Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 1:00 Pre-Heresy Design Breakdown 3:20 Pre-Heresy Design Analysis 7:42 Pre-Heresy Design vs Lore 11:23 Pre-Heresy Art 13:05 Pre-Heresy Final Notes 14:54 Post Heresy Design Breakdown 20:21 Post Heresy Design Analysis 26:59 Post Heresy Design vs Lore 31:49 Post Heresy Art 36:31 Post Heresy Final Notes 37:36 Redesign 43:18 Outro 43:50 Post Credit Announcement

"It looks like something that came from adult store" She really maxed out her insight

The "little dots" are "molecular bonding studs" in the lore. If i remember correctly these start appearing with the mark 5 power armour at the time of the horus heresy, since the need for extra armor came with the fact that space marines started to face their own powerful guns, really good for armor penetration. They are supposed to be some makeshift last minute armor improvement. Since the legions turning traitors caused some havoc in the imperium ressource lines, this also can explain the skulls and other decorative elements, as well as the differents looks of the legions since chapters had to forge their own customs gear due to the lack of supplies.

regarding the chest aquila, the emperor's children were the only legion allowed to feature it on their armour so you won't have seen it on any other legions' armour. regarding the metallic look of the paint jobs, that's just a design flourish expressed by some artists, it's not that commonly represented on the miniatures themselves. also, the iii legion weren't the first to fall to chaos, that was the word bearers who fell to chaos undivided as a result of erebus' machinations. as far as the colour theory goes, you're spot on i think. black & pink is known to be a sensual/sexual colour combination. funny you mentioned the emperor's children not having enough options, they're heavily rumoured to be getting a codex soon so they'll get new units if that happens. i mean, them just having noise marines as unique unit type does fit with the theme of the other monogod traiter legions - the thousand sons have rubric marines, the death guard have plague marines, and the world eaters have berserkers - but the world eaters got the eightbound as well in their last codex so maybe gw are dispensing with that one-unique-unit-per-legion ethos. i hope so because i, like you, think it'd be fun to expand their rosters a bit

I've also thought that Slaanesh's aspect as a god of excess could be expanded more. Of course, with gluttony, an element of that is present with Nurgle (but I've got ideas about converting greater daemons that play on this theme, so for instance a feminine Kali style Bloordthirster, which would look kinda Slaaneshy et cetera) but that could be a way of showing how Chaos melds and twists out of the same source. Excess is a tricky thing to represent on a model becuase it has to have a look and a gaming role - a Hellraiser style would work well there, but GW already used that a bit with the Dark Eldar, although they've moved away from that over the years I would say.

I LOVED this. I've been playing since the game came out in 1987, and built a slaanesh army before there were noise marines. The idea of having specialist troops based on the many senses is so....fundamental...I don't know how I didn't think of it. It's GREAT!

Cal and Sonny another hit out of park video! I am a Chaos aficionado and I would love to see the units that you designed for the EC. Please keep it up

Before fulgrim fully fell to chaos he had an awkward interaction with a regular human sculptor where the primarch wanted feedback on his sculptures, and the young man told fulgrim to his face he made art without heart, so perfect it lacked soul. And fulgrim didn’t want the truth he wanted gracious platitudes. I think your color psychology matches that whole debacle perfectly

I would like to say "bravo" to Sunny (sorry if mispelled). I am impressed about her reading of The Emperor's Children. I went to art school and was taught this kind of thing and I know an awesome interpretation when I see one.

Do comments made while a video is Members Only help with the algorithm? Excellent analysis btw!!

I hope GW people watch this as you've put together some great points and opinions on where this legion could go lore wise and model range wise. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some insider at GW steals your ideas for their PowerPoint. To Add My Hot Take: The lore has always suggested that Slaanesh is the baby brother Chaos God and has potential to overpower the other Gods of chaos. Using this as motive, when Slaanesh makes his/her/it's move to explode on the scene with a newly empowered champion force (EC's). With a revamped range of troops/codex. Fulgrim may be locked into a slithering form of Gorro already but that doesn't mean the rest of his legion (full of independents) would follow suite design wise.

You almost banished him back to the warp with that adult store comment… 😈

Nailed it! I would buy your designed sensation Marines!

With the scouts, I could absolutely see their power armour growing an eye that is similar to Horus' "Eye of Terra". Would be a neat nod to the grandfather of treason. Marines with huge licking tongues, extruding from their masks, for taste would be cool simply because I think that looks cool as hell :P. I love the Venom look. The bumps on the old armour has been explained as a gap filler that marines used to use when holes were shot or stabbed into their armour from battle. Having that same look with taste buds would be thematic and unique for these corrupted souls. Obviously the noise marines need to come back, for sound! They could even use string instruments in the shape of the Slaanesh symbol. For smell they could have pheromone sirens, luring in enemies to their horrid clutching grasp. Beautiful flowers and perfumes on the front of the models and horrid gaping voids, like noses, that their prey will be stuffed into once lured close enough. Just some thoughts that came to mind whilst watching your vid. Loved the interesting break down here guys. Thanks!

Honestly you guys really nailed how Slaneesh is more Execessive Sensation than just Rock and Roll Orgies (tho that too). And GW has definitely leaned more on the former as inspiration for some models, the first one to come to mind is one of a Daemonette playing a harp made of the muscles coming off the back of some poor soul. So they've shown that they're capable of taking Slaneesh in more interesting directions.

Love the video, I hope to see more of this kind of content in the future, I 100% agree with the redesign ideas as I think with the emperor children model range, they lack variety as they just seem to stick to one notion/ concept without explorer what else could be done. Once again great video.

Oh that is a great idea, i was thinking expanding on the perfectionist thing with more duelist style units. But units that focus on seeing, tasteing and touching just ups the creep facter.

The modern Emperor's Children are to stimulate all of the senses. Not only physically, but even visually; followers of Slaanesh tend to lean toward purples and pinks for fleshtone. For armor, they tend to use colors that are striking, beautiful, and/or gaudy to attack one's sense of vision; both beautiful, yet unsettling! So some warbands post-heresy can use one or more colors of "Purple, pink and black; various other pastels."

My rection to seeing this went from "oh awesome! WAYPN has a new design vs lore video!" to "oh I wasn't expecting it to be Emperor's Children" to "...uhh I wonder if Sunny is going to be comfortable explaining to everyone on YT about exactly what she notices in the design." Well played though. This was a lot of fun!

I love these types of videos! Make one for every legion PLEASE 🤩

Amazing breakdown however I have a few points related to the redesign that I would like to discuss The units having their themes related to the 5 senses is a great idea that is already lore friendly in how the ECs are portrayed, as addicts to sensations, going to extremes to feel more and more, however the ones presented are missing or going in a different way, IMO incorporating more of the cenobite feel and the willingly use combat drugs and xenos organs even pre-fall to enhance themselves could play a bigger role. The Scouts one may step to closely to how Tzeench mutations manifest, Slaanesh does grant gifts to the sight of their followers, the black eyes on the amazing art piece are one of those examples, and they could represent enhanced sight, and the ability to see the whole spectrum of light, or even see trough the warp itself. The models may have those 4 to 8 scorpion-like eyes around their heads and carry long ranged weapons and signify the pursue to the perfect shot, and to have perfect aim, could also have intricate armor to show a liking to art, how profane or beautifull is up to interpretation. For the smell, in lore, some of the signs of a Slaanesh related event is the strong perfumes, both amazingly pleasant and disgusting, that and also probably a drug in practice, the marines related to this sense may enter the field carrying incenses or vials, or having special organs to disperse that stuff to enhance their allies and harm their foes, a model represented with gills or smoke coming fron their bodies may do the trick, they would be related to how they use drugs to enhance themselves to achieve perfection for the touch, your interpretation is amazing and goes hand and hand as some ECs are portrayed in books, again, the cenobite feel, there is one in 30k that keeps their tongue nailed to their armor, so he can pull it every time he moves, and other that keeps a skinned part of his body constantly exposed, having some mutation or surgery that exposes nerves on top of their armor could be a plausible thing also, they would be melee specialists, and act eager to feel the pain of being shot and cut. for the feeling of taste is where I would diverge the most, a morbidly obese marine would be to close to how the bloated nurgle marines are portrayed, instead I would propose the opposite, ghoulish and extremely thin marines, more closely resembling the more classic wendigo legends, close to having a androgynous body, instead of the square of beef that marines normally are, cannibalistic and with some mutated jaw or tongue to represent that urge to eat, preferably related to scorpions and snakes (i can imagine they dislocating their jaws to eat just like snakes do) as a nod to one of the animals often related to Slaanesh, as they feel constantly famished and/or eager to taste different beings

As a note on how the Eldar fell, there’s actually quite a bit outside of murder, art and sex. Something which I feel often gets glossed over is that many of the pleasure cults dedicated themselves to esoteric knowledge. They were maddeningly obsessive about their chosen disciplines, pursuing knowledge at any cost. You can see a bit of the Haemonculi from the Drukhari with the ideas of twisted science. It’s also said that they explored sensory and emotional experience in just about every possible way. I imagine there being those who would inflict horrible things upon themselves in the name of feeling ever greater sensation. Indolence, feasting and narcotics are all explicitly named elements in their fall. edit: I realize I have, in effect, just said “um, ackshually.” My sincerest apologies. I really love the Eldar and wanted to share some cool stuff about them. Also, I didn’t even talk about the design ideas!!! I will do so in another comment under this one.

If I can add a bit of lore content : - You're not wrong about the nobles having to give their child for this legion, but they got their name from the emperor after saving his life. - The legion became plagued and only a few hundred of them survived, so they became really, REALLY obsessed with perfection because they did not have the numbers to keep up with other legions but their name put a lot of expectations on them. I think "perfection" is the best one word description for the pre-heresy legion.

I really enjoyed this video. Sunny's analysis was great and I really like the back and forth of the discussion. The ideas for new troops sounded good - very appropriate for the legion

First time viewing the channel. Absolutely loved this breakdown, was really impressed how much lore was teased out of the design before getting to the lore discussion. Love the redesign notions of opening up the number of post heresy/40k units. Has me thinking of finding new ways to convert models for the army and possible what the unit rules could be in a friendly game. As there isn't an official line for Emperor's Children like there is with Black Legion, Thousand Sons, or Plague Marines I think the move to other sensation excess fits the lore and design criteria for models if it were marketed properly. Alternatively, it could be made just so over the top that it circles back to being almost caricature of the pre-heresy design. As for sales I think you'd need to find a way to balance the cultural gender language and sexualization of pinks and purples with the "Rococo-Punk Rock/Cyberpunk dystopia" grotesques even with the new sense based troops. Great Video.

The balls are molecular bonding studs, in order to make quick repairs to the armour during the Horus Humbug

I love these lore videos! it gives deeper connection to the hobby :D Looking forward for more vids like this 👏

Love this series, instant like

As a teenager I had a random 40K book that followed the story of a Chaos Marine playing Chaos against itself. Anyhow during a battle involving some Emporers Children (EC) an EC Dreadnought exposed their sarcophagus to the elements so that it could feel sensation again. I think that could be a potentially awesome redesign of a Chaos Dreadnought. One where the broken body of the space marine could be exposed in a hiendonist way.

I don't think people should shy away from elements of the Chaos gods overlapping, slightly in some ways. After all, they can be interpreted as parts of a greater whole, in Chaos undivided. Certain features, like tentacles and spikes can overlap with several Chaos gods. Tzeentch loves tentacles, and is most associated with them, but Nurgle has some as well, and they pop up with Slaanesh. Khorne loves his horns and bestial themes, but so does Slaanesh. An association with fire is also shared between Khorne and Tzeentch. Chaos is chaos, and we shouldn't pigeonhole certain elements to be exclusive to certain gods. That would be far too clean and orderly.

So first I want to say that this is a very good video and I think that these ideas are very good for a Slaanesh Space Marine force. I do have two issues though with the suggested units. 1 is that while they are Slaaneshi they don't have ties with the 30k Emperor's Children unique units and GW does like to make 40k equivalents of those types of units as shown with the Thousand Sons and Death Guard. Second is that in the lore there are certain vices associated with Slaanesh and there are even rings decicated to them around their palace in the warp. Greed, Gluttony, Paramouncy, Vainglory, and Idolency. Here are my personal ideas though they aren't the best I will admit. Palatine Blades would be Vainglory themed and all about having trophies of foes as part of their gear Idolency would be terminators with heavy ranged focus with the weapons being grafted to their arms Greed would be Sunkillers with the most ornamental guns you would have ever seen and that is all I could think of.

As for the roman part, their pre heresy version was pretty much a direct reference to the praetorian guard, which would also wear purple uniforms and were recruited from the sons of senators and other high class people.

FYI, the image used at 38:03 (and later in the video as well) is not of the Emperor's Children, but of the Soul Drinkers, an unrelated space marine chapter.

As someone who plays Emperor's Children, your unit suggestions are really cool! I struggle to paint a nice pink I am happy with, but magenta is far more approachable when painting.

I love the Feelers concept, it would be gnarly af!

Thanks for another great video. You know your ideas are perfectly possible; in general, according to the lore, the chaos could become anything they need; the problem is that GW never works on the lore, and new innovations don't happen frecuently.

This was a really interesting discussion and would love to hear more of this type of stuff from 40k or other games as well. The redesign on the senses was a really cool take.

This is good timing, I was looking for something to reference as I homebrew a EC warband I'm looking forward for the Raven Guard video

Slaanesh is the most difficult god to understand. To me, slaanesh is more about the idea of desire, and obsession, neither of which can ever really be ever obtained. Another huge theme is the idea of abandoning one’s morals to obtain said obsessions and desires. Take Lucius for example. Not really a lustful or glutinous character. Slaanesh choose him as her mortal champion because of his obsession to master the blade and the rejection of his own beauty to do so

Man I'm excited to see you guys break down world eaters!

Given recent models like Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony, I suspect GW is on the page as Cal regarding exspanding depictions of Slaanesh related excess.

Early EC scheme + Slaanesh symbol = Prince and the Revolution

I have an Emperor's Children army collected since 1993 (2nd edition.) My army represents some different aspects of excess beyond just Noise Marines. There is a term psycho-sexual pleasure where non-sexual acts create a strong endorphin response. This allows other pathways to pleasure to be used. My Warp Talons derive pleasure from the hunt and the sensation of taking their prey apart with their fingers/claws. The Raptors are butchers. The vibration of a chainsword churning through flesh and bone and the smell of spraying bits are the sensations they crave. The Possessed are the extreme body modification masochists. The Havocs love making things explode. I have a converted Fabius Bile mini that resembles Pinhead from Hellraiser. For new unit design I could imagine: a flame based squad of pyromaniacs (extra eyes to appreciate the pretty colors?), Bikers who crave speed, Noise Marines with different instruments (they could all function as Sonic Blasters.), a scout/recon unit that takes information from the enemy by eating them and really savors the process (large toothy mouths with extended tongues) perhaps they fashion cloaks from the skin of their victims. These aspects of excess can be represented in a PG-13 fashion so parents won't see the models as worse than "regular" Chaos Marines.

Cannot wait for the next legion design vs lore of the IV th Legion, the Iron Warriors!

I adore the hair metal noise marine, fully hoping that they go with that look when the emperor's children get their range refresh. Keep the speaker-mouths for bare heads, and fully embrace the rockstar look.

I mean technically all the chaos gods are some form of excess Gluttony and sloth already sticks to nurgle Wrath already firmly is within the conception of khorne Absurd complexity, greed and pride already fits with tzeench Slannesh feels less like the lord of excess but rather feels more like the lord of debauchery. All of chaos is degeneration, but slannesh strongly embodies debased and debaucherous behaviour.

If the Iron Hands had fallen to Slaanesh instead of the Emperor's Children, what would their design aspect be and what are some themes that could be explored with that hypothetical what-if? Also speaking of "what-ifs", what do you guys think of some of the Alternate Heresies such as the Dornian Heresy, Roboutian Heresy, and Lionel Heresy?

I wonder if when they do legions like the blood angels who pre primarch had a drastically different color scheme than there post primarch scheme and it’s meanings

Awesome video, weren't the word bearers the first to fall to chaos though?

They should be leaning into the noise rockers and expanding on more weird instruments and sonic dreadnoughts, titans, etc

As Jes Goodwin already mentioned with his designs of the Ultramarines: The influence is CLASSICAL. Not Greek, not Roman.

Excellent video, great analysis! What's the source of the art at 9:18? Thanks!

Loving these videos but if I should give some unsolicited feedback it would be to easy up with the switching back and forth every sentence. It's break up the flow and takes more energy to listen to

My emperors children are warlock purple and gold with black plumes and horns some black, silver and pink tossed in on some details. Glowing green or blazing orange eyes and pink flesh

Huh, lots of thought went into legions-first founding chapters when GW worked on them it seems

40k noob here, but would it be possible for a Necron Flayer to fall to Slaanesh in a similar fashion to the Noise Marines? My idea... It could literally be a drum machine. It's always trying to find the perfect snare sound (impossible). Uses drumstick like weapons and takes the flesh to make drums. Has an ability called "Blast Beats." D'ktor Aavlinch would be it's name, a nod to Sisters of Mercy's drum machine (Doktor Avalanche).

I like your ideas for redesign, but maybe not fully the execution? "Eyes guy" could be confused with worshippers of Tzeentch (both Thousand Sons Marines and demons), because many units of them have multiple eyes, most likely bird ones. On the other hand, bug eyes are often design element of Nurgle minis. I think that some sort of spider eyes (black unblinking orbs) would work better. Devourers should have monstrous gaping mouth, and also maybe some sort of feelers/whiskers/antennas? Or snake tongues. I think you missed one big design clue with their character called Fabius Bile, also known as "The Spider". Yeah, style them after creepy crawlies! In fact, Fabius miniature is peak EC design - crazy surgeon obsessed with perfectionism (he even made several clones of few Primarchs, including his own Primarch Fulgrim) and wearing pimp-cloak made from other, "lesser" people.

Now that I watched it, I think this is a great analysis, especially with ideas for new units. That's what I also see as hugely underrepresented - it's doesn't need to be only sexual, I would go as far as saying that it doesn't have to be sexual at all. All space marines are able to gather memories and feelings from the devoured brain tissue, and there even are space marines that are practicing ritualistic cannibalism, from just drinking blood as blood angels do, to full on genociding the civilians for the feast (sons of malice before being excommunicated). Playing on this trope would be on point, Hannibal Lector style. Regular food doesn't do anything for them, so they devour the enemy soldiers. Same goes with vision-based unit idea. Space Marines are more perceptive than regular humans, they might as well be looking for their victims. Snipers might also be a good idea, seeing themselves as artists, who use rifles as artist uses his brush. For some reason, I think both recon and ranged units might be a good fit for vision-based unit. Noise marines already got sound and hearing side of things covered, so I guess that already works. I would, lol, add more instruments I guess. Why only sonic blasters, sonic jaw implants and sometimes guitar guns, when we can have sonic drums, sonic keyboards, sonic everything? It sounds ridiculous but I kind of fits I guess? I mean, sisters of battle already have a freaking church organ shooting rockets. What I'd like to add, they have very *heavy* BDSM overtones, which comes with its' own cultural baggage. You didn't miss that per se, but I think that was the central idea of their design, well at least during the older era of 40k. And that would also play perfectly with the unit idea of the "feelers", to have a tank-role represented. They actively look for pain and actively attract it to receive warped sense of pleasure.

I agree more with Sunny here, the Lore has slaanesh being incepted because of sex drugs and rock and roll. Having her as god of excess makes little sense to me as all Chaos Gods are inherently excessive.

chaos space marine backpack is for moving in the void its not the same as you correct her wrongly

The greatest legion

Not roman not greek.......it is macedonian purple Alejandro Magno colors

Adult Store lol. SPOT ON!

I love this episode but completely wrong about Slaanesh being wholistically a representation of ALL FORMS of excess. The Choas gods do not directly match the seven sins even in a sanitized form as the causes of those Sins are just as important as the sin itself. Excess is indeed an action that can take many forms but Slaanesh and directly to Emperor's Children, it is their pride and desire to be the best that allowed EC to separate itself from other Slannesh influence unit/armies from across the games workshop universe. I can go into this a deeper but I can use your new unit concepts as an example of how the "excess for all" theme of an EC army doesn't work and really tramples over the other Chaos gods. The crawling scout marine. very cool concept but the reason for a Marine to do such a thing is not in the pursuit of perfect or excess but for knowledge. It is very Tzeentch and really could fit into a Thousand Sons army. The Devourer is a good concept with Feel, but the smell goes very much Nurgle and you even mention how it could be simple the "Great Clean One". The Feeler is a fantastic theme but your idea just feels like a Plague Marine who WANTS to feel the plague and disease instead of not being able to feel it. I think the main focus of personal improvement, Pride and personal excess toward those ideas is a fantastic take of that chaos gods and separates EC from the Hedonites in a very great way. Also, you forget the some of these directly added to the astartes of the Emporer's Children but some of the Cult worshippers.

No. Wordbearers were the first to fall, but otherwise great. :)

Its not a tabard

stick to painting lil bro....