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 Tim:
Greetings and salutations, fellow worshippers of the great
Slaanesh! As a fellow devotee of the Lord of Pain and Pleasure,
I feel it my duty to help you convert your old Emperor’s Children
army lists over to the New Chaos Codex.
As you may have realized after looking through the new Codex,
Noise Marines have probably changed the most out of all the
old cult troops and, in my humble opinion, for the better.
Noise Marines are cheaper, much better in hand-to-hand, and
still as good at punishing the enemy in the Shooting phase!
Unfortunately, the number of changes means that your army
list probably won’t be valid but, don’t worry, with a little
effort you can convert your old list, and probably make it
better at the same time.
So what’s different about the new Codex? Well, if you're
playing an Emperor’s Children army, a lot. Like I said, the
Emperor’s Children army list probably changed the most. Don’t
worry though, the gains far outweigh the losses!
What do you lose? You lose the ability to take basic Chaos
Space Marines and all troop units that cannot have the Mark
of Slaanesh. You also lose the ability to take cultists. As
a result, your army may be smaller than before, as all your
Chaos Space Marines troop units will have to be Noise Marines.
In addition, Doom Sirens aren’t quite as overwhelmingly powerful
as before, and you’re limited to two in a regular Noise Marine
squad. Unfortunately, you also lose the ability to take Daemonic
Steeds and Beasts of Slaanesh. Finally, your Chaos Lord, Daemon
Prince, and Aspiring Champions don’t get +1 Attacks for the
Mark of Slaanesh.
But, what do you gain? Well, how about Noise Marines with
bolters or bolt pistols and close combat weapons, that are
fearless, and lower your opponent's Initiative by 1 in hand-to-hand
and only cost 19 points. And Noise Marines with sonic blasters
for only 5 points more. That's a saving of 6 points per Noise
Marine over the old Codex. Nice. And you get the Mark of Slaanesh's
power built in!
But it's not only the basic Noise Marine that changes, because
now you can have Noise Marine Havocs. They can have, in addition
to the four special or heavy weapons a regular Havoc squad
gets, the ability to upgrade meltaguns to Doom Sirens for
free, or even better, autocannons to blastmasters for free.
In my honest opinion, the blastmaster is perhaps the best
gun in the game, for its points cost. A weapon with a range
of 36" that is either S 5 AP 5 Assault 2 (Pinning) or
S 8 AP 4 Heavy 1 Blast? Wow! You can’t do much better than
that, let me tell you. Four of these guys with Tank Hunter
can kill almost anything and, fired as a heavy weapon, can
instantly kill most characters that fail their Armour save.
 And
that’s not all (do I sound like a salesman or what?), you
also have more access to heavy weapons, including an Ordnance
weapon (the Defiler) – something new for Chaos. Between sonic
blasters, blastmasters, and the Defiler, an Emperor’s Children
general should have few problems dealing with horde armies.
Finally, Emperor's Children generals now have access to a
decent (in fact, HUGE) amount of wargear, Daemonic Gifts,
Gifts of the Gods, etc. Combat drugs are a great piece of
wargear, allowing a Chaos Lord etc, to gain extra attacks,
increase his/her Strength, re-roll failed Difficult Terrain
tests when assaulting, increase their Weapon Skill, and ignore
the first unsaved wound in hand-to-hand combat. Adding Daemonic
Frenzy to a Chaos Lord or Champion will replace the attack
previously gained from the old Mark of Slaanesh. And the two
Daemonic weapons available to characters with the Mark of
Slaanesh can be particularly nasty used in the right circumstances.
So, to show you the benefits of using the new Codex, I thought
I’d convert an old-style Emperor’s Children roster over to
the new Codex, just to show
you how it’s changed.
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