Emperor's Children: Frenzied Host Detachment Guide (11th Edition)

This is the section to read even if you skip the rest, because it prevents a mistake that is invisible when you make it.

Frenzied Host carries the HOST Unique Tag. A Unique Tag stops you taking two detachments that share it. So the natural next step, and the correct one, is to look down the menu for another HOST detachment.

There is one called Mercurial Host. And if you look further, both detachments also carry the Reconnaissance force disposition, which reads like confirmation.

Both signals are false. A Unique Tag is a printed property, not a word in a name. Mercurial Host carries no Unique Tag in Faction Pack v1.2, in Munitorum Field Manual v1.3, or on the community mirror. And a force disposition is not a Unique Tag: it describes what a detachment is for, not what it may be taken alongside, and unrelated detachments share dispositions all the time. In this faction, Rapid Evisceration and Spectacle of Slaughter both carry Disruption, and nobody thinks those are mutually exclusive.

So Frenzied Host plus Mercurial Host is legal, it costs exactly the 3 DP Strike Force budget, and it is a good army. It gets its own page.

In fact no Emperor's Children pairing is illegal at all, because this is the only detachment in the faction with a tag and there is nothing for it to collide with.

One thing we flag rather than hide. Faction Pack v1.2 states this tag in words. Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 lists no Unique Tag for any Emperor's Children detachment. Both documents are official. We tell you the tag exists, because the pack states it in words and because column geometry confirms the sentence sits in this detachment's own rules column rather than bleeding across from the stratagems, and we tell you it restricts nothing, because under either document no second detachment shares it. We assert nothing beyond that.

The rule triggers on being selected to make an advance or fall-back move, which is a wider trigger than it sounds and rewards a habit most players have to learn.

Advancing is not a retreat option here, it is the default. Because Thrill Seekers lets a Battleline unit shoot and charge in a turn it Advanced, and Frantic Focus gives that unit +1 Strength for doing so, there is very little reason for an Emperor's Children Battleline unit to make a plain Normal move. Advancing is strictly better in most turns: more distance, and a better attack.

Falling back triggers it too, which is the clause people forget. A squad that peels out of a bad combat gets +1 Strength on its attacks until the end of the turn, and thanks to Thrill Seekers it can charge something else with that bonus live. The restriction is the army rule's, not the detachment's: it cannot charge back into the unit it was engaged with at the start of the turn.

+1 Strength is a breakpoint rule, not a percentage. It only matters when it crosses a threshold: taking a Strength 4 attack to 5 against Toughness 5, or a Strength 5 to 6 against Toughness 3. Work out which enemy it actually changes your odds against before you build a turn around it. Note that both Tormentors and Infractors had their power sword Strength changed to 5 in this pack, which changes exactly which breakpoints Frantic Focus reaches.

Three stratagems, all 1 CP, all restricted to EMPEROR'S CHILDREN BATTLELINE units, and two of the three are about not being seen, which is what a Reconnaissance detachment is for.

Possessive Mania applies when an enemy targets your Battleline unit within range of an objective: attacks targeting it have -1 Armour Penetration until that enemy unit has attacked. Note both limits. It requires you to be on an objective, and it lasts only until the one triggering unit has finished, so it answers a single shooting unit rather than a phase.

Absolute Sensory Overload means your unit's ranged attacks do not prevent it from being hidden. Shooting without giving away your position is how a Reconnaissance detachment contributes fire and still scores.

Agonised Cacophony selects a visible enemy unit within 12 inches and gives it +6 inches detection range. Making an enemy easier to detect is an odd thing to want until you meet an opponent who is winning by hiding, at which point it is the only tool in the detachment that does anything about it.

Both enhancements are LORD EXULTANT model only, which is worth planning around: a Frenzied Host list with no Lord Exultant spends nothing on enhancements at all.

Euphoric Crown (20 pts) gives this model's melee attacks +1 Strength. Howling Plate (20 pts) gives this unit's ranged attacks +1 Armour Penetration. Read those two words carefully, because they are the difference between the two: the Crown improves the character alone, the Plate improves the whole squad he is leading. In most lists the Plate is the better 20 points for that reason.

Tormentors are one of the two Battleline units this detachment is named for and built on, and their power sword had its Strength changed to 5 in this pack.

Infractors are the other, and you will want them in similar numbers. Their power sword also went to Strength 5. We link no box for them because our catalog holds no exact Infractors entry, and this is the sharpest near-miss in the faction: the Tormentors box is in our catalog and Infractors are a different datasheet with their own points entry, so the Tormentors box is not a substitute for them. Buying two Tormentors boxes when you wanted one of each is exactly the mistake this note exists to prevent.

Lord Exultant is the only model that can take either enhancement, so he is close to mandatory here.

At 1 DP this pairs with any of the six 2 DP detachments for exactly 3 DP. The one to read about first is Mercurial Host, on its own page.