++ World Eaters - 9th Edition Tactica ++

[Prot]

Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't sure if there was a way to get Invocatus' trait working WITH Angron in the list. Darn.

 

I just watched another batrep from Art of War and it was a 2 turn game with Orks Vs. WE with Angron dying in T1. I think sometimes those guys use some pretty small terrain pieces (I realize they are trying to promote for sponsors so I don't blame them.) But the game was won by Orks in T2. Ouch.

 

This may change but for now I honestly think Angron may not stay in top lists. Out of all the games I've seen, he seems to die very easily, and I always think of what the player COULD be doing with all those BT points! A good opponent is going to layer in some screening units. 

 

I'm still wanting to stick some plasma pistols in the Zerker squads. IF they ever became free I'd look like a genius. But that's never been the case so I'll probably just regret it. lol . I just see a time  where I think being in CC, or close to a target and taking that final wound or two off of something in the 'shooting phase' could be huge for a mere...15 points per list?

 

++++++++++++++

Exalted vs. 8 Bound. I agree points are critical here. Once GW has saturated the market with that kit, we don't know what will happen. BUT I do think WE will probably do one thing for the meta: Force people to take screening units again. (They've all but disappeared for most factions.)  If what I'm thinking comes to fruition, hopefully they don't jack the points up. 

 

I love both units, but especially without Invocatus' trait, the Exalted become even a little more enticing for me with dual chain fists.

[WrathOfTheLion]

There's no way to make that work. As of now, you pick one or the other. I don't think Angron is going to stay in the most powerful lists. He's just too easy to take out, and skews the list too much to make it 'great' I think. There's too much affecting your behavior, such as with how you spend BT points. With the right screening, you can make him have to eat some chaff unit, not be able to consolidate into another combat and then just blast him off the board.

 

Normal Eightbound really pull ahead in an Invocatus list, being able to be shot forward in that pregame move. I do like the kit, and I bought a couple of them, but I really think it's unwise to skew in really heavily on them right now. The second anything changes and you're left with 10+ eightbound you'll just never use, especially when they're $60 for 3.

 

I'm looking at something along the lines of

• Lord Invocatus
• Chaos Lord on Juggernaut
• Master of Executions
• 1 squad of eightbound
• 1 squad of exalted
• spawn
• some Jakhals
• berserkers + rhinos
• some terminators
• Sprinkle in whatever else

It may not be the best, but I think it'll be fairly resilient to a lot of change over the next few months.

Edited February 20, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Dr. Clock]

First game in, and jakhals are here to stay.

 

Played vs Sisters

2100pts : [for narrative fun, we always build lists with a 'slotless' non-mandatory character who a) must cost less than 100 points, b) may be accompanied by a retinue if such a thing exists in the list, and c) can never take a Relic or Warlord trait. In this case it's my Master of Executions vs enemy Inquisitor + crusaders]

 

List:

 

Invocatus

Winged Sword Prince (I think for the slight points premium he's better and easier to use than a regular juggerlord. Wish his move bonus affected jakhals, but oh well)

MoExecutions

 

4x10 Jakhals

10 + 8 + 6 Zerks

 

2 Helbrutes (one las, one melta)

 

3x1 Spawn

 

Defiler (auto / hf)

2x maulerfiends (one melta one lashers)

 

Rhino (for 8 Zerks and MoE)

 

Basically it's Invocatus + 16 Zerks rushing left, Maulers and Prince + Spawn rushing middle, Rhino + 20 jakhals running right.

Helbrutes, Defiler and 20 jakhals skirmish rear and plug gaps.

 

Jakhals are unit of the match on 2 counts: turn 1 completely obliterate rushing repentia who would have fought on death to kill Zerks on that flank. Then Turn 4 sees 2 remaining home objective jakhals take a charge from 6 seraphim, and interrupt to murder them all.

 

It's a narrow margin, though... maulers and zerks both did good work but enemy was focusing them down to the point that only the rhino unit really traded up. The maulers did what you expect when enemy is focusing Zerks; they stayed around jusssst long enough to kill a bunch of sisters and break the line. But Jakhals really shone on both killing and scoring, way above the 300 points I spent. Invocatus boxed in an entire flank for 2 turns as well, so he's definitely auto-include, and the pre-game move feels indispensable to me.

 

Demonic allies are next for testing, and after that I'll have the 'sprinkling of 8Bound' painted up. Thinking 5 regular and 3 Exalted is sufficient for my taste, probably in place of 10 jakhals, 8 Zerks, 1 Spawn, swap defiler for 3rd mauler and drop one brute lascannon for... plasma lol?

 

Was originally thinking 20 jakhals minimum, but I think that just went to 30 ; )

 

Angron certainly seems fun, but he constrains Tithe just as much as he sucks it up when he invariably dies. Seems like working against yourself. I'd mostly rather keep on using my daemon engines / helbrutes and get my whole army +1 to hit, with the extra AP, and charge distance... and 6+ FNP lol. Maybe someday I'll splurge on a Red Angel, but I'm liking the full horde mentality for the time being.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Prot]

Interesting. As a batrep you really could have started a new thread because there is a lot to go over here, but one thing I'd ask is if you put anything extra into the Jakhals? Or were they vanilla?

 

I'm also currently seeing Angron as a giant fire magnet that sucks up Tithe points. (Ironically he seems to play out exactly like that awesome piece of artwork with the Krieg troops in it where Angron is taking a boatload of firepower in the face.)

 

[Dr. Clock]

4 hours ago, Prot said:

As a batrep you really could have started a new thread because there is a lot to go over here, but one thing I'd ask is if you put anything extra into the Jakhals? Or were they vanilla?

Thanks, Prot! I'll make a new thread for next game : )

 

Didn't take any mauler chainblades or icons, but I did take a Dishonored w/ Skullsmasher upgrade for each unit. I literally never used them as their brethren murdered everything before they could, or they had died earlier due to my own sloppy pulls/positioning. I'll keep the 5pts on Dishonored just for a dash of Dmg 2 into majority 2W armies most likely and because it's also a nice way to use some of my AoS Bloodbound mortal characters, Warcry Iron Golem and Necromunda Goliath champions or whatever.

 

Icons and maulers are a pass from me. If they weren't already best at min size for scoring and Tithe I might consider a couple 20 bricks w/Icons... But I play GSC as well and being able to go up to 12 Troops now means I tend to just Ctrl+v a minimum viable unit three times as a starting point on any list. It's 10 Neos with 2 seismic for GS, but 10 Jakhals are the perfect package for this list in a way that even Zerks aren't, because Zerks actually COST REAL PTS and are obvious AP-2/3 magnets. Of course Jakhals being non-Core limits their syngery potential, though. Zerks are still essential, but I think a pretty much equal UNIT ratios of Zerks, Jakhals, Spawn and 'insert Daemon engine/unit' will be my rough order of battle going forward.

 

The hardest part of the lists now is 'Zerks MSU 4x5 or 3x6-8'? Maxing use of Invocatus has me thinking 'unit in rhino and 2 chonkier units with Invocatus', but should those 2 foot units become 3x5? If they all got pre-game move that'd be one thing, but potentially leaving one of the units back or outflanking with it doesn't seem bad given that those aggro Zerks around the Invocatus are not likely to last long in any event. 

 

Next list:

 

Invocatus

Winged Sword Prince

MoExecutions

 

3x10 Jakhals

8 + 8 + 9 Zerks (or 5x5? 3x5 +9 in Rhino?)

 

Helbrute (melta)

 

3x1 Spawn

 

2x maulerfiends (one melta one lashers)

 

Rhino (for 9 Zerks and MoE; or if going 5x5 Zerks, 2x5 in here and MoE walks around with remaining 5 after 2x5 pre-game move and rush with Invo?)

 

Daemons Patrol:

Karanak

10 'Letters

2x5 Flesh Hounds

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

 

[Prot]

So did you play Chaos Space Marines prior to this? The reason I ask is the common "Cultist" appears to have the same role, except for cheaper. Am I missing something? 

 

The Accursed Cultists seem to be notably better than Jahkals (The worst thing being you lose the ability to perform actions). The Jakhal ability to do D3 mortals to get up to S4 seems a little underwhelming. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the look of the unit, but I can't see using more than a single minimum squad. I just keep wanting to put more points into Berzerkers. I'm curious what made them really seem so good for you considering the existence of Cultists/Accursed Cultists. 

[Dr. Clock]

34 minutes ago, Prot said:

The Accursed Cultists seem to be notably better than Jahkals (The worst thing being you lose the ability to perform actions). The Jakhal ability to do D3 mortals to get up to S4 seems a little underwhelming. 

Yes! I took Accursed a few times and they really are good!

 

In a vacuum, I'd take both; jakhals to die for Tithe, and Accursed to survive on points a bit more.

 

As to conventional cultists for sheer economy I'd probably take them in 50pt squads if they were in the WE list.

 

Unfortunately the only way to get either into WE is to sink at least 100 points into some kind of CSM infantry. I guess this niche build is a reason to keep my meltacide raptors around for the occasional game? At this point I'm probably just going to gift them to an Undivided CSM friend...

 

I do like the idea of retaining the Discordant Lord, so I started down the allies road a couple times... and I'm not clear on whether Berzerkers in an Agents of Chaos ally detachment can benefit from Tithe? Technically they lose any 'Legion' keywords so they stop being part of the main list if you matryoshka them into the patrol, right?

 

So ideally, yes:

 

My preferred option would be a Patrol of just Disco Lord and 2 'tank' Accursed units.

 

Reflecting more on this since the game, though, the 2pt premium over regular cultists gets you +1A, -1AP, extra +1A and S on the charge/when charged, but it also gives you +1 potential Tithe and the ability to benefit from Tithe abilities.  This specifically led to the situation where 2 lone jakhals killed 6 charging sisters to hold my home objective into bottom turn 4.

 

I suppose their +1A and the charging turn benefits are more or less a wash in loss of autopistol and other Legion traits similar to Relentless Rage, but 2pts for -1ap and benefitting from tithe economy is gonna be worth it at least a couple times in any list, I figure, and for me probably 3 times most of the time.

 

That said, if I was running or wanting to run multiple rhinos then that will certainly also work: I could see 'rhino or jakhals' as a pretty reasonable choice point depending on how many zerks you prefer to run. For me, 3 units of Zerks is mostly plenty. I like them to still feel a bit special, so having them surrounded by a carpet of mere mortals makes them seem more impressive in comparison. A single unit of jakhals would still be sound for home objective camping even in an armoured list, though.

 

I've been running CSM horde lists since 7th ed., so for me the choice is mostly made. I might get some Heresy rhinos at some point, but my single rage bawx is good enough for the now.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[chapter master 454]

So, coming in to world eaters as my first traitor legion, having been loyalist for a while. Decided to see what fellow fraters seem to say.

 

Personally, somewhat conflicted now but not going to change course because it was what I wanted to do anyway and I find the codex actually has a sub-faction for what I wanted to do anyway: Eightbound spam...though seems I am one of many on a bandwagon but meh...I want to butcher with some daemon infused angry bois with the angriest leading, whether he is meta or not be tossed back to the warp! I will behead and cause bloodshed how I want.

 

Looking to set myself up with a daemon prince to back up angron and maybe run a juggerlord as well but bring basically as much eightbound as I can, 3 exalted squads and then max out on the normal within reason (15...but may just go full 18 if points are spare) however I do notice a lack of range to help trigger blood-tithe harvesting so considering some forgefiends...

What is any advice one would give a frater coming into the business of going full Khorne other than the basic ABCs (Always Be Chopping) in terms of units?

[Pirate Empress]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:46 PM, WrathOfTheLion said:

There is no way to use Invocatus' trait if you take Angron. There is no strategem to give out an extra Warlord trait, so if you take Angron, he must be your Warlord and you will lose out on that.

 

MSU I think is a good idea. Spawn are going to be good there.

 

Termies are going to be great for those shooting phase kills, same with things like Predators, Land Raiders and Helbrutes. Points are going to vary here, and in my mind, I expect in 2 or 3 months we'll see reductions on those to match the reductions in other factions. They should be more competitive after that.

 

Eightbound are the rage right now, but just one points hike will leave folks reevaluating spamming them. I personally am going for a combined arms approach (Termies, Berserkers/Rhinos, Predator, Helbrute), with the staples of some Eightbound, Chaos Lord on Jugg, Lord Invocatus, etc.

You know, I'm curious, Eightbound spam probably could get points nerfed away but do you think with the slew of World Eaters rules if three Helbrutes for cheap anti-tank/distraction carnifexes might not be a bad play. Take the heat off of Rhino Rushing squads of Khorne Berzerkers.

[WrathOfTheLion]

5 hours ago, Pirate Empress said:

You know, I'm curious, Eightbound spam probably could get points nerfed away but do you think with the slew of World Eaters rules if three Helbrutes for cheap anti-tank/distraction carnifexes might not be a bad play. Take the heat off of Rhino Rushing squads of Khorne Berzerkers.

I don't know about three Helbrutes, but yeah, that's the idea with my combined arms approach. The opponent will either focus on them, leaving the melee to come in and hit them, or they will focus on the scarier melee units, letting the ranged units start doing some unexpected (on their side) ranged damage.

[Khornestar]

If they bother to give WE points reductions to match CSM, they’d be very worth taking imo.

[WrathOfTheLion]

2 hours ago, Khornestar said:

If they bother to give WE points reductions to match CSM, they’d be very worth taking imo.

I think it's the same with vehicles. Predators and Helbrutes aren't the best right now, but with some points reductions they'll be in a better spot.

 

Helbrutes were definitely a pretty good addition to the army. I watched one of my friends play yesterday, and I liked what I saw with how they performed.

[Khornestar]

44 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

I think it's the same with vehicles. Predators and Helbrutes aren't the best right now, but with some points reductions they'll be in a better spot.

 

Helbrutes were definitely a pretty good addition to the army. I watched one of my friends play yesterday, and I liked what I saw with how they performed.

What was the helbrute loadout and the matchup?

[WrathOfTheLion]

28 minutes ago, Khornestar said:

What was the helbrute loadout and the matchup?

All melee (tendrils + fist) vs Guard with lots of large tanks. I personally would've taken MM + Fist.

 

Guard won, but I think that had a lot to do with them going first and how the WE were deployed.

 

Predators got shot off the board, but that was to be expected from Shadowswords and all.

Edited February 26, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[BlessedXVII]

Hey guys, I'm thinking of getting back into 40k by repurposing my 30k World Eaters. Can I field this without taking Lord Invocatus or Rhinos in a casual setting, or am I just going to get shot off the board? My hope is that Blood Surge + long bomb charges on the icon units (using the Icon of Wrath strategem and possibly a command point reroll) will help the Berserkers get into melee.

 

I haven't played any games of 9th edition, so I don't really know what I'm doing. My initial stab at a list is as follows:

 

Battalion Detachment

World Eaters Daemon Prince (Warlord)
+Hellforged Sword
+Wings
+Warlord Trait: Favoured of Khorne
+Relic: Helm of Brazen Ire

 

Khârn the Betrayer

 

Khorne Berserkers (x5)
+Khornate eviscerator

 

Khorne Berserkers (x5)
+Khornate eviscerator

 

Khorne Berserkers (x8)
+Berserker icon
+Khornate eviscerator

 

Khorne Berserkers (x8)
+Berserker icon
+Khornate eviscerator

 

Helbrute
+Helbrute fist
+Helbrute plasma cannon

 

Helbrute
+Helbrute fist
+Helbrute plasma cannon

 

Helbrute

+Missile launcher
+Twin lascannon

 

World Eaters Terminators (x6)

+Champion has double accursed weapons
+2x power fists

 

Chaos Spawn

 

Chaos Spawn

[Prot]

Welcome Blessed,

 

I wish you had Rhino's in the list, but the list looks fine. The thing you'll quickly realize is the shooting is fairly specialized or non existent in WE for 40K, but you need to get there fast. 40K is really heavily entrenched in what secondaries you take so really list planning, imho, should be based on your secondaries, not the other way around. This is a fine way to start, and just taking the WE secondaries will get you far since they play right into a killing playstyle. Icons are great for taking banners, but othewise they allow a strat to be played, though not essential otherwise.

 

To make a long story short, a lot of what you experience going forward with this list is going to be terrain dependent. If you play on planet bowling bowl, you're going to have a rough time. Everything dies very fast in current 40K. That said your list is going to mulch a lot of units when it gets there.

[Dr. Clock]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:31 PM, BlessedXVII said:

Can I field this without taking Lord Invocatus or Rhinos in a casual setting, or am I just going to get shot off the board?

Maybe - terrain and match-up dependent as Prot suggested.

 

Simple possible changes: swap 2x8 Zerks to 2x5 + 1x6; I don't actually think there's a benefit to anything bigger than a 5 unless you are trying to maximize movement buffs off Invo/juggerlord or get in a transport with a character. Here you've covered a few more with Icons, but the extra unit gives +1 BTP potential and makes it more likely that opponent shooting will overkill and lose efficiency. Also 5s are easier to hide, which you will be in turn 1/2.

 

First suggested unit swap is one Helbrute out for Rhino. I've only ever run one rhino for my WE and just throwing Khârn in there with the 6-man you end up with from above gets you slightly faster, which you're gonna need.

 

Other than that, I'd consider Reserving a unit or two of the Zerks to push one or both flanks, especially if the terrain doesn't let you hide them all sufficiently in the DZ. Alpha strikes will put you down easy if you're not careful. I'd likely plan on Zerks as '3rd turn charge' with Prince and terminators going in hot as distractions on turn 2 to cover the Zerks. So turn 1 hug cover, turn 2 Prince and termies are main bait units along with at least one aggro helbrute, which ideally means your other units can start to line up elsewhere, or clear chaffe / midfield. Then hopefully the prince and termies soak enough fire that turn three there are enough Zerks through the line to make it count, which it turns out is not really that many! So you don't have that many units, but it's still likely gonna pay off to deploy pretty wide and spread out more than clump up to hedge enemy line in and take as much ground as possible.

 

With 9+" move units and/or pre-game moves it feels like the list can play to early game knock-out. Without more than the one wing prince and terminators to put pressure up board though, I think you'll be better off playing for much later in the game. This could make the Red Angel... angry... but then he always was.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's been a while, and the Codex has been out for a bit. There's definitely some strong builds out there, and the win rates are looking strong with some GT wins.

 

Angron lists and Invocatus lists both look like they're pulling some weight, which I find quite interesting.

 

I'm still pretty interested in what good non-Eightbound spam lists will end up at. While I like the Eightbound, I don't think 8 boxes or whatever is within the realms of what normal folks are going to purchase.

[techsoldaten]

2 hours ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

It's been a while, and the Codex has been out for a bit. There's definitely some strong builds out there, and the win rates are looking strong with some GT wins.

 

Angron lists and Invocatus lists both look like they're pulling some weight, which I find quite interesting.

 

I'm still pretty interested in what good non-Eightbound spam lists will end up at. While I like the Eightbound, I don't think 8 boxes or whatever is within the realms of what normal folks are going to purchase.

 

Last night, I saw an army where the Eightbound were all 3D printed proxies, and the model he used for Invocatus was RT-era.

 

Really curious about how many people want to pay $20 a model to run Eightbound. And how many will regret it if they get nerfed in 10th.

 

My guess is they will sell okay so long as World Eaters continue their impressive performance. Once they get nerfed, Eightbound go the way of Mutilators.

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

I rather like the models, and grabbed 3 I think.

 

I'm not interested in maxing out buying 8-10 boxes at this point in time, and that's likely a common viewpoint.

[Prot]

Personally, I only buy models I love the look of. Period. So the cost is relevant, but I won't regret buying 3 boxes of 8Bound. (1 was made into Exalted). 

 

I honestly don't think they'll be nerfed. The codex is too small and not potent enough in my opinion to make that kind of splash. It exists, and thrives in the 'violence phase' of the game. You can't really turn that down too much without utterly breaking it. It's not like there's other options in different phases of the game for World Eaters.

 

I'm find with 3 units. I personally think Angron lists are far easier to defeat than Invocatus lists. It's just that even now, after I've had about 10 games, I can't believe how people are caught off guard by him. Why people don't seem to understand that anyone can get hot and spike a few 4++ saves is beyond me. But honestly, that's what most of my wins have come down to; essentially my opponent under firing into Angron when they are more than capable of killing him, and then he hobbles with 2 wounds, makes a boatload of attacks, then dies.

 

In most of my games he's averaged less than 1 assault a game! He can be seen through anything so he's impossible to hide. As people got used to seeing him on the table, it became harder and harder (even with the most stubborn opponent) to get him into a good position to do real damage.

 

He's as obvious as the Kook-aid man busting through a wall. It's really up to your opponent to... plan accordingly. 

 

Invocatus though? He's sly, got some tricks up his sleeve, and I personally rate pre game moves amongst the most powerful abilities in 40k. (It's literally how I kept my Ultramarines competitive when they were at the absolute bottom of the 40K compete pile).

 

That's just my experiences so far. Actually if I regret anything it's not getting more Berzerkers. They are incredibly fun and flexible, and I think Blood Surge is amazing, and gave us a peak at a 10th edition style rule (reacting to your opponent).

 

My problem with Berzerkers is they are darn good, and it's great to have a ton of them but they are like... character level scuplts! They take incredibly long for me to paint. It took me a month of evenings to paint 10. That's way too slow for troops (and I mean a good 3-4 hours a night.)

 

It's still a great codex. I spent way too much on it, and am considering selling my stuff which kind of sucks, but I love what they did with such a limited line up. All of it really. Every fear I had about it being a smaller book, and no psychics/etc completely faded after my 3-4th game.

[Plague _Lord]

Played against WE for the first time today with my plaguewing (2xplaguecaster, tallyman, blightspawn 15 blightlords, 5 deathshroud,  5PMS, 10poxwalkers, 2 contemptors and 2 PBC). My opponents took an invocatus list consisting of: Invo, Khârn, DP, MoE, 4x5 zerks, 2xrhino, 2x5 eightbound, 2x1 spawn, 10 jhackals and 2 war dogs with autocannons.

 

Boy it was brutal. I think WE are one of the only armies that I can actually outshoot and I got ahead early on, picking up a rhino and a zerker squad. I then moved up the field and just decided to take his counter attack on the chest. Let's just say that eightbound can't handle deathshroud or even blightlords for that matter.

 

I mopped up nearly his whole army in 3 turns while losing next to nothin (1 contemptor, 4 deathshroud and a bunch of blightlords).

 

I feel even though DG is pretty trash right now, they are kind of a counter to WE.