Word Bearers: Which units fit the background?

[Hannibal]

Hi all,

 

I own a pretty large amount of Daemons and niw like to dive into Chaos Space Marines. The one Traitor Legion I'm most interested in are Word Bearers due to their Dark Apostles and their overall background (at least what I know about it).

 

Well, that being said I'm not sure which units in the codex fit the background of the Word Bearers. IMO lexicanum is nit clear on this topic. Therefore I like to get some advice from you. Which units should I incorporate in a Word Bearers list?

What about Berzerkers, Plaque Marines and the like?

What about Daemons?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Kite Senet]

This is in my opinion, based on my reading of the first book from the Word Bearers Omnibus, so it may vary a bit from this:

 

Dedication to an individual chaos god is slightly frowned upon by the Word Bearers, so the god-dedicated elite choices (Berzerkers, Plague Marines, Rubric Marines, and Noise Marines) would not be likely.

 

Cultists are omnipresent for the Word Bearers. They can't get enough Cultists.

 

The Word Bearers definitely seem to like daemons, to the extent that they were living peaceably with a permanent (generic, non-god-dedicated) daemonic infestation in a ship that traveled through the warp without a Gellar field on (if I understood that correctly...it still seems insane to me).

 

Word Bearers love getting possessed, so Possessed obviously are a good, fluffy choice. Also Chosen.

 

They also like ascending into Daemon Princes, so they too are a good choice.

 

Dark Apostles are an obvious yes.

 

I would lean slightly away from lots of technology like tanks and daemon engines; the Word Bearers surely have some but it really isn't an emphasis of their army.

[Sonoftherubric21]

As above but a couple added points; Word Bearers were actually the FIRST legion on record to use "Daemon Engines" at all. So its clear they make and employ them. 

Proto-Defilers were used during the assault on Calth, Daemon allies abundant. Possessed are a "duh" unit for them as the Gal Vorbak and the second gen (and beyond) Gal Vorbak units were all really good possessed shock troops.  

 

Cultists, lots of Chaos Marines (they are a horde after all in many respects), Daemon Princes, Anything with the "daemon" keyword, allied daemons of all 4 varieties are obviously good choices.  

Remember this when looking at the Word bearers; Decent strategem to summon, AMAZING relic weapon, Decent warlord trait (larger auras? yes please!), "meh" Base legion trait, not particularly good unless your frequently wiffing morale checks but useful in corner cases when you flub a roll on them badly. 

[DreamIsCollapsing]

They also got the first "Hellbrute".

 

And one of theirs 30k speciality was Jetpack units with flamers, so raptor.

 

WB are like BL : there is no wrong choice (except Fabius and Cypher)

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

Don't forget The Annointed, which are usually Terminators.

[ChazSexington]

Word Bearers can justify using absolutely any unit, though maybe Daemon Engines, Cultists, Dark Apostles, and Possessed are more common among them than other Legions.

[totgeboren]

It's been a long time since the Horus Heresy, and especially a long time since 3ed.

Back in the (2ed-3ed) day, the BL were about Chaos Undivided by combining all Cult units (and legions!) under a single banner, while the WB were a sort of insular Chaos Undivided legion, so no Cults at all but all sorts of daemons and tons of cultists.

 

Due to the fact that Warbands (or Hosts in the WB case) can go their own path, and the path from the HH to now is a long one, anything goes.
I have a unit of PM and NM in my WB army that are supposed to represent WB marines (I wont go into the background). I also have a unit of Berzerker, but they are painted as BL, being emissaries of Abbadon, and a bunch of Thousand Sons who are supposed to represent an alliance (they are employed as my navigators kinda like in the Ahriman series).

 

Buy the models you like, paint them as you like, and come up with a background that you like. :)

[Kinstryfe]

I know there's one bit of fluff out there about the WB consulting portents extensively before committing to battle, and that they will as a result sometimes commit unusual forces because they believe the Gods want them to. So really, I'd imagine most units would be perfectly acceptable. Marked Cult units may be iffy, but they could always have some weak souls among them who fell headlong into worshipping a single God. The only ones I'd find hard to really explain would be Thousand Sons rubric marines. Any marine who falls to Khorne or Nurgle could conceivably become a Berzerker or Plague Marine. I could even see any marine falling to Slaanesh tinkering with their weapons to become some sort of Noise Marine. I've always found it problematic that all rubric marines are necessarily going to be Thousand Sons.

 

Everything else though, I'd say is perfectly fair game.

[Kite Senet]

Formally speaking, it's inaccurate to suggest all Rubric Marines are Thousand Sons or of Thousand Sons origin. I recall that the Black Legion also has access to the rubric and has utilized it to obtain their own Rubric Marines separate from the Rubric of Ahriman itself. That said, they probably got the rubric technique from the Thousand Sons in some way.

 

Furthermore, I wouldn't hesitate to play some Word Bearers-ified quasi-Rubrics: for example, a unit of captured loyalist marines who have been blessed with the opportunity to see the glory of Chaos first-hand; to be possessed, but to have their every action guided by a daemonic servant of the Chaos gods, their eyes and ears eternally and only their own, but their every deed done for Chaos, only a spectator in their own flesh; and these daemons, blind as they are without access to their host's senses, guided by the psychic orders of a sorcerer-priest.

[Khornestar]

It’s also possible for a Sorcerer of great talents/potency to bind Rubricae to his will. They’re essentially automaton slaves. There’s no reason a WB sorc matching that description couldn’t pull it off after icing their former master.

[Hannibal]

Thanks for all those great advice. Really enjoy it.

 

Though I simply can't decide which route to run. :(

[Kite Senet]

It’s also possible for a Sorcerer of great talents/potency to bind Rubricae to his will. They’re essentially automaton slaves. There’s no reason a WB sorc matching that description couldn’t pull it off after icing their former master.

Potentially, but he might need to have the foresight to tear the Rubricae's names from the previous sorcerer's mind before icing him, since (at least according to the Ahriman books) the name of the rubricae is used to activate and control it; hence why any old librarian can't steal a unit of rubricae right there in the middle of a battle.

[Slan Drakkos]

Pretty much everything in the chaos codex is fair game for them. Cult units are NOT off the table for them. There are actually many in the WB legion that worship singular gods. It's just that the vast majority of them worship all of the gods. The real question I have is this: what daemons are you using? This question matters the most because using WB units that shore up the weak points of your army is important.

[Panzer]

The Word Bearer Sorcerer could simply have knowledge of the Rubric too. It's not the secret it once used to be.

[Kite Senet]

I was under the impression that there was some substantial stigma within the Word Bearers towards dedicating oneself to only one particular Chaos god, so I skimmed through all of my copy of Dark Apostle in Anthony Reynolds's Word Bearers: the Omnibus today. I found:

• LOTS. OF. CULTISTS.
• A lot more Daemon Engines than I remembered, including a scene involving an entire menagerie of them.
• Very little mention of individual Chaos gods, but much mention of "the Chaos gods".
  • Khorne is mentioned exactly once, on page 109:

    He had ensured that his most vicious, blood-hungry warriors, those who had strayed closest to the dedicated worship of blessed Khorne, were the first wave of Word Bearers to engage the enemy, and they cleaved into the foe with brutal force.

    This is where I obtained the impression that there was some stigma within Lorgar's Legion towards worship of a single god, since dedication strictly to Khorne is described as "straying" and furthermore it is implied by this that there are none who actually are dedicated worshipers of Khorne; only those who stray "closest" to it. That said, I think I may have implicitly reinforced this interpretation by confusion with attitudes of the Iron Warriors and Night Lords from their Omnibuses; I found no further quote beyond this one to suggest dedication to an individual Chaos god is verboten or stigmatized.
  • Slaanesh is mentioned exactly once, on page 141, in passing reference.
  • Tzeentch's name shows up three times; daemons implied to be Screamers of Tzeentch on page 211, again on page 212; and in passing reference on page 231.
  • Nurgle remains forever alone, having never been mentioned by name, as best I can tell, even a single time in Dark Apostle.

Overall, I would conclude that, due to the near total absence of reference to individual Chaos gods in favor of the gods as a collective, the division of Word Bearers depicted in Dark Apostle is almost exclusively Chaos Undivided, permitting some variation in the proportions of worship one allots to each god, and that the Chaos gods are predominately worshiped in general as a pantheon within that Word Bearers division as opposed to worshiped as an individual's unique patron god as in the cult units.

 

But as before, don't get too caught up with this particular fluff if you don't want to, though. If you don't want to play cult units, you can use the above "cult stigma" as a good excuse. If you do want to play cult units, then unless your warband is literally supposed to depict the 34th Host from the novel, there's little reason to assume that the 34th Host lore should be binding upon your warband. 40k is, as it ever is, a game about Your Dudes, after all; e.g. if your Dark Apostle realizes Tzeentch is the best Chaos god, a warband absolutely dedicated to him is completely plausible within the fluff.

[Kinstryfe]

It's probably a lot like other depictions of polytheistic religions. A World Eater will worship Khorne and only Khorne, and so 100% of their efforts will go into pleasing Khorne, and any boon they may receive will undoubtedly be from Khorne. I'd imagine most Word Bearers worship all the Gods as a fact, because they are sure of their existence, but pay them worship when appropriate. I'd be surprised if they don't also worship many of the minor gods of the warp, and even pay tribute to certain daemonic powers as a sort of saint. So when a Word Bearer goes into battle, he will pray to Khorne to guide his blade. When they are besieged, they pray to Nurgle to keep their resolve unchanging. When they undertake a particularly arduous journey they sacrifice three imperial children to Gz'Ard'Kthn, as is tradition, as the minor warp god of the feeling of joy at beating an enemy to an objective due to their unexpected misfortunes. Etc, etc, etc. So just like how, in a made up example loosely based on old religions, a Roman Baker may have worshipped the entire Roman Pantheon but given special tribute to Ceres for a good crop or Pluto for prosperity, a Word Bearer with a penchant for close quarters combat will worship Tzeentch or Slaanesh or Nurgle or whomever when appropriate, they may be spending most of their devotion to Khorne, the god most relevant to their interests, and would be therefore much more likely to receive attention or boons from Khorne than the others. So in my mind the big difference is that a World Eaters Berzerker is all Khorne all the time, while a Word Bearers Berzerker will be all about Khorne most of the time, but still pay tribute to the rest of the Pantheon. In terms of 40K, they would play identically on the battlefield. In an RPG or literature, there could be a world of difference, I would imagine.

[+Chaplain Matthias+]

The only ones I'd find hard to really explain would be Thousand Sons rubric marines.

I was going to do my WB Rubric Marines differently. The aspiring sorc will be tzeentch aligned obviously. And the Marines would be enemy suits of power armor that he animates. The Marines inside would be turned into blood golems instead of dust. I was going to use those spirit hosts from AoS, painted with 'blood for the blood god' to represent the living and animated blood demons swirling around the power armor. In my head Canon, WB sorcerers spend some time devoted to each of the chaos Gods (except khorne)as a sort of apprenticeship before becoming a Sorcerer of chaos undivided.

 

Oh and my zerks are space wolves who fell to the influence of my dark appostle. I was thinking of some other corrupted loyalists for my other cult units but I'm not sure which yet. Blood angel noise Marines maybe?

[Kinstryfe]

 

The only ones I'd find hard to really explain would be Thousand Sons rubric marines.

I was going to do my WB Rubric Marines differently. The aspiring sorc will be tzeentch aligned obviously. And the Marines would be enemy suits of power armor that he animates. The Marines inside would be turned into blood golems instead of dust. I was going to use those spirit hosts from AoS, painted with 'blood for the blood god' to represent the living and animated blood demons swirling around the power armor. In my head Canon, WB sorcerers spend some time devoted to each of the chaos Gods (except khorne)as a sort of apprenticeship before becoming a Sorcerer of chaos undivided.

Oh and my zerks are space wolves who fell to the influence of my dark appostle. I was thinking of some other corrupted loyalists for my other cult units but I'm not sure which yet. Blood angel noise Marines maybe?

I kinda love your corrupted loyalists idea. It's heresy of the highest order for Word Bearers to devote themselves to only one god, but if they trick a bunch of filthy loyalists into doing just that, well, they're loyalists anyway, who cares what they do.

 

I've always thought Blood Angels were as good a fit for Slannesh as Khorne, personally, so I think that would fit nicely.

[totgeboren]

 

The only ones I'd find hard to really explain would be Thousand Sons rubric marines.

I was going to do my WB Rubric Marines differently. The aspiring sorc will be tzeentch aligned obviously. And the Marines would be enemy suits of power armor that he animates. The Marines inside would be turned into blood golems instead of dust. I was going to use those spirit hosts from AoS, painted with 'blood for the blood god' to represent the living and animated blood demons swirling around the power armor. In my head Canon, WB sorcerers spend some time devoted to each of the chaos Gods (except khorne)as a sort of apprenticeship before becoming a Sorcerer of chaos undivided.

 

Oh and my zerks are space wolves who fell to the influence of my dark appostle. I was thinking of some other corrupted loyalists for my other cult units but I'm not sure which yet. Blood angel noise Marines maybe?

 

 

My Plague Marines have semi-similar source of inspiration, being the result of my Chief-Apothecary, biologis-occultist supreme, developing a serum that when injected into a freshly deceased body reanimates it into horrible half-life. The Dark Apostle then binds husks to his will and thus prevent the reanimate from going all zombie-apocalypse on my Word Bearers.

This gives the Host a lot more resilience to attrition, by being able to reanimate both fallen Word Bearers, Cultists and even enemies (UM zombies! >:D)

 

It really just started as me wanting an excuse to field tones of zombies along my WB (got 105 so far, but the new rules made them a bit too expensive for my taste), and I had a bunch of PM unpainted in a box for years, and I made an Apothecary as a count-as Typhus. But the backstory developed enough that I rather enjoy it on its own merit. :)

[+Chaplain Matthias+]

 

 

The only ones I'd find hard to really explain would be Thousand Sons rubric marines.

I was going to do my WB Rubric Marines differently. The aspiring sorc will be tzeentch aligned obviously. And the Marines would be enemy suits of power armor that he animates. The Marines inside would be turned into blood golems instead of dust. I was going to use those spirit hosts from AoS, painted with 'blood for the blood god' to represent the living and animated blood demons swirling around the power armor. In my head Canon, WB sorcerers spend some time devoted to each of the chaos Gods (except khorne)as a sort of apprenticeship before becoming a Sorcerer of chaos undivided.

Oh and my zerks are space wolves who fell to the influence of my dark appostle. I was thinking of some other corrupted loyalists for my other cult units but I'm not sure which yet. Blood angel noise Marines maybe?

I kinda love your corrupted loyalists idea. It's heresy of the highest order for Word Bearers to devote themselves to only one god, but if they trick a bunch of filthy loyalists into doing just that, well, they're loyalists anyway, who cares what they do.

 

I've always thought Blood Angels were as good a fit for Slannesh as Khorne, personally, so I think that would fit nicely.

Yeah I think so too. I think fallen blood angels would look more slaaneshi than khornate. Like hedonistic vampires giving into their nature. Oh man I'm gonna have fun making that unit.

[MaliGn]

It really helps that the death company models are covered in oath papers and reliquaries that look awesome on word bearers.

[Dr. Clock]

If you're serious about Word Bearers, then I'd build the list around maximizing their Legion ability. In all honesty, it's not as easy to use as the others, but I think it can still be pretty decent for a Cultist-based list with an easy +12 CP from a Brigade. 

 

I'd look to find the sweet spot in terms of numbers for Cultists with the WB Apostle Ld buffs, taking 4-6 units of them to try and use Tide of Traitors a couple times to 'refresh' units. I used 3x16 Cultists in a WE list last night and I do feel that that size is just about right.

 

With the higher Ld of an Apostle nearby, larger units of marines also start looking interesting, so my basic strategy for WB would probably start with 4x15 Cultist + 2x Marines of some kind (Possessed or just chainsword blokes) as the 'bodyguards' to 2xApostle. To fill a Brigade also be looking at some cheap Spawn, and then whatever else to taste.

 

A quick 2000pt WB Brigade list for me would be:

 

Jump Lord w/ combi-melta

2x Dark Apostle

 

4x16 Cultists

2x5 Chaos Marines, lascannons

 

Helbrute

2x6 Possessed

 

2x1 Spawn

1x8 triple-melta Raptors

 

1x6 Havocs, 3 lascannon

2x Lasher Maulerfiends

 

This is more MSU than one might expect but it seems like it'd be pretty flexible and has plenty of Command Points (15) to play around with. It would play just as one might expect, with the Apostles, Cultists and Possessed up front, flanking Maulers, a decent firebase w/ campers and just a sprinkle of deepstriking Melta. It's a bit of a Paper build and obviously there are other ways to theme it up at the expense of CP or more points. I often find myself asking 'What would a Brigade look like' alot when thinking through different builds, and I think at 2000 this should work pretty well in a semi-casual environment even if it could take a while to get the hang of Stratagem timing and trying to actually get stuff done with Cultists lol.

 

Re: Theming and army build

 

When I want to bring out the 'Cultists' theme for my World Eaters, most often end up using a smallish Renegades and Heretics Battalion of just 3xMutants (Beastmen for me) and a few artillery pieces. I find that for thematic purposes 2x Battalions (one CSM, one R&H) can be a bit more interesting in that it can show off at least some kind of Cultist command structure and unit diversity. For me it makes sense because none of my actual marines give a fig about shooting outside of 12", so having 2x Earthshaker batteries, some Rapiers and heavy Quads in back give me a little shooting game.  

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Kite Senet]

Didn't they restrict Tide of Traitors to one use per game in the Big FAQ?

[Dr. Clock]

Didn't they restrict Tide of Traitors to one use per game in the Big FAQ?

So they did! ... List should still work, it just won't be as extremely annoying (?).

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Paradill]

Although the absolute dedicated worship of only one of the infinitesimal warp entities is discouraged in the legion, dont let that discourage you from having marked troops. They still evoke specific gods to suit their needs during battle. In the word Bearers series, Khalixis is essentially a Khorne berserker, chainaxe and all, he even becomes difficult for the Coryphaus and first Acolyte to command during combat because he goes full raging CC beast and just keeps killing. Marduk calls on each of the Gods individually when required for specific circumstances. So there is no reason a Hosts warriors wouldn’t worship all the gods but only call on Khorne or Nurgle to suit their fighting style in battle. They’re just less likely to get Nurgles full time blessing. :)