Review: Emperor’s Children Champions of Slaanesh army set

Emperor’s Children disciples have had to wait an endless war for new models, but now Fulgrim has finally returned. With him comes the exquisite Emperor’s Children army set. It includes 33 models and a new codex, and in this review, we take a closer look at the plastic sprues and kits, including a scale comparison with current Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines of all kinds.

The Emperor’s Children “Champions of Slaanesh” army set will be available for pre-order starting Saturday, 1 March 2025. The pre-order period lasts two weeks, with the official release date set for 15 March 2025. Please note that there will be only one production run, so the box is available only until stocks last.

Included in the box are:

• a Lord Exultant
• 12 Noise Marines (2x 6 models)
• 20 Tormentors/Infractors (4x 5 models)
• the 10th Edition Emperor’s Children codex with special edition cover design
• a set of datacards
• an Emperor’s Children transfer sheet

Emperor’s Children army set unboxing

Thanks to a whopping 33 models, the box is well filled with plastic. Let’s take a closer look at the individual models, a look at the codex follows below.

The Lord Exultant

The Lord Exultant comes on a small plastic frame and a 40mm base. The model’s body has a pre-set pose that can be combined with multiple weapon and cosmetic options. The right forearm (the upper arm is connected to the torso) can be equipped with either a rapture lash, plasma pistol, or power fist. For the left, raised arm, there are hands with a phoenix power spear, power sword, or screamer pistol. Alternatively, there is also a downward-pointing left arm, and there is a helmeted and unhelmeted head, interchangeable with other heads from the range.

Emperor’s Children Infractors / Tormentors review

The army set contains 20 Emperor’s Children Chaos Space Marines, which can be built as either Tormentors with bolters or Infractors with melee weapons. The two-part sprue allows you to build five different models, and this is included four times (4x 5 = 20 models). The kit is very modular, but there are indeed only five different bodies/basic poses. Base size is 32mm.

Each two-part sprue includes the following:

• 5 different bodies (upper and lower body are fused)
• 9 heads (2 regular helmets with topknots, 3 Mk6 “beakie” helmets with topknots, 1 Mk6 helmet without topknot, 3 bare heads, 1 bare head with topknot)
• 5 left shoulder pads with Emperor’s Children symbols, 8 plain shoulder pads
• 5 power packs (one of which can optionally be decorated with one of three banner tops)
• Optional loincloth or hook chain for the Obsessionist’s hip (fits only one specific body), plus 1 left arm with rupture lash, 1 left arm with power sword, 1 right arm with plasma pistol, 1 right arm with bolt pistol
• For the Tormentors: 4 pairs of arms holding boltguns with both hands, 1 pair of arms with a spare magazine in the left hand, 1 right arm with grenade or stimms in hand, 1 left arm clutching a boltgun, 1 pair of arms with meltagun, 1 pair of arms with plasma gun
• For the Infractors: 3 right arms with sabres, 1 right arm with open hand (plus spare sword, which you can glue to the hip), 3 left arms with bolt pistols, 2 left arms with sabres, 3 right arms with bolt pistols
• Additionally, 2 stimm packs, 5 grenade packs, and 3 pouches that you can freely glue to the models’ hips.

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

The high level of modularity (almost everything is interchangeable) somewhat compensates for the fact that the kit only has 5 different bodies. It stings because the regular Chaos Space Marines and World Eaters were given 10 different body sculpts. The small number of heads is also not ideal. I would have liked the possibility to assemble the entire squad uniformly with either regular helmets, beakies, or bare heads.

Furthermore, I don’t find all five poses equally convincing. The design team tried to give the Emperor’s Children more movement in the hips, presumably to make them appear more twisted and spastic. But for me, the proportions seem a bit off. Perhaps because the models are so tall, they are almost on eye-level with Primaris Marines, or because of the slimmed-down Mk6 leg armour. The legs seem too weedy for me compared to the bulky torsos and shoulders, and the concave shapes give some of them the appearance of having bow legs. The recently released Horus Heresy Mk6 Legionaries have better proportions for my taste.

By the way, if you want to kitbash the new Emperor’s Children for Horus Heresy, you have to keep in mind that the models are bigger, with wider chests, longer legs and slightly bigger hands, as you can see in the scale comparison above. The helmets are very similar in size, and the shoulder pads fit perfectly.

Plastic Noise Marines unboxed

The Noise Marines kit contains 6 models spread across three plastic sprues. These are included twice, so you can build a total of 12 models with the army box. Noise Marines wear reinforced armour which fives them more mass, similar to the Havocs of the Chaos Space Marines, so the models fit on 40mm bases.

Each 3-piece plastic frame with 6 models includes the following:

• 6 different bodies (upper and lower body are fused, on 1 model you can choose between two different right greaves, on 1 other model between two left greaves)
• 17 heads (6 regular helmets, 4 helmets with topknots, 4 bare heads, for the Disharmonist 1 helmet with topknot, 1 bare head with topknot, and 1 horned helmet)
• 6 left shoulder pads with Emperor’s Children symbol, 12 plain shoulder pads
• 6 two-part power packs, front and backs are interchangeable
• 6 sonic blaster arm pairs that can be freely combined with 6 nozzles
• 2 blastmaster arm pairs
• For the Disharmonist two right arms with power swords and two left arms with screamer pistols

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

All in all, a fantastic kit that allows for almost endless combinations. The level of detail is insane, which means they’ll be challenging models to paint. I feel that the proportions of the Noise Marines are much more balanced for me than those of the Tormentors/Infractors, thanks to the reinforced leg armour and the hoof-like feet. The only thing I don’t find quite as successful is that many of the heads look a bit blockier than those of the Tormentors/Infractors, which makes them less easy to mix.

The transfer sheet

Although the box contains so many models, you only get one transfer sheet. The sheet has a good mix of Emperor’s Children and Slaanesh symbols and is printed in black, pink and gold.

A look into the new Emperor’s Children codex

In addition to the models, the army set also includes a set of datacards and the 112-page Emperor’s Children Codex. The version exclusive to the army set features a matte cover with iconic Emperor’s Children artwork by Adrian Smith, pink metallic foil, pink page edges, and a black ribbon bookmark.

The book begins with a lore section that takes up just over 30 pages, followed by a photo section. There are rules for Combat Patrol including a brief painting guide. The army rules span 6 detachments, 14 pages of Crusade rules with the Combat Elixirs and Boons of Slaanesh mechanics, as well as the datasheets. The new models are reinforced by some generic Chaos Space Marines units such as Terminators and Sorcerers, as well as Slaanesh daemons. For some reason, however, some units and models are missing, including the Predator, Vindicator, Forgefiend, Defiler, Helbrute, Chosen, and, for some reason, Fabius Bile.

Value

The Emperor’s Children army set has an RRP of £145 / 180 € / $230. For that, with 33 models, you get significantly more plastic than in the most recently released army boxes, but also a lot of repetition. Perhaps it would actually have been better to limit the number of Marines to 10 and instead add Lucius or the Lord Discordant. Because as it is, there’s a lot of overlap with the announced Combat Patrol, which, in addition to the Lord Exultant, also includes 10 Tormentors/Infractors.

However, the savings are exorbitant thanks to the large number of models. The individual prices of the models are not yet known, but if you compare them with similar Chaos Space Marines units, there should be a saving of about 50% compared to buying them and the codex/datacards individually, which is absolutely outstanding for boxes of this kind. Be aware that this is a limited edition box set, so stock might run out fast.

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