New CSM dex and EC

[USNCenturion]

I have a bunch of CSM new in sprue that I have leftover from my Iron Warriors project and was thinking of finally painting them up as Emperors Children. Their unique look has always inspired me and as I need a change from painting Iyanden Eldar, now is a great time to delve.

 

My question to you is how are you handling Emperors Children in the new codex, knowing they are next in line for an update (could be years though). To me, building and painting a force of vanilla marines only to have to update them all like the DG codex seems a massive waste of time and money. What are the thoughts of current fans with large collections and newer players thinking of starting an EC force when the new CSM codex drops?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Myself, I've held off on building a signature EC unit that I have planned (my melee noise marines) until I see how they are in the next codex.

 

Other than that, I've pretty much been painting and building as normal - my backup is that I can field them as a "build your own legion" force if they end up loosing a bunch of the models and units I have painted when we do get our own codex.  That's one advantage of having a colour scheme that isn't the official GW EC colour scheme (mine are in the original legion colours).  I think Warrior Fish is in the same boat as me, as his have an even more divergent scheme than mine (his are organgey-pink and white).

 

For me, the big part of this hobby is the collecting, converting and painting.  I only play maybe 4 times a year (and have only played once since Covid started) and am at best a mediocre player, so the rules are more a chance for me to show off and push around the models I put so much effort into.  EC has had a codex "just around the corner" since I started playing them in the final days of 7th - if I had waited, I would have no army at all.

 

If I were to predict things, I suspect we would get a codex more in line with Thousand Suns than Death Guard - so, a few more cult units at the expense of some of our CSM options - rather than the almost complete swap that Death Guard got.  Quite simply, I don't think EC conceptually has enough legs for more than a few new units, though I've been surprised at how much GW has done in bulking out the slanneshi armies in Age of Sigmar, so I could be wrong.  Regardless, I would expect to lose some of the CSM units, though I wouldn't hazard a guess at which.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Halandaar]

Personally I think Emperor's Children are at least 3 years away (and probably more) so if you're trying to build and paint only models that you expect will be compatible with a future Codex, you could have a very weird/non-functional army for a very long time. If you want it to be usable in the meantime, you will probably need to build and paint at least a few units that are eventually going to be obsolete anyway, and I totally sympathize with the view of that feeling like a waste of time, money and effort.

 

I think that almost certainly includes the kit you've got (basic Chaos Marines), because neither Death Guard nor Thousand Sons can take those; they both use their "cult" unit as their core Troops choice and I think that's going to be exactly the same for EC and Noise Marines in the future.

 

Dr_Ruminahui's solution (i.e. do a Slaanesh-aligned CSM Warband rather than straight-up Emperor's Children) neatly solves the problem of allowing you to paint a wacky colour scheme on "vanilla" Chaos Marines that will still be usable as something even if they get excluded from the EC Codex when it does eventually arrive. 

 

Anyway, here's my thoughts on what you could and couldn't "safely" buy and paint, in the expectation of what might integrate into a future EC Codex.

Generic units you probably will be able to use in the EC Codex because both DG and TS can use them currently:

• Daemon Prince, Sorcerer In Terminator Armour, Cultists, Chaos Spawn, Helbrute, Defiler
• Vehicles - Land Raider, Predator, Rhino
• Forgeworld Vehicles - Contemptors, Deredeos, Leviathans, Sicarans, Dreadclaws etc.

Generic units you probably won't be able to use in the EC Codex because neither DG nor TS can use them now:

• Characters - Dark Apostle, Exalted Champion, Lord Discordant, Master of Executions, Master of Possession, Warpsmith
• Basic CSM units - CSM Squad, Chosen, Terminators, Mutilators, Bikers, Raptors, Warp Talons, Havocs, Obliterators, Venomcrawler

Generic units that we can't guess either way because the access DG and TS have is different:

• Possessed (DG can take them, TS cannot)
• Daemon Engines - Forgefiend, Maulerfiend, Heldrake (DG cannot take them, TS can)
• Vehicles - Vindicator (DG cannot take, TS can)

Oddities:

• Lord & Lord in Terminator Armour - DG can take them while TS cannot - presumably because any TS character pretty much has to be a psyker, so it's probably okay for EC to take them.
• Sorcerer - Neither DG or TS can take one, but presumably because they both have their own equivalent (Malefic Plaguecaster and Exalted Sorcerer respectively). You could probably do an EC one, and even if they end up getting their own unique Psyker unit, you could probably proxy the Sorcerer as that.
• AoS Units - TS have access to Tzaangor Shaman, Tzaangor Skyfires/Enlightened and the Mutalith Vortex Beast from the AoS Tzeentch roster, but DG have no similar access to AoS Nurgle units. I wouldn't make any assumptions about whether EC will be able to take Slaangors for example, but if you wanted some you could always use them as Chaos Spawn if they don't get included in the EC Codex in their own right.

 

Obviously this is all complete guesswork so don't take it as gospel, but it's the basis I'd be working from if I was approaching the idea of doing an Emperor's Children army myself.