Emperor's Children: Frenzied Host plus Mercurial Host (2,000 Points)

Most trap pages in this programme warn you off an illegal army the arithmetic invites. This one does the opposite, and the mistake it prevents is invisible: a player rules out a good army and never finds out they were allowed to build it.

The reasoning that leads there is entirely sound at every step. You read Frenzied Host's detachment rule. It tells you, in plain words rather than in a tag banner you might have skipped, that it cannot be taken with another HOST detachment. You go and look for another HOST detachment, which is exactly the right thing to do. There is one called Mercurial Host. You check further, and find that both carry the Reconnaissance force disposition, which reads like confirmation that they are two members of one restricted family. You conclude the pairing is blocked and you move on.

Two steps fail, and both are worth naming.

A Unique Tag is a specific property printed on a detachment, and the check is whether two detachments carry the same tag, not whether a word appears 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.

A force disposition is not a Unique Tag either. It describes what a detachment is for and how it scores, not what it may be taken alongside. Unrelated detachments share dispositions constantly: in this same faction, Rapid Evisceration and Spectacle of Slaughter both carry Disruption, and Coterie of the Conceited and Peerless Bladesmen both carry Priority Assets. Nobody thinks those pairs are mutually exclusive, and the Reconnaissance pair is no different.

In fact no Emperor's Children pairing is illegal at all, because Frenzied Host is the only detachment in the faction with a tag and there is nothing for it to collide with. The check you should run in this faction is the Detachment Points arithmetic, and nothing else.

One caveat we flag rather than hide. Faction Pack v1.2 states the HOST tag in words; Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 lists no Unique Tag for any Emperor's Children detachment. Both are official. We assert the tag exists and we assert that it restricts nothing, because under either document no second detachment shares it.

The pairing is worth teaching for a second reason: the two halves are built on the same action, from opposite ends.

Mercurial Host's Quicksilver Grace re-rolls Advance rolls for every Emperor's Children unit in your army. Frenzied Host's Frantic Focus gives your Battleline units +1 Strength when they are selected to make an advance or fall-back move. One detachment makes the Advance reliable; the other makes it profitable.

Underneath both sits Thrill Seekers, which lets a unit that Advanced still shoot and declare a charge. So a single Tormentors squad in this army Advances with a re-rollable roll, gains +1 Strength for doing so, and then shoots and charges anyway. Three rules stacking on one action is unusual, and it is why this army feels faster than the sum of its parts.

Push it further with Honour the Prince. Mercurial Host's 1 CP stratagem lets an INFANTRY unit skip the Advance roll entirely and add a flat +6 inches of Move. Frantic Focus still triggers, because the unit was still selected to make an advance move. That is a guaranteed distance and the Strength bonus and the ability to charge afterwards.

The practical build: put Tactical Perfection (15 pts) on a character to redeploy two units after deployment, and Howling Plate (20 pts) on a Lord Exultant leading your biggest Battleline squad for +1 Armour Penetration on its ranged attacks. That is 35 points for a better starting position and a better shooting squad. Add Loathsome Dexterity (10 pts) if your opponent screens heavily, since moving through enemy models turns Falling Back into a repositioning tool rather than a retreat.

Once you accept that the tag blocks nothing, the whole menu opens.

Frenzied Host pairs with every 2 DP detachment for exactly 3 DP: Mercurial Host, Court of the Phoenician, Carnival of Excess, Peerless Bladesmen, Rapid Evisceration and Slaanesh's Chosen. It also pairs with either other 1 DP detachment.

All three 1 DP detachments together form the faction's only legal three-detachment army: Frenzied Host, Elegant Brutes and Spectacle of Slaughter, for exactly 3 DP.

There are twenty-two legal multi-detachment armies in total at 2,000 points. The army guide sets out the full arithmetic.

The general rule to carry away: check the tag line, not the name and not the disposition. In this faction only one detachment has a tag, nothing shares it, and every combination that fits the budget is legal.