How to replace a component used in @viewChildren for a test double?

You can use reflect-metadata features to do it working:

it('should have four sons', () => {
   const propMetadata = Reflect['getMetadata']('propMetadata', FatherComponent);
   var originType = propMetadata.cpxs[0].selector;
   propMetadata.cpxs[0].selector = ComplexComponentStub; // Replace ViewChild Type

   let fixture = TestBed.createComponent(FatherComponent);

   let comp = fixture.componentInstance as FatherComponent;
   fixture.detectChanges();
   expect(comp.cpxs.length).toBe(4);

   propMetadata.cpxs[0].selector = originType; // reset ViewChild
});

Test in Plunker

You can read more about decorators and about reflect-metadata here:

• Angular 2, decorators and class inheritance