Word Bearers & Gellar Fields

[AndrewInOZ]

Hi all

 

quick question

 

im about to start a word bearers army..was going to start an Alpha Legion but got distracted 

 

Anyhow im doing 2 or 3  cultist army using the Cawdor gang set...1 will be out of the box & the 2nd will be using the forgeworld heads & weapons with the leader being the future release executioner figure but the 3rd unit will be another cawdor gang again with forgeworld bits but they will be called something like Follows of the Chosen or something like that but will have a Chaos Spawn as their ..wont say leader but their icon or something..i kind of like the human 3 headed version on the rear of the box

So what im doing for my storyline is that 3 figures were caught in a Gellar field failure -like that other box set, & ended up like they did & so are revered as chosen by the gods....but would the Word Bearers use a gellar field or just use dark arts to protect their ships?

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Most likely they would make use of whatever is at their disposal.  So, if they had a ship with a working gellar field, they would use it and likely only resort to sorcery where a) was necessary or b ) otherwise fit their schemes and plans.

[Marshal Loss]

From Anthony Reynolds' Word Bearers trilogy, 40k era:

 

 

 

More than one had been discovered adrift in the warp, their crews slaughtered by the denizens of the realm when their warp fields had failed. The Infidus Diabolus had no need of such warp fields, the Word Bearers embracing the creatures of that unstable realm.

 

But we also see the Word Bearers being torn apart (30k era) in Deliverance Lost when they translate without their fields active. Even Lorgar's flagship used them.

 

I'm sure some Word Bearers still use gellar fields in 40k, but if anybody is going to be using warp-tech or sorcery (or nothing at all), it's the XVII Legion.

[Doom Herald]

My understanding would be they would not use a geller field in the warp as they have no need of protection from daemons, at this point. Translating to realspace though, I would think it would make sense to use a geller field. You're moving from one dimension to the other with completely different laws of matter. Creating a realspace bubble to maintain the same laws of matter on all parts of the ship would help keep the ship, and probably crew, from being adversely affected by the shifting laws of translation.

[MegaVolt87]

WB are favored of the gods. Do they even have gellar fields anymore? Would be very cool if they didn't need them. 

[MasterDeath]

Maybe half and half? Like the WB are aware that while they are high in daemonic regards, their mortals are not, so they protect most of the ship via Geller Field and some holy places, where they commune with the warp, not. Added bonus that mortals probably cannot enter these rooms safely. 

[The_son_of_Dorn]

Favoured by the gods yes, but even deamons have ambitions. If one were to say kill a prominent WB captain in the warp, they could potentially end up leading that WB force or wipe them out to better position themselfs in their gods favour.

 

The gods care not for the lineage of their champions. Only that their champions exist to exert their will.

[MegaVolt87]

Favoured by the gods yes, but even deamons have ambitions. If one were to say kill a prominent WB captain in the warp, they could potentially end up leading that WB force or wipe them out to better position themselfs in their gods favour.

 

The gods care not for the lineage of their champions. Only that their champions exist to exert their will.

 

I think at that point the WB leader(s) in question would have made enough demonic pacts to not worry about it. Powerful entities are kinda protective of those they have a contract with, think Black Butler. If its a lay brother, its a blessing everyone is happy about them becoming a possessed. 

[RolandTHTG]

In one of the Fabius Bile novels, he takes his ship Geller Field down through the warp for a very short time in order to sneak into a 'harbor' in the Eye. Even with a Word bearer working for him, putting up wards and stuff, its noted that the regular ship crew takes bad casualties, and demons are still able to force their way onto the bridge in weakened form. I think most WB ships would still have the Fields up to supplement the wards, if just to reduce casualties among the crew for efficiency reasons. 

 

As far as being protected by pacts, several of the deamons target that WB for attack specifically because of his demon binding skill, for deamons are proud, and don't like being bound to serve others. So that strength might actually become a negative if the 'wrong' deamons target the ship during warp transit. The soul of a deamon binder is valuable currency in the empyrean realms. 

[AndrewInOZ]

Ok thanks one & all.... so looks like i will still run with the Gellar Field story line 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

As a note, even if your WB are protecting themselves with sorcery, doesn't mean that their can't be a "gellar field incident" - a failure of the sorcery protecting the ship would likely be indistinguishable in effect from a failure of a gellar field.  So, even if protected by sorcery, there could be a momentary weakness or failure that let something through, just as there could be with a ship protected by a gellar field.