Word Bearers, Marks, Icons and Fluff

[Bat33.1]

I'm currently building units to finally complete a Chaos army but I've not yet fully decided on a theme to the army. I've toyed with EC based lists and Word Bearers but wanted to know what fits with fluff for the WB's as far as marks and icons go? Slaaneshi bikers are looking a great choice for FA but I really like the Forge World Khorne beserkers kit and Khorne hate Slaanesh so is it likely, in fluff terms at least, that both units would be in a WB host?

[Kol Saresk]

For a Word Bearers? Everything and nothing. They are one of the Legions that any Marks and Icons are whatever you want, if you want them. For example, to my knowledge Smurfalypse is still running no Marks and Icons. But some players are. The way I look at it is that a Mark is a sign that a God is paying attention to you. You may like the attention, or you may not. However, an Icon is a show of devotion. Now, it could like the Greco-Romans who would placate a specific God for a specific endeavor or it could be a specific sect that worships that specific God. As the Word Bearers are supposed to worship the entire Pantheon, it would be easier to justify the former rather than the latter.

[tvih]

Well, it's an interesting question, as I've been contemplating either WE (being the berserker at heart), WB or BL (because of mixing marks and considering that CC and thus WE/Khorne isn't always exactly top notch) unless I go "custom".

 

I'm not really up to speed on Chaos fluff, but WB seems to worship all chaos gods as does BL. Even so I'm not sure how fluffy it'd be to have them on the same battlefield. But unless everything HAS to make perfect fluff sense, you can just paint them all as WB and use them with whatever marks you want on in the same force, since they can still all be WB anyway.

[the jeske]

there is a huge difference between BL and WB . BL has worshipers of single gods in all shapes and sizes . all WB worship all chaos gods at the same time . Icon I could understand , but marks not . If your marked you worship one god and that is not what being a WB is about. they view worship of single chaos deities as heretical as loyalists faith in emps being a god.

[Bat33.1]

Thanks for the replies, that was how I read the Word Bearers, zealots but not tied to a single theme and worshipping whichever god is likely to give them an advantage over their foes at that time. I'm not that well read on fluff for the WB, I have read 'first heretic' and Index Astartes WB entry plus I do have copies of aurealian along with Anthony Reynolds WB anthology but they are still in my 'to be read' pile - damn you BL for bringing out so much good stuff of late ;)

 

Is there a specific way to model marks, I know there are icons in the chaos kits but how do you represent marks? If the army has just one theme, EC, WE, etc it is pretty easy to understand visually but slaanesh marines/bikes rather than Noise Marines in a non EC army?

 

I know what you mean tvih about a Khorne list as that was the way I was heading with the gavdex but I've had my list on hold since the start of the year for fear of building an army that was instant fail once kellydex arrived. It's quite straight forward to build a themed Khorne army and get a cohesive look to it but it's not going to be a great performer with 6th giving a boost to shooty armies :)

[Bat33.1]

there is a huge difference between BL and WB . BL has worshipers of single gods in all shapes and sizes . all WB worship all chaos gods at the same time . Icon I could understand , but marks not . If your marked you worship one god and that is not what being a WB is about. they view worship of single chaos deities as heretical as loyalists faith in emps being a god.

 

So to be fluffy with a WB list they would be unlikely to have marked units just rolling with VotLW and IoV?

[Kol Saresk]

The sets for the ten man squads have a shoulder pad for each Mark. As long as one model wears that shoulderpad you should be good. If you carry an Icon, you might as well not worry about it because you need the Mark to get the Icon. Personally, I'd say if you want Marks, go with them. I see Marks as a sign of the God acknowledges you. For example, let's look at Cyrion from A-D-B's Night Lords series. Not once do we ever see him pay homage to Slaanesh. Yet Slaanesh marked him personally by turning him into a psyker who could "hear" the fears of others and as a result, he became addicted to the fears and did whatever he could to prolong it and make even newer and exquisite fears. He was a sadist. Did the Mark change him into a sadist? No. I believe he was a sadist before hand on such a scale that Slaanesh noticed him and gave him a way to better experience his sadism. Did Cyrion ever worship Slaanesh? Do we see him even utter Slaanesh's name like Uzas demanded Khorne for power? No. Not once. So that kind of says that there is no relationship between the devotion and the Marks. But the Icons are different because they directly invoke the God's name. The Icon is more of a show of devotion than anything else. Anyone can be marked by the Gods, just look at the Soul Drinkers. But it takes a different person to raise an Icon in worship.

 

But yes, as Jeske said there is a difference between the Black Legion and the Word Bearers. As a general, Word Bearers worship the Pantheon and only call upon specific Gods for specific needs. Such as in Dark Disciple when Marduk calls on Tzeentch to bless the giant meltabomb they used to blow open the gate or when he summoned Bloodeaters to kill genestealers and called on the daemonettes to escape from the Dark Eldar. But you will rarely find Cult Troops in a Word Bearers Host(although you could come up with some very fluffy reasons in order to justify their presence) while a Black Legion will be filled with mono-God warbands, Cult units and mixed warbands as well as Undivided.

[tvih]

But yes, as Jeske said there is a difference between the Black Legion and the Word Bearers. As a general, Word Bearers worship the Pantheon and only call upon specific Gods for specific needs. Such as in Dark Disciple when Marduk calls on Tzeentch to bless the giant meltabomb they used to blow open the gate or when he summoned Bloodeaters to kill genestealers and called on the daemonettes to escape from the Dark Eldar. But you will rarely find Cult Troops in a Word Bearers Host(although you could come up with some very fluffy reasons in order to justify their presence) while a Black Legion will be filled with mono-God warbands, Cult units and mixed warbands as well as Undivided.

I suppose BL would be most fitting for how I plan to field mine, then, though I tend to prefer not fielding the "vanilla" colors... ugh! But black just looks so good. While WE especially has a special interest for me for its Khorne theme, I just don't like red models much! And unfortunately WB are red too. Which brings me to another question (even though a bit off-topic) that touches on all the Chaos chapters - how do you paint Cult troops within a chapter from a fluff point of view? Say, Plague Marines or Khorne Berzerkers of the Black Legion? KB always seem to be red & gold and PM are... well, greenish, but BL's generic colors are black & gold :rolleyes:

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Khorne Berzerkers are actually red and bronze. There is a difference.

 

There is also the option to paint them whatever colors you want :)

[MaliGn]

I think that marks are perfectly appropriate for word bearers, while the faith is in chaos as a whole the deeds may favour one god more than another. For example khalaxis' coterie in Anthony Reynolds series are assault troops, favoured by khorne because of their close combat prowess. They still follow the creed of lorgar and worship the pantheon. Ones possessed could be possessed by slaaneshi daemons certainly not a stretch. While the bulk of the force should be unmarked there's nothing to say that some can be. I'd stop short of cult troops though, the stretch is too far since we now have the option for marks again. Icons I'd say remain much as they were, appropriate all the time, a) because they look cool and :) because praying to the part of the pantheon that will serve you best at this moment in time may just be enough for it to happen.

[Kol Saresk]

Speaking of which, Burias' daemon is Slaaneshi. I can't remember if it was the first or second book that said that. I think it was the first.

[totgeboren]

As has been said, everyone is free to make their own interpretation of the legions. You could have a WB warband consisting of nothing but Plague marines and Slaanesh bikers if you wanted. I would not find it 'fitting', but it doesn't matter what I think.

 

Personally I would avoid marks and icons, but not exclude them. Just keep it toned down. The only mark I tend to use is to give my Dark Apostle the Mark of Tzeentch (to represent him being destined for greatness/a 3++ save is great, and almost mandatory if you want to run a weedy 2W 3+ save model as Warlord).

 

All out cult troops are a no-no in my book, though I have a unit of painstakingly converted mk.V Forge World marines with chain axes who count-as Berzerkers. I'm not ripping off those chainaxes, so they will continue to be fielded as Berzerkers.

 

So what to say? I'm a religious hypocrite, which I personally think is incredibly fitting for my gang of religious zealots. :)

 

But all in all, there are generally two schools of thought surrounding the WB. Either the old-school ones, who say no to all marks, or the new-school ones who say everything goes, it's chaos after all.

 

But if you don't want to paint red, and you want lots of marks, I don't think the WB are what you are looking for. ;)

[TheDarkApostle]

I would actually encourage you to read up not on just the Word Bearers themselves, but rather scour the galaxy for information on the nature of the Gods themselves.

 

Read up on the Gods, read up on their modus operandi, and then draw your own conclusions on what fits and what does not when put in context with the Word Bearer fluff you already possess.

 

My 2 cents at least. -_-

 

TDA

[RolandTHTG]

But yes, as Jeske said there is a difference between the Black Legion and the Word Bearers. As a general, Word Bearers worship the Pantheon and only call upon specific Gods for specific needs. Such as in Dark Disciple when Marduk calls on Tzeentch to bless the giant meltabomb they used to blow open the gate or when he summoned Bloodeaters to kill genestealers and called on the daemonettes to escape from the Dark Eldar. But you will rarely find Cult Troops in a Word Bearers Host(although you could come up with some very fluffy reasons in order to justify their presence) while a Black Legion will be filled with mono-God warbands, Cult units and mixed warbands as well as Undivided.

I suppose BL would be most fitting for how I plan to field mine, then, though I tend to prefer not fielding the "vanilla" colors... ugh! But black just looks so good. While WE especially has a special interest for me for its Khorne theme, I just don't like red models much! And unfortunately WB are red too. Which brings me to another question (even though a bit off-topic) that touches on all the Chaos chapters - how do you paint Cult troops within a chapter from a fluff point of view? Say, Plague Marines or Khorne Berzerkers of the Black Legion? KB always seem to be red & gold and PM are... well, greenish, but BL's generic colors are black & gold :)

 

For painting cults within a Legion/warband (Especially Black legion) the 4th edition codex showed them to be primarily wearing the legion's colors, but with atleast one shoulder pad(and usually the helmet)in the cult colors

examples:

http://m107.photobucket.com/image/recent/J...pg.html?src=www

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/202651-L...o%20Bezerk.html

[Zacco Kathcis]

Interesting post this one, i had actually thought of having plague marines as part of a wordbearers army in the long run, but it does somehow make sense that they would not let brothers worship one god over the others. So i guess if a couple of wordbearers squads and a sorceror returned home from a mission blessed by Nurgle, the lord would simply shoot them on sight, crucify them and not use their new found ability on the battlefield :)

[tvih]

For painting cults within a Legion/warband (Especially Black legion) the 4th edition codex showed them to be primarily wearing the legion's colors, but with atleast one shoulder pad(and usually the helmet)in the cult colors

Well, that's basically what I had been contemplating doing, then.

 

Oh, and one reason BL seems the way to go is indeed the black in the sense that at least using my BT vehicles with my Chaos army won't be such a stand-out since at least they're both black :lol:

[Kol Saresk]

Painting Cult Troops is personal preference. You could do it like the 4th Edition Codex where some were painted mostly in the Legion colors with some Cult Colors thrown in. You could also do the other route shown in 4th Edition where the Cult Troops were painted in their own colors. There is also the route of painting the Cult Troops only in the Legion colors. There are also different modeling routes, but those are all player-made. So really, it is all up to you.

[The Prophet]

The "not-using-marks-route" is a misunderstanding of the concept of a pantheon and how worship in such religions works. I wrote a long argument for this specific topic here a few years ago, but it seems to have aged away and I'm not sure I have the willpower to reproduce it.

 

 

But to sum it up, all the background for Word Bearers works very well with using marks and icons - with the exception of Daemonworld by Ben Counter. And he gave us Battle for the Abyss as well, placing him firmly at the bottom of WB authors. As said above, many of the other different authors include characters and squads that would surely have specific marks, if translated into gaming terms.

 

Logic itself presents us the conclusion that you can't be blessed by chaos without being blessed by one (or more) of the specific gods. Note how the Daemon Princes now can't be taken without specific alignment to one god! That was something I argued for ages ago.

 

 

 

So i guess if a couple of wordbearers squads and a sorceror returned home from a mission blessed by Nurgle, the lord would simply shoot them on sight, crucify them and not use their new found ability on the battlefield :lol:

 

Really!? I sure hope this is sarcasm. Otherwise, how would being blessed by one of the four gods be considered a negative thing in a society where the worhip of these four gods is everything?

 

Going with marks is the real old school, and the only true way on the eightfold path! ;) Think about the concept of Mark of Chaos Ascendant. Do you have to get the blessing of all the Four at the exact same time if you want to avoid being shot by your comrades?

[Dallas Drake]

The "not-using-marks-route" is a misunderstanding of the concept of a pantheon and how worship in such religions works. I wrote a long argument for this specific topic here a few years ago, but it seems to have aged away and I'm not sure I have the willpower to reproduce it.

 

 

But to sum it up, all the background for Word Bearers works very well with using marks and icons - with the exception of Daemonworld by Ben Counter. And he gave us Battle for the Abyss as well, placing him firmly at the bottom of WB authors. As said above, many of the other different authors include characters and squads that would surely have specific marks, if translated into gaming terms.

 

Logic itself presents us the conclusion that you can't be blessed by chaos without being blessed by one (or more) of the specific gods. Note how the Daemon Princes now can't be taken without specific alignment to one god! That was something I argued for ages ago.

 

 

 

So i guess if a couple of wordbearers squads and a sorceror returned home from a mission blessed by Nurgle, the lord would simply shoot them on sight, crucify them and not use their new found ability on the battlefield :woot:

 

Really!? I sure hope this is sarcasm. Otherwise, how would being blessed by one of the four gods be considered a negative thing in a society where the worhip of these four gods is everything?

 

Going with marks is the real old school, and the only true way on the eightfold path! ;) Think about the concept of Mark of Chaos Ascendant. Do you have to get the blessing of all the Four at the exact same time if you want to avoid being shot by your comrades?

 

Agree 100%.

 

I run World Bearers & I use lots of Cultists, CSMs with & without marks (Mark of Khorne), Havocs & some Daemon Engines all with Daemon allies. I never understood why a marked unit automatically meant it wasn't WB since there is evidence of specific gods giving favour to individuals & units in many sources. Mark or Icon does not mean totally devoted & subservient too.

 

Dallas

[Zacco Kathcis]

The "not-using-marks-route" is a misunderstanding of the concept of a pantheon and how worship in such religions works. I wrote a long argument for this specific topic here a few years ago, but it seems to have aged away and I'm not sure I have the willpower to reproduce it.

 

 

But to sum it up, all the background for Word Bearers works very well with using marks and icons - with the exception of Daemonworld by Ben Counter. And he gave us Battle for the Abyss as well, placing him firmly at the bottom of WB authors. As said above, many of the other different authors include characters and squads that would surely have specific marks, if translated into gaming terms.

 

Logic itself presents us the conclusion that you can't be blessed by chaos without being blessed by one (or more) of the specific gods. Note how the Daemon Princes now can't be taken without specific alignment to one god! That was something I argued for ages ago.

 

 

 

So i guess if a couple of wordbearers squads and a sorceror returned home from a mission blessed by Nurgle, the lord would simply shoot them on sight, crucify them and not use their new found ability on the battlefield <_<

 

Really!? I sure hope this is sarcasm. Otherwise, how would being blessed by one of the four gods be considered a negative thing in a society where the worhip of these four gods is everything?

 

Going with marks is the real old school, and the only true way on the eightfold path! ;) Think about the concept of Mark of Chaos Ascendant. Do you have to get the blessing of all the Four at the exact same time if you want to avoid being shot by your comrades?

 

It was meant with a twist of sarcasm, in my book its perfectly fine to have marked units in a Wordbearers army. Its also fluffy to include some wardrums, and lots of icons and banners ;)

[Bat33.1]

Well lots of useful discussion and points of view to this thread and much food for thought. I'm pretty new to the whole chaos background and have been picking up more of the relevant books as I've gone along to try and put some meat on the bones of the information I already had - mind you can you ever truly make sense of chaos? <_<

 

The new army build has been considered for the last eighteen months or so having bought the gavdex cheap, then 6th coming along gave me the spur to build a new army for a new edition but I rather like fluffy armies. My vanilla marines are Astral Claws, so I was already on the way to the eightfold path I guess ;) and I liked a lot of the hobby builds that the chaos talented of the internets were tempting me with. The csm legions and warbands have good back stories especially with all the HH love flowing from Black Library, so picking one that fits with what I'd like to build is tricky, given I don't really want to paint a black csm army limits me to a degree too. The one unit I want to bring to the table is bikes, with marks and icon of slaanesh probably with a sorcerer too, other than that a dragon is coming, probably some cultists for cheap meat shields, and I can see the attraction of cheap unmarked csm as troops and don't need to mark or icon these. This is where the idea of EC started, slaanesh - check, not black - check, but working out the rest of the list was not as easy, a full slaanesh list didn't seem to be easy to put together or play so I then started to look at the WB's for more options.

[Irabrai]

As I've previously put on a different thread, the way I'm doing a squad of Berzerkers is to do them primarily in WB colours, but with Khorne logos in Bronze, and the Left shoulder pad (in keeping with the rest of the force) are the WB ones.

 

End of the day, its personal preference in what you have in your army. As someone has said (And i cant seem to remember reading, but im only partially through the 2nd Word Bearer book...) Burias' has a Slaaneshi Daemon, they also have a Squad of Berzerkers in the force.

[totgeboren]

they also have a Squad of Berzerkers in the force.

 

Not quite true, as they do not have the psycho surgery that makes the Berzerkers distinct from a marine with the MoK, and according to the BL IA article (which as far as I know have not beensurpassed by new background), only the WE and BL knows how to make "Khorne Berzerkers". The rest will have to make due with CSMs with the MoK.

 

(I personally dislike the whole idea of 'special-procedures-required' to make a cult marine, but then again I really dislike that there is even a difference between say a Plague Marine, and a CSM with the Mark of Nurgle. I think they should be synonymous).

[Kol Saresk]

6th Edition Codex: Chaos Space Marines, Khorne Berzerkers background entry

After the World Eaters Legion disbanded during the fighting on Skalathrax, most Berzerkers formed separate warbands, and many bastardised practices of lobotomization spread to the other Chaos Space Marine forces with them. Abaddon, in particular, has recruited a number of highly skilled Berzerker-surgeons to his cause, and only the Black Legion is close to the World Eaters in their perfection of this barbaric practice.

 

So yes, only the World Eaters and Black Legion have it "perfected", but it has spread out to an unknown amout of other forces. IIRC, Skalathrax wasn't exactly too long after the retreat to the Eye, so the other forces were most likely other warbands from the other Legions. It just happened that a decent number of the skilled ones went to the Black Legion.

[Bat33.1]

So to expand this across the other legion/csm warbands how do you see marks and icons working?

 

1k sons = Tzeentch + cult

World Eaters = Khorne + cult

Emperors Children = Slaanesh + cult

Death Guard = Nurgle + cult

Night Lords = undecided? and likely to take marks but less likely to go with icons?

Black Legion = undivided and open to all marks/icons and cult troops?

Alpha Legion =?

Iron Warriors = ?

Word Bearers = undivided but possible to have marks/icons depending on how you read the background and very unlikely to have cult units?

 

Thoughts and opinions please...