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I picked up the grey knights codex earlier this week and as I was flipping through it I noticed a lot of the equipment, units, rules, psyker abilities, etc were very similar to the word bearers if they were seen through a warped mirror. The use of henchman(similar to cultists), heavy use of dogmatic psykers/religion throughout the chapter(obv similar to word bearers if seen through a dark lens), heavy use of infantry over vehicles/war engines(although not to the extent that they have none), they both have a love of purifying flames and burning sinners(just with a different definition of sinner and different forms of flame), and they even both use bound daemons and daemon weapons.

Now of course grey knights have a lot of things that mark them as distinctly different and better than your average space marine, but when looking at my own 4e chaos codex and comparing it to the 5e grey knights (especially when also thinking of starting a word bearer's force after reading the dark apostle-creed series) a lot of things seem to line up and they look like the perfect choice if I were to make a count-as army.

What do you all think? Is there a better option for a count-as army if I wanted to start word bearers? Or do grey knights line up better to another chaos legion?

Do any other chaos players get frustrated looking at each grey knight's list of special abilities (even for the lowest of the low GK) and weep?

Sounds shiny...
Go for it.
Just... don't go too far...
If you cant think of a fluff reason to have a unit don't do it.
Purifiers can be explained by daemonic possession IMO but Dreadknights would be harder... though some kind of massive Chaos Spawn could substitute for that...

A giant Forge World spawn would look way more badass then a Grey Knight in a baby vest any way you look at it.

Spawn look pretty good as it is...
Shame they suck so hard.

In fantasy they are a decent choice. I really do think you should use a FW one as the normal ones are way too small.

Mind you I have not thankfully seen a Dreadknight in the flesh. Just a visual observation.

I fully approve of this idea.

1) Storm Bolters were not invented by the heresy (in some fluff) That is why CSM have TL Bolters instead.

2) Why would Word Bearers have so many Psy Powers and force weapons? They are not a particularly psyker legion.

3) What are you going to use as your chaplain/Dark Apostle?

4) The Henchmen seem less like a mob of fanatics, and more like teams of specialists. Maybe is you used a lot of Arcos/Crusader units


It is close. it is the only book where you can have MEQ and GEQ in the same force, but the MEQ units are not similar to your "standard" marines.


I think that BA can almost do a Word Bearer force as well.


Mephiston => Deamon Price

Reclusiarch => Dark Apostle (you get a Chaplain HQ)

Sanguinary Priest => Icon Bearer

Death Company => Possessed Space Marines

Marines => Marines


You have some problems here as well. You do not get your big horde of Normal Humans running at the enemy. You do not get anything that can be used as summoned daemons. All of your tanks are fast as well....

Of course not everything is going to line up perfectly. They are two different armies. However, they are very similar in a lot of things and if I'm forced to choose a count-as because my current codex is god-awful in so many ways they seem like a solid choice.

1)Not really something I'm concerned with. They are very similar to what the csm already have and the least of my worries when working through the GK armory and special rules.

2)They worship daemons and are very open to possession/mutation. That covers pretty much anything I want them to have. Tzeentch gifts his followers with the powers of psyker abilities. The word bearer's equivalent of the GK force weapons could be almost any sort of daemonic mutation I want. Poison from nurgle, drugs/pheromones from slaanesh, powerful weapons from khorne, or magical effects from tzeentch.

3)Almost anything? If I go from the books the dark apostles are summoners of daemons/powerful psykers with powerful artifacts to back them up. Key to being a word bearer's leader is having the gift of fiery rhetoric to bring your warriors into a righteous rage before battle. A grand master fits that pretty well as does the librarian.

4) Word bearers use all sorts of cultists/followers to do their bidding. This includes mutants of all forms, summoned daemons, near-mindless human cultists. Basically anyone or anything they come across that they can convert to the will of the dark apostle. Again, if we're going by the books they have machines that steadily drive prisoners insane and corrupt them into thinking they're doing what they should by following the word bearers and fighting the empire. They corrupted elite guards, politicians, a high-ranking mechanicum tech-priest/magos, imperial guard of all types and specialties. So I think that is covered pretty well.

Blood angels are of course another option. The sanguinary priests and reclusiarchs are tempting, but I wanted something with a bit more religious fervor.

It really makes me sad that the GK daemon weapon is so much better than the csm book's daemon weapon.

The GK Deamon weapon is kinda terrible...


It is normal 2 handed weapon. If you want it to be a power weapon, you have to roll for that ability.

Yeah some of the abilities are cool, But they are random. Some are not the great really.

Yes they are more controllable, but are nothing compared to a Nurgle or Slaanesh Daemon weapon in the CSM

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I guess what I was saying about the henchmen is this:

I see the "fanatics" whipped up by the word bearers as being a horde unit (similar to a blob guard squad.) Something with 20-30 models, stubborn/fearless, and some kind of priest leading it.

Henchmen are a perfect representation, except that they come in smaller squads. That is the only thing i do not like