Greetings all!Welcome to the third of my 2017 plan posts for my armies, today I'm going to be looking at my Emperor's Children. The first two articles in the series can be found here (Dusk Knights) and here (Kindred of Malebolgia).This one might very well be shorter, but only because I haven't got much stuff for the Emperor's Children and it's damned expensive to get more!First up, I do have a confession to make.If you asked me the question which of the first founding legions I like the most and would most want an army of? It wouldn't be the 3rd legion. It would be the Blood Angels. Or the Raven Guard.Thing is though, the Blood Angels seem to be a fair way off getting any stuff, and certainly the stuff I'd want (after all, EC have only just got their spear upgrades despite being out for ages!), and whilst Raven Guard do have their units, I've done an army of them before and painting black marines doesn't appeal to me again!All that being said, I do like the Emperor's Children, they're hardly me scraping the bottom of the barrel of legions to collect (that would be Wolves, Word Bearers or Thousand Sons, none of whom have ever appealed to me) and I love some of their style, particularly the strike fast, strike hard philosophy.At the moment however, my army is limited to the first part of a core list, without any of that style to it. It has a couple of mobile elements, and some cool stuff but it's not necessarily themed together all that well. Eidolon is a beast but in 1000pt games spending over 20% of your points on your warlord is probably excessive, as is including two units of kakophoni and some Palatine Blades. But I want these units in a bigger force, and wanted to paint them early, so I got hold of them. This list structure will balance out over time as I add more sensible units to the collection.As it stands at the moment then I have the following:Eidolon (very nearly finished)Tactical Support Squad (not very finished at all)5 Kakophoni (started)5 Palatine Blades (2 built)Rhino (undercoated)so I still need 2 more Rhinos and another unit of Kakophoni just to make my basic list. Hmm.First priority therefore with the Emperor's Children (as always with any army) is to start making genuine progress in terms of getting them painted up. Initially this must mean finishing Eidolon, as he's the closest to completion of the lot.After that, I want to work on the Kakophoni as they are still in pieces and so are difficult to use in games. Then I'll put some effort into the Rhino and support squad, with the palatine blades coming at the back end of all that.Priority 2 with these guys has to also be to get some more games in with them - I've played three times so far and really enjoyed all the games (despite losing two of them) so getting more table time in heresy is an important part of my development of the force. It should also help me with things like unit positioning and understanding the capabilities of the units in the army.Third priority is then to start expanding things. Obviously the kakophoni and rhinos need to be first on the list, but I then need to have a real sit down and think about how I want to play them at larger points values, probably looking to expand up to 2000pts initially. The benefits of the Emperor's Children really revolve around combat, so I need to put some time into figuring out the best way of getting into combat safely, and what are my best options for providing covering fire as my units try to get there.This may mean I need to look at a Sicaran Chassis or two...Till next time,TBE