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The Emperor's Children, the traitorous III Legion of Space Marines, are one of the few factions to benefit from Warhammer's 'Year of Chaos' with a wide range of new models. From the ornate Primarch Fulgrim to the tactically advantageous Noise Marines, fans of Slaanesh's chosen turncoats have eaten well in 2025, and yet there's one obvious gap in the roster that gnaws at me like a ravenous Daemonette; where are the apothecaries?
Don't let me be misunderstood, I'm grateful for the bounty bestowed upon us by the Dark Prince. I love my Flawless Blades like my own children, and the Lord Kakophonist is a mainstay in all my army builds. I'm especially happy with the new Lucius model, menacingly posed with his Blade of the Laer outstretched and his Lash of Torment mid swing, all while stepping over some poor loyalist who dared stand against him.
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The forces of Chaos are often described as glass cannons, so the notion of including a unit to pick fallen models back up may sound odd, but it's not unheard of. Take the World Eaters, for example. The Slaughterbound character unit possesses the ability to return a dead bodyguard model during the Command Phase. That's right, Khorne's brutal butchers have the ability to regenerate the dead, but Slaanesh's faithful don't. In what grimdark universe do Angron's reckless thugs have the sense to pick up their brothers? Next they'll be thinking before they act?!
My disdain for the World Eaters aside, apothecaries are a core part of Emperor's Children lore. As a legion, they experimented with physical enhancements even before the Horus Heresy really began. Fabius Bile was working on the likes of Lord Eidolon to give combat advantages despite the Emperor of Mankind forbidding such notions.
A more recent example appears in the 2025 novel Fulgrim: The Perfect Son by Jude Reid. One of the supporting characters throughout is an apothecary named Venekhar, who serves in the Perfecti warband with main character Tamaris. The novel regularly makes mention of his battlefield duty of recovering Gene-Seeds from fallen warriors. He's also responsible for the Combat Stimms Tamaris utilizes in battle, which are essentially steroids for Fulgrim's infantry.
The servants of the Dark Gods aren't just resurgent in 40K; they're also storming over the Mortal Realms. The latest example of this is Warhammer Quest: Darkwater, which feels leaner, meaner, and a lot of fun.
Combat Stimms is also a stratagem,as found in the Emperor's Children Mercurial Host detachment, where, for two Command Points, you can give an infantry unit the ability to reduce incoming wound rolls by one. However, you can't include the actual unit type responsible for this in your army roster, so I guess these substances are magicked out of the air by the Dark Prince? Having said that, Slaanesh does regenerate a soldier's missing limbs in the Jude Reid novel (although he is then eaten by Maidens of Ecstasy).
I'm aware it's only a game, and that the rules don't all have to make sense. If Warhammer says no to apothecaries then that's that and we all have to accept it. However, I wouldn't be an Emperor's Children player if I didn't think I know better, would I? And it's also fitting that I want more pleasure from my pain. If you cut down a Flawless Blade, I demand they stand back up and hit you again, for Lord Fulgrim wouldn't tolerate anything less than total commitment to his will, however capricious that may be.
Thrill seekers
The Emperor's Children are all about having a good time. In any situation, and especially in battle, the focus is, and will always be, on pleasure, but how are we supposed to enjoy ourselves when we're lacking so? I'm aware of the poetic irony that this supposedly perfect legion is quite clearly flawed, and I accept that is a key part of their overall narrative, but we are lords of excess and that should be reflected in our forces.
Before anyone says it would make the Emperor's Children unfair, I will point once again to the wretched World Eaters and their Eightbound-reviving character model. I've faced them with my Emperor's Children twice, and I can tell you that watching a unit gain a model back when you can't do the same is painful, and not in a good way.
Now you could say this ability makes up for the faction's weakness, like not having the best ranged weaponry, and that would be a good point, but Khorne's faithful have access to Forgefiends with Ectoplasma cannons that have strength 10 and -3 AP. They also have Chaos Land Raiders with two Soulshatter lascannons with strength 12, -3 AP and rapid fire 2. That's right, rapid fire on lascannons!
What I'm saying is, the Emperor's Children, as an in-game army, need rebalancing, and there's a lore-accurate way to do it. I know Fabius Bile has gone his own way, but there's clearly space, and a need, for a generic apothecary character to be added to the III.
So Warhammer, if you're reading, please add this new character model to the store. I can picture it now: clad in pink and black armor, mechanical appendages arranged around the body, holding a Gene-Seed smothered in Blood for the Blood God while standing over a son of Fulgrim who fell to the joyous excess of fighting in Slaanesh's name. I'll take 10.
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