis which tend to be smaller.

You can use a number of GW models in 30k no problem (Rhinos, vanilla land raiders (phobos), land speeders, some infantry). For EC you might even be able to use sanguinary guard, custodes jetbikes, legion drop pods, and ravenwing for models or bits, just get some extra mk 3/4 and add the relevant bits

Have you ever seen the movie Mars Attacks? Volkite is essentially the martian death ray guns scaled up to Astartes.

Unfortunately BAC and BOP are out of production now as they were an excellent way to get started.

Awesome! Thanks for this, guys, I'll have a look! Looks like I've got a bit of jargon to aquaint myself with, but mercifully (?) EC seem like they play somewhat similarly to how (I wish) my templars play. (Particularly the "They fold, hard, if you cannot set up this condition reliably". Particularly particularly the "they fold hard")
Really appreciate the insight! Cheers!

One thing to note is their preference for Mark IV armour, unlike many legions they dumped their older armour suits and were full mark IV.

Also last I checked they still haven't restocked the transfer sheet which could make things irritating.

Unless of course it's a post istavaan force then they could have slaanesh symbols instead and modified armour.

The Radio Free Isstvan podcast had an episode all about the Emperor’s Children (ep. 75). Palatine Blades (and Destroyers) were just improved very recently in a FAQ; they were pretty bad when that episode was made. The podcast stopped covering 30k after prices went up in certain countries, but they used to review listener’s lists and had a lot of great advice. The “About” section on their Facebook page has a Dropbox link to the lists they wrote or tweaked.

I also totally recommend The Eye of Horus podcast (from Australia, and the flagship 30k podcast for a long time - they slowed down after the price hike) and the Age of Darkness, my personal favorite (from Canada, with the addition of Myles David, i.e. Lil’ Legend Studios out of Wales). Sweden has a few, like the Varangian Heresy (fronted by a well-known Emperor’s Children player) and Don’t Loose Your Head (sic). The UK got off to a very slow start but seems to have the most now (The Imperial Truth, Sons of Heresy, Road to Terra, Phosphex Party, etc.). It’s a great online community.

The novel “Fulgrim” (fifth in the series) covers the legion during the late Great Crusade and Isstvan V. “The Path of Heaven” is mostly a White Scars novel, but is the best look at the Emperor’s Children as they start to become corrupted.

/hhg/ (Horus Heresy General) threads on 4channel.org/tg can be helpful when it comes to previewing rules before buying them.

The game used 40k rules with 30k lists and tweaks from the end of 5th edition through the end of 7th. When 40k changed completely with 8th, 30k released a rulebook that was basically 7th edition with a few edits. Likewise, 30k is keeping the old scale while 40k marines have changed, even non-Primaris (this actually started during 7th, as with the Deathwatch and Rubric Marines).

Typical progression:

500-1250 points - Zone Mortalis
1000 - 1500 points - Centurion Mode (made up by the Eye of Horus Podcast in response to an unusually tank-heavy local meta, basically mini-30k with a ban on tanks, with armies that look like they came out of 2nd edition 40k)
2500 - 3500 points - regular games

It’s important to pick a Rite of War first, if any, because all your choices will depend on what type of army you’re creating. You typically want to decide between dominant modes of transport: Rhinos (with assault units in Land Raider Phoboses or Spartans), Drop Pods (assault units in Dreadclaws/Kharybdises), or jump packs. Then write a 2500 list and build it in an order that allows you to play those smaller games on your way up. Fill in your compulsory Troops slots (upgrade those sergeants), throw in a strong melee squad or two and put your Praetor in there, figure out how they’ll get into combat (transport/jump packs), make sure you have plenty of anti-tank (against light and heavy vehicles - in assault heavy armies this can be through meltabombs), a touch of anti-air, and some anti-infantry.

The common Rites of War for ECs are arguably: IIIrd Company Elite (makes Kakophoni worth taking, use Veterans and Terminators too), Maru Skara (a little tricky to use - I’d use shooty units as the Closed Hand), Drop Assault Vanguard (best way to use jump packs), and Pride of the Legion (Veterans and Terminators as troops, restriction on vehicles).

Thinking of actually taking the wallet plunge with this project. Atm, looking at grabbing a box of mk iv marines, Eilodon, the palatine blades and maybe some of the upgrade packs. What are we sayin', fellas? Is one box of infantry enough? My 8th ed. instincts are telling me to get a bunch of plasma guns as well, but if EC are more choppy than blasty, should I be looking to get the phoenix spears instead? I'm toying with cobbling together a praetor from the plastic 30k heroes, the resin noise marine upgrades and maybe a phoenix spear, too? Alternately, using the unhelmeted champ from the Mk. iv command squad (stealing the banner boy away for my templars because I love me a templar flag), or even cannibalizing the plastic custodes terminators. What do you think?
Cheers for your help, guys, feel like I understand our play style much more now, though perhaps only as much as one who's never even as much as played a game of 30k can...

hobojebus wrote:
One thing to note is their preference for Mark IV armour, unlike many legions they dumped their older armour suits and were full mark IV.

Also last I checked they still haven't restocked the transfer sheet which could make things irritating.

Unless of course it's a post istavaan force then they could have slaanesh symbols instead and modified armour.

don't worry about things like the "right" sort of armour; if you're fielding a hundred or fewer moels out of a legion of 100,000 or more Marines, a couple of squads in mark 2 or 3 armour isn't going to be a problem. My assault squad is half and half mark 2 and mark 5 with some parts from mark 4 models.

Teh transfer sheet was one of the earlier ones. It was discontinued along with the original sheet for Sons of horus and the others from the early books, but they never received an updated sheet. You could try scrounging for 40k Chaos Space Marine transfers - the Emperor's Children symbol didn't really change.

Ehh, I quite like them in Mkiv tbh, feels like it sorta suits, y'know? Though I certainly haven't been too puritan about mixing armor marks before!

I've got quite a few chaos marine bits to raid for resources, too, so that's cool, always planned to get a bit heretical with it!

As for transfers, I've actually been toying with the idea of using the Blood Angels one, and raiding all that gold and filigree for some iconography. Just a thought (again, an excuse to utilize some stuff for my templars, too, methinks!)

Might be worth looking at the Ultramarines too; you can cut the "XIII" symbols down to "III".

I quite like the Kakophoni. Against Marines they either excel or are useless. They put out a lot of shots and have a high strength, but are only AP 6. Perhaps pairing them with a Telepathic Librarian or another method of reducing their Ld might work better.

Sonic shriekers are an upgrade I need to consider, but I've not thought of a good and easy and repeatable way to model them.

What do we all think of the assault squad 30k equivalent? What are they good for, if anything, and what's a good number to run? I might be able to get my hands on some of the oop Raptors, and I really like the look of the older jump packs and freaky-deaky armor pattern


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or for that matter, any jump troops in 30k? Feel like I kinda need something to synergize with Eilodon.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Might be worth looking at the Ultramarines too; you can cut the "XIII" symbols down to "III".

I quite like the Kakophoni. Against Marines they either excel or are useless. They put out a lot of shots and have a high strength, but are only AP 6. Perhaps pairing them with a Telepathic Librarian or another method of reducing their Ld might work better.

Sonic shriekers are an upgrade I need to consider, but I've not thought of a good and easy and repeatable way to model them.

I wouldn't take kakophonii unless I was using 3rd company elite for my ROW competitively since it makes them one of the best baseline troop units in the game by adding stubborn and relentless. They're awesome models and they have decent rules outside 3rd company but i don't see them being worth the place of something like a sicaran, land raider, or leviathan dreadnought

What kind of function/role do Kakophonii play? I love the FW models, and actually quite like the finecast upgrade parts (and it would be an excuse to grab that lovely noise marine mini, at last!) what should I be pointing them at? And if I were to go 3rd Coy. does it change the army dynamic much? Are they a sit-back-and-shoot unit? ATM, I'm kinda planning to do an assaulty Landraider/stormraven/rhino rush, but do Kakophonii fit into this much?

More broadly, are there any must-take units, otherwise? An issue I used to have in 7th ed (30k rules still follow this format, no?) was never being able to crack armor - as the 3rd Legion are good at assault, should I just tool up some guys with thunder hammers, and maybe throw in a dred or something for good measure? And are there any generally potent units for 30k that have been lost to us in the 41st millennium that I really ought to consider? Cheers very much fellas!

Kakophoni are very much a sit-back-and-shoot unit; Heavy without Relentless and 36" range doesn't give them the ability to run about playing a shock force.

As to cracking armour powerfists/thunderhammers do some but not everything; S8 is still glancing Land Raiders on 6s. Meltabombs (available to most infantry sergeants and some entire squads) and chainfists (available to Terminators and Dreadnaughts) are better tools in melee.

 posermcbogus wrote:
What kind of function/role do Kakophonii play? I love the FW models, and actually quite like the finecast upgrade parts (and it would be an excuse to grab that lovely noise marine mini, at last!) what should I be pointing them at? And if I were to go 3rd Coy. does it change the army dynamic much? Are they a sit-back-and-shoot unit? ATM, I'm kinda planning to do an assaulty Landraider/stormraven/rhino rush, but do Kakophonii fit into this much?

More broadly, are there any must-take units, otherwise? An issue I used to have in 7th ed (30k rules still follow this format, no?) was never being able to crack armor - as the 3rd Legion are good at assault, should I just tool up some guys with thunder hammers, and maybe throw in a dred or something for good measure? And are there any generally potent units for 30k that have been lost to us in the 41st millennium that I really ought to consider? Cheers very much fellas!

IME they act like heavy bolter squads on crack with a couple situationally beneficial rules. As troops they are fantastic objective holders or backfield gunline but again they are really not worth replacing a Heavy support slot, especially without relentless

Cracking armor with a melee army in 30k is all about meltabombs. Or chainfists on Terminators, but for faster results, meltabombs on jump pack or bike units. But only when the entire squad has them. Unlike in 7th ed., the entire squad can throw/place one type of grenade in a turn.

Also worth noting that Palatine Blades got a bit of a boost since your original post. They can take artificer armor now. Horribly expensive in points, still very much a finesse unit that might require experience, but they’re no longer ‘bad.’

The new Blades actually aren't that expensive. If you already ran them as a bigger squad with jump packs before, then they still cost roughly the same now with jump packs and artificer armor.

Wew, all this is really making me consider trying to run some kind of jump pack flying melee circus...
Quite liking the sound of melta jump boys and jump palatine blades...

...how are destroyer squads and mortariats? 1d4chan seems to dislike them, but then again, 1d4chan seems to dislike most everything except DoW2 memes.

 posermcbogus wrote:
...how are destroyer squads and mortariats? 1d4chan seems to dislike them, but then again, 1d4chan seems to dislike most everything except DoW2 memes.

Destroyers have got a great boost with the discounted Beta rules. These would require the opponents permission, but 10 of them with jump packs and rad M/Ls is a great way to extinguish any infantry. I personally field them with a pair of toxiferran flamers, for the visual appeal more than anything and chem-flamers are fun.

As for Palatine Blades, if you only have a 5-man squad, run them as a Command Squad... you can still get the 2+ and power swords at a slightly cheaper and more effective unit, as they Fearless. Just need to counter the loss of counter-attack.

Just my 2 cents.

Destroyers were grossly overpriced until the very recent (and technically still experimental) rules in the FAQ/Errata. They were awful. 1d4chan simply hasn’t been updated.

That meant Moritats were usually used alone, deep striking and shooting everyone within a few inches of them before being killed. With some luck, you’d make up his points cost… and that’s about it. Not very good. Now that Destroyers can work, maybe it’s time to try attaching Moritats to them. But Destroyers are better in melee and Moritats in shooting, so… dunno.

Really? Glancing at them, the seemed more of a grenade-y extreme close range shooting unit with access to a single fancy proscribed weapon.

With a mostly jump-pack army, would I need transports? Vehicles?

 posermcbogus wrote:
Really? Glancing at them, the seemed more of a grenade-y extreme close range shooting unit with access to a single fancy proscribed weapon.

With a mostly jump-pack army, would I need transports? Vehicles?

Two pistols are an extra close combat weapon, rad grenades knock the toughness down of whatever you charge, so they're a lot better at melee than they look.

Jump armies wouldn't need transports; you might still take other vehicles to provide firepower the rest of your army doesn't. Anti-air (via a Mortis Dreadnaught or an airplane of your own) is one thing jump melee armies don't really do.

If I'm going for a jump army, would having a mortis dreadnaught (is this the one that we get the unique FW model for? What arms would I need?) be a liability, as it'd be hanging back?

If I went the flyer route, how reliable are the flyer transports with air-to-air? I don't mind the idea of dropping my little purple perverts out of the sky at all, but I'm not very clued up on Heresy-era flyers at all - would I be looking at a Storm Eagle to be doing double duty as transport and shooty, or is anti-air better handled by actual fighter models?

 posermcbogus wrote:
If I'm going for a jump army, would having a mortis dreadnaught (is this the one that we get the unique FW model for? What arms would I need?) be a liability, as it'd be hanging back?

If I went the flyer route, how reliable are the flyer transports with air-to-air? I don't mind the idea of dropping my little purple perverts out of the sky at all, but I'm not very clued up on Heresy-era flyers at all - would I be looking at a Storm Eagle to be doing double duty as transport and shooty, or is anti-air better handled by actual fighter models?

I can't directly answer the question, but, if you have a ton of aggressive stuff in their face, it often makes backfield things even more resilient then they would otherwise be. You force them to deal with what's about to punish them hard if they ignore it.
However, if you have a bunch of infantry forward, and the only thing backfield is a vehicle, I imagine they will still just point their anti-tank weaponry where it belongs. And if that's your only vehicle, then it's quite probably not long for this world.


I'm pretty sure Storm Eagles are horrendously unreliable, but I don't know for sure, that seems to be the higher level analysis I've read has to say of the unit though. It certainly doesn't look like something I'd want to rely on, and not the safest method of transport either, but I guess if you have reliable ways of clearing out things like Deredeo early on, maybe it will do it's job? Maru Skara lets you at least guarantee it arrives on a certain turn, so you might be able to make it work. In general though, I think the only problem with air-to-air flyers is that you want to come down the turn after their flyer arrives, and blow it up (not the other way around). And while your army is lucky enough to have the tools to guarantee your own turn, it's still guesswork which turn your opponent's will come down.

The bigger problem with a Mortis is that some rites of war wouldn’t allow it. A Xyphon or Fire Raptor would be much more effective as anti-air. Fire Raptors aren’t as good at actually shooting things down, but they can engage more targets and making them jink is often good enough.

But it’d be alright as long as it wasn’t the only armored target on the table. And you can make a Contemptor-Mortis out of the plastic kit as long as you source a second Kheres assault cannon to cut off and attach to the right arm. Get two, build one as a Mortis, and the other as a Cortus with two fists.

Storm Eagles need to focus on delivering their infantry when they arrive… don’t count on them being ready to shoot down planes until very late in the game. Heck, they take so long to deliver infantry that you’ll still want to consider Dreadclaws and Kharybdises.

Right! So Xmas is coming up, and I'm wondering about having a proper crack at this for real this time no really.

ATM - Thinking of grabbing a single (listen, I know a guy) Palatine Blade as a kinda commander, a single (same guy) phoenix terminator (same reason) though without the fancy spear, not set on what to give him tho, then a 10 man box of the mk iv marines, and as I think I mentionned, those older raptor backpacks (this guy's gonna make a killing offa me) on everybody who isn't in terminator armor.

For the mk iv boyos, I'm thinking of a 5 man tactical squad with jump packs, and I might shell out for the chainswords, too? Mostly as a starter troop unit, and to iron out the paintwork. Which leaves me with what to do with the other 5 fellas (kinda 6 probably. Might have the not-palatine-palatine as a sarge for that first squad.) I want to give them jump packs too, and was thinking of maybe a destroyer squad, using the 6th guy for a mortariat? But kinda anything jump-pack-y and killy would be fun. I can't kit them all out with special (or god forbid, even heavy) weapons, could I? I'd quite like a unit that would be semi-reliable for deleting MEQs.

Cheers for the help!

You need 10-man squads in Troops, usually.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
You need 10-man squads in Troops, usually.

Aww, really? I'm guessing that's a hard rules limit... I might overlook it, just for the time being while I find me feet on hobby side of things, and to give myself a bit of variety. Not sure though, what do folks think.

 posermcbogus wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
You need 10-man squads in Troops, usually.

Aww, really? I'm guessing that's a hard rules limit... I might overlook it, just for the time being while I find me feet on hobby side of things, and to give myself a bit of variety. Not sure though, what do folks think.

I tend to advise new players to play Pride of the Legion (Veteran Tacticals in Troops) since Veteran Tacticals are organized like 40k Tacticals (5-10 models with one upgrade gun per 5) rather than 30k Tacticals (10-20 models with just boltguns). You can put five-man squads in Troops when you're starting off but they won't have jump packs.

Alternately if you get permission from your opponent you could just use the ZM Attacker detachment and skip over Troops entirely, just take Elites. The difficulty is that while Phoenix Terminators have Implacable Advance (the ability to score objectives despite not being Troops) Palatine Blades don't.