++ The Dark Council - A Word Bearers Community ++

[Noctus Cornix]

But of course.

[Thedarkprincesnun]

Having rethought the idea i think I've come up with some midway ground between both

While the warband still worships undivided the chapters chapter master has ascended to become a daemon prince of tzeench as such some within the chapter are attempting to copy their master and earn the lord of fates favor

[Knight of the Raven]

Your warband, or at least its leadership, would most likely be looked down upon* by regular Word Bearers though, unless it was really useful to them. But eh, more reasons to fight other sons of Lorgar!

 

*behind the daemon prince's back obviously.

[Thedarkprincesnun]

Your warband, or at least its leadership, would most likely be looked down upon* by regular Word Bearers though, unless it was really useful to them. But eh, more reasons to fight other sons of Lorgar!

 

*behind the daemon prince's back obviously.

Well another possible idea is they have split off from the main legion after being abandoned at calth and Tzeench saving them but they consider themselves to be the only ones who truly understand the word :p

[TheDarkApostle]

I mean, there is a massive difference between openly worshiping only one God above all other Gods, and being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods despite worshiping them all in a somewhat equal matter.

 

And there also a massive difference in keeping the appearance of being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods while everyone thinks you are worshiping all of them in an equal matter. Despite the contrary. 

[Thedarkprincesnun]

I mean, there is a massive difference between openly worshiping only one God above all other Gods, and being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods despite worshiping them all in a somewhat equal matter.

 

And there also a massive difference in keeping the appearance of being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods while everyone thinks you are worshiping all of them in an equal matter. Despite the contrary.

That is a good point

Plus the word bearers do quite a bit of tzeenchy stuff anyway like the use of sorcery all the flames and knowledge :p

[MaliGn]

That and your army is but a fraction of the legion, which may as a whole worship undivided doesn't mean that at the precise moment in time for which your army is modelled the few dozen Marines in your army don't worship one God over the others.

[TheDarkApostle]

 

I mean, there is a massive difference between openly worshiping only one God above all other Gods, and being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods despite worshiping them all in a somewhat equal matter.

 

And there also a massive difference in keeping the appearance of being marked and rewarded by one God above all other Gods while everyone thinks you are worshiping all of them in an equal matter. Despite the contrary.

That is a good point

Plus the word bearers do quite a bit of tzeenchy stuff anyway like the use of sorcery all the flames and knowledge

 

I would have pointed out the spawning of various cults of Chaos to dismantle Imperial Governments from within and sow seeds of destruction myself, especially since such behavior is textbook classical Tzeentch tactics.

[Knight of the Raven]

So I finally painted my aspiring champion.

[Slave to Darkness]

Nice, very moody looking.

[Slave to Darkness]

Soooo as the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists have a painting comp on the go does anybody here think it would be good if we throw down against the smurfs? Get a bit of inter forum banter going against our weak spined enemies?

[MaliGn]

I did rather wonder if we should go proselytising.

[Slave to Darkness]

Or we could be bad winners and just rub it in that we smashed them again in the ETL :lol:

[Leonite]

Eh, I'm sorta Word Bearered out after all that. Not done with red though... but that's either for Call of Chaos, a HH showcase... or the next ETL.

[Slave to Darkness]

Could always do the Sanctified. :lol:

[Lord Asvaldir]

So the traitor legions supplement rules are just starting to come out, don't have the full picture yet but so far I'm a bit disappointed by the rules for WB. Seems like we don't really have any sort of chapter tactics besides being able to harness warp charges on a +3 for malefic daemonology, which only affects sorcerers.  Then we just get crusader if we take our decurion detachment, also a bit underwhelming, especially compared to legions like DG which get army wide FNP. 

 

That being said, I do plan on trying to make the best of it. Definitely will need to pick up some daemons now, not using malefic summoning seems like a complete waste for WB. For the rest of the army, I'll probably focusing on the chaos warband centered around a solid amount of infantry. I'll wait on seeing the book for myself though to decide on a list. 

 

Any other WB players have some thoughts on the book so far?

[tikhunt]

Severely disappointed. I don't want army rules that make it easier for me to play a different army. Don't get me wrong I'm glad we have rules now and its better than nothing but its by far worse than it could have been.

 

An example IW get rerolls in combat vs IF and we get it against UM but they get hatred vs us whereas IF don't vs IW?

 

The crozius relic is copy pasted from Crimson Slaughter as is the possessed as troops rule. Crusader is meh vs army wife fearless, fnp, stubborn etc.

 

On the bright side they stick to fluff quite well I think and summoning on a 3+ makes us slightly better vs most but it also makes our Daemon Princes slightly more survivable as it makes us easier to boost his invuln. Make him a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch and he's getting a 4+ invuln on a single (?) 3+ only periling on 6s and rerolling invuln saves of a 1. Or you can have a DP of Nurgle with the relic that gives +1 maelific spell and have him stay flying while summoning daemons with more warp charges than most Chaos armies because of the relic which gives d6 warp charges once per game on (a different sorcerer) amd using less because of summoning on a 3+ netting you more units reliably.

 

Maybe combine one of the two tactics above with a Word Bearers Decurion and ally in a Helcult formation which is strictly better than the core cultist one Imo for two fearless blobs and a 100 point walker which can make 3+ cover saves at the expense of 1 cultist

 

I think a list would look something like.

 

Command:

Lords of Chaos;

Daemon Prince with the relic to summon units as much as you can a lot easier than anyone else

 

Core:

Chaos Warband;

Chaos Lord

Optional Sorcerer

2 units of Marines in rhinos,

Unit of Possessed,

Unit of Raptors,

Unit of Havoks

 

Auxiliary:

Spawn;

As much Spawn as you need in a msu fashion

 

Allied detatchment:

Helcult

 

This isn't too expensive and isn't exactly weak while also being rather fluffy. Scores of Marines headed by sacrificial fearless cultists and daemons popping out of the warp to cause havoc. The overall playstyle of the word bearers seems rather straightforward with the most difficult decision during a game being making sure to summon the right unit at the right time.

 

Overall I'm disappointed that they could have been better but can still see it working in the average meta.

 

For Lorgar and the Primordial Truth my brothers....

[totgeboren]

I would say I'm really disappointed but to be honest I was expecting the rules for all the legions to be on par with what we got. So it's nice for our brothers in the other legions that they got some proper rules, just sad about us getting almost nothing.

 

What difference does Possessed as Troops do when the Legion formations doesn't even use Troops as a category? Why is our big buff (3+ Malefic) something that mainly buffs Sorcerers when our iconic unit is Chaplains? Why is our main buff that we can more easily play a different army? If I wanted to play Daemons I would play Daemons.

Why can't we even include Chaplains in our core marine formation? Why do the relics generally give buffs we already have (free VotLW) or buffs to Sorcerers (again, are not Chaplains our defining unit?) I mean, from my perspective, as someone who wants a Dark Apostle as leader because that is in keeping with the background, have a look at the Relics. I'm almost always fight against xenos btw.

 

Relic 1 does nothing, no matter what HQ you pick (they all have hatred Imperium for free).

Relic 2 gives a DA adamantium will and fear for 30 pts. On a Lord it's ok, having that instead of a Sigil. Rather underwhelming to use as your relic, but it does have a slight use. Also, a DP could definitely use it.

Relic 3 and 4 are only for Sorcerers. Ok but does not help my Dark Apostle. Also, number 4 probably needs to be used before you roll the dice to see how much warp charge you get, so you can't even use it to save you from a bad phase.

Relic 5, finally something that does something. Could be useful on a DA, since it increased your chance of getting a Charge in, maximizing your hatred bonus.

Relic 6. A Power Maul for 35 pts instead 15 pts. Would be useful for a Lord if you fight against Imperial armies (which I don't). Might be useful for a DP, at least against Imperial armies. Rerolling 1s to hit and to wound means you will wound most things on a 2+ rerollable. However, is it better than a Black Mace? Hardly.

 

So from my perspective, hoping this would encourage the use of Dark Apostles, we got 1 relic. The buff to Chaplains we got is the buff he already comes with through the only formation were we can get him (TLatD) too, and that buff is so small it's almost nothing.

 

However, our Cultists do get crusader, which is rather nice. Roll 2D6 pick highest for Run moves does actually does buff cultists. My issue here is that I wanted more reasons to pick basic WB CSM, and giving Havocs ObSec in the Warband formation does not make standard CSM any more appealing.

As said hardly any buffs to the iconic WB units like CSM and Chaplains.

 

I give this one solid thumb down, but not two thumbs down at least. It's like whoever wrote these rules have not even tried making a WB-themed army and playing with it.

 

Still, a Summoning flying WB DP with DoN or DoT and a familiar is one of the best Malefic users in the game now. So we are more competitive.

But some flavor for WB marines would have been nice too.

[Castellan Cato]

I'm very disappointed. Going in, I knew we wouldn't get army wide zealot, but seeing the rules that everyone else got, it would not be out of place.

 

We didnt lose anything from this book, but we didn't gain much either.

 

The become a psycher WT is amazing, but the others are not good. I wish that had of been a relic to be more reliable.

 

I still need to mull over this to figure out if I can do anything with it.

[tikhunt]

A second look at these rules has me quite happy to be honest. They've got rules that make what we we're already doing considerably better Imo. We don't have to take x number of units for our buff and they work with almost any build. Overall very happy with these rules after looking at it from a thematic viewpoint.

 

Edit: Also combining Black Crusade detatchment with the +/-1 chaos boons combined with the roll twice means you can guarantee getting what you need.

[totgeboren]

Hmmm... trying to figure out how to make anything flavorful from what we know so far which also takes advantage of the meager benefits we got.

So what did we get? Crusader and eight-fold path, which seems to be Path to Glory, or a worse version of Path to Glory. Also, and the main thing, better summoning.

We have the LatD formation as Core, and access to most of the aux formations.

 

I'm thinking that a summoning DP is our main thing we get that is better than what the other legions get. So that guy needs to compensate for for example not having army-wide FnP and similar.

Also, whether we like it or not, Possessed seem to be our thing. How to make them functional? The Favoured of Chaos formation requires 3 units of Possessed and 1 DP. The DP gain no benefit but does make the Possessed much better in close combat (due to always getting all 3 results, enough to seriously threaten even Wraithknights). So I'm thinking 3 units of Possessed, at least one big Slaanesh squad to get access to FnP, and two other smaller squads without icons that could be other marks just for flavor. Having Crusader on these guys is pretty nice, since rolling 2 dice for Run with a reroll due to fleet means your Possessed will be moving 12" per turn on foot.

 

As core, a LatD formation to claim objectives and just run full speed (remember Crusader) at the enemy, hopefully recycling a few times if destroyed. The Chaplain can also buff Possessed and the DP with rerolls to hit in the first round of assault even if he is not joined to them, which is something other legions Chappies cannot do.

 

This could leave enough points for 2 Heldrakes or a Knight, or not. Depends on points.

 

So, could this work? Any anti-tank would need to be taken care of by summoned units. Either swamping the board with the super-op new horrors, hoping some of them get some anti-tank psychics, or getting some Plaguebearers that can use their glace effect to wear down Dreadnoughts and similar.

 

Dunno, the lack of anti-tank and anti-2+ saves just feels crippling. Also, note that this WB army contains basically no basic WB marines, just like before.

 

Perhaps a better approach is to just use a Chaos Warband and a DP and ignore the lack of both Cultists and Chaplain? If the DP can summon every turn, you are getting at least 500 pts for free anyway so no point in spamming cultist chaff?

[tikhunt]

I'd say take a detachment from traitors hate and ally in a Helcult if you want cultists. Less points than the LatD and the cultists are fearless while also giving a decent walker that far outclasses a Dark Apostle. It's a shame that a Sorcerer with Word Bearers rules is probably the fluffiest thing we have to a Dark Apostle.

[totgeboren]

Yeah, I was just trying to figure out how to make anything remotely fluffy for a WB army using these rules. The iconic units for WB are (of course) Word Bearer battle brothers, Dark Apostles, Cultists and Possessed. So I tried to make an army that takes advantage of the WB rules while also being themed around iconic WB stuff.

 

Can't say it worked, since none of these units really benefit from the special rules we got combined with the way the formations work.

 

I mean, they could have had their extreme dependence on religious leadership as, "As long as the Warlord is still alive all WB units without a Mark of Chaos gain the Zealot rule if the Warlord has the Zealot rule, or Fearless if he has the Fearless special rule. If the Warlord dies, all units must take an immediate pinning test even if they are Fearless."

 

Tadaa, it encourages you to use a Dark Apostle as Warlord, it gives a strength but also a game-changing weakness. Dunno, perhaps a bit too strong but anyway.

 

This release was frustrating. Oh well, I guess waiting 10 more years for new legion rules isn't so bad.

[tikhunt]

I think they went with the approach that the average Word Bearer is very vanilla when compared to other Legions, their whole shtick basically boils down to being chaosy in a faction of people who are chaosy. Unfortunately the fluff has directed them into being Marines that summon alot and revere the Dark Apostles which the rules get across quite well Imo. Obviously you may view the Legion very differently to how I do but I'm finding it quite easy to theorycraft a fluffy list which takes advantage of a majority of their special rules.

[totgeboren]

I saw your suggestion, but I think there is something off about a 'typical' WB warband that contains neither a Dark Apostle nor cultists. I mean, I started playing WB back at the end of 2ed, adn their IA article during 3ed pressed three things. Being lead by Chaplains, using lots of marine infantry and having tones of fanatical Cultists. Look at their 30k FW rules, they push this exact theme rather successfully.

 

I was hoping GW would do too, since I like their background. Though perhaps its possible to cram both a Warband and a LatD formation into a single army? Getting a DP in there too to take advantage of their rules would be hard though....