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IDK about you, but every piece of background i have read shows the Word Bearers not able to do any thing and haved had to run away with their tails between their legs. Does anybody know where they actually are able to do anything good?

couldn't find any place talking about this but sorry it has already come up.

Is it really so difficult for people to type out 'I don't know' instead of IDK?

But yes there's plenty of examples of them having done things 'good'. The Horus Heresy for instance is a great one. The Word Bearers pretty much engineered the whole dang thing.

There is a short story in which a governor observes the end of his world.
The populace (Those that are alive and loyal) have been evacuated and he chooses to stay as a self-punishment to his failure.
In this he reflects on the cults and civil unrest caused by a Dark Apostle from the Word Bearer Legion, he later sees the Dark Apostle give a speech.
The ending of the entire story is fairly dark...
One of the best i have ever read come to think of it.

by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

should have made it clearer my mistake

That's merely them being used as the loyalist target practice by GW.
They are good and don't let the fluff distract you too much from that, hell write some of your own where your war band manage to defeat a loyalist SM company and eat them... or something.

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

Kanluwen wrote:

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

Interestingly enough the Alpha Legion seem to do that so much better than the Word Bearers do...

purplefood wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

Interestingly enough the Alpha Legion seem to do that so much better than the Word Bearers do...

I'd say that they have differing goals though.

The Alpha Legion doesn't care if people 'come to the Dark Side'. Their goal is just to start up insurgencies and rebellions, not wholesale heresies like the Word Bearers.
Plus, the Alpha Legion tend to utilize Loyalist Astartes equipment to help them 'blend in'. It's so much easier to get people to believe you when you don't have skulls all over.

Good point...

The Word Bearers trilogy depicted them as quite competent, without devaluing the loyal Astartes or even the Imperial Guard units ( when they were shown. "offscreen" Guard units seemed to suck badly )

So you are calling the legion who started the Horus Heresy failures. They killed the flase emporer and began to destroy the Impirium. You should read this when it comes out
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Warhammer-40000/coming-soon/the-word-bearers-omnibus.html
I simply cannot wait for it. The guy on the front cover looks so bad-ass

Ouch, the illustrator realy overdid it with the spikes. To make matters even worse that spikey dude doesn't even resemble one of the characters in the book

Oh am a world bearer I like to read books and play with pretty deamons in the warp. I also like to piss of the SPESS MARINES by annoying the populations of planets. MA MA MA MA MA.


And that is my 'funny' expression of a word bearer.
But in seriousness I do like the word bearers due to their CHAPLAINS!

Kanluwen wrote:

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

In fact the Word Bearers are one of the very few legions who still operates as one. It is stated in the fluff and in the books. The three books published by BL are very good in showing a very different facet from Storm of Iron of what is to be a chaos marine. I for the most part recommend the books.

I think the answer is in the nature of the primarch Lorgar, Next to his brother Primarchs Lorgar was a paltry warrior read First Heretic for citation if you dont believe me. He was a fantastically gifted orator and was incredibly persuasive his skills lay away from the field of war.

The Word Bearers of the 41st millenium are lead by the Dark Apostles who if anything are chosen for their religious zeal and further rather than their martial prowess or tactical accumen.

They aren't exceptional warriors compared to say, the World Eaters or the Black Legion, Lorgar is still a Daemon Primarch, and the World Bearers are still Chaos Space Marines. They are however extremely powerful due to their close affinity with the powers of Chaos. The Dark Apostles especially, they are potent sorcerers and leaders of men. They have a War-Captain to do the commanding and tactical direction of the hosts, and a large number of Daemons to give them some extra muscle.

They are "bad" because they are responsible for both the Imperial Cult and the Horus Heresy. Lorgar is probably the lamest of the Primarchs. One little criticism that he's taking too damn long, and it's all "waah, I'm not going to talk to anyone for a month and wear a scratchy shirt, waah". They are the personification of everything the Emperor tried to annihilate: the ignorance and tyranny of religion.

The Word Bearers are so bad because they are weak sauce. Do not enter their sauce in the county fair, because it is weak.

Bad in the eyes of whom? In the eyes of the Chaos Gods he's a damn Hero, they would have died out if the Heresy hadn't happened. As it is, they now have a copious amount of followers in mankind, where there were few before the Heresy.

Omegus wrote:They are "bad" because they are responsible for both the Imperial Cult and the Horus Heresy. Lorgar is probably the lamest of the Primarchs. One little criticism that he's taking too damn long, and it's all "waah, I'm not going to talk to anyone for a month and wear a scratchy shirt, waah". They are the personification of everything the Emperor tried to annihilate: the ignorance and tyranny of religion.

The Word Bearers are so bad because they are weak sauce. Do not enter their sauce in the county fair, because it is weak.

The "one little criticism" was openly attacking the people that Lorgar has sworn to protect, humiliating Lorgar and his entire Legion as well as invalidating the primarch's lifework.
The Emperor of Men merely replaced the tyranny of religion with his own brand of tyranny, where everyone was suposed to revere only him, an undeserving and ultimately false god, at least that's what Lorgar came to see.

Hmm, that prompted me to finally pick up First Heretic.

That was quite a bitch-slap indeed! The summaries I've read of the Emperor's chastisement never mentioned the whole massacre the population, annihilate the capital city and a quarter of the continent, then bringing in Lorgar at gunpoint and dressing him down in front of all his boys.


The more I read the various Horus Heresy books, the more I'm given the impression that the Emperor was full of fear. We don't know exactly how he created the Primarchs, but some kind of bargain/deal must have been struck with the Ruinous Powers. Was their scattering an accident? Or part of the deal, that they would grow up in disparate cultures, and then the Emperor would vie for their loyalty against the Ruinous Powers.

At the slightest hint of chaos corruption, he would freak out, over-react, and in his over-reaction actually contribute to the corruption. That seems to be the common theme in all the books. Chaos offers some glimpse of the future that's not a lie, but not exactly the truth either, and in their frantic attempts to change that future the Primarchs actually bring it about. It happened with the Thousand Sons, Alpha Legion, etc.

In the book Nemesis (If I remember correctly, the one about the culexus assassin) it is suggested that

And annoying Chaos gods is not good for your health! Or anyone else's really!

Word bearers are 'bad' because they made the Emperor appear as a god,
the Emperor did not like being considered a god so gave them a massive bitch slap,
(this is another reason why Ultramarines are hated)
then Lorgar goes off trying to find some other god to worship and finds the Chaos gods.
He acts like a spoilt child.
QED
Word bearers are rubbish.

Good in the eyes of the Chaos though, very good.
Loragr then manipulated Horus, the Emperor got ZINGED! after that. At least Lorgar is alive and well, unlike The Emperor.
QED
Word Bearers are rubbish only to loyalist scum. Your Emperor will die! For Chaos yeeeahaha!

For what I know and what I can see, Word Bearers seems pretty ok, imho.
I like their style and their story. And well, CSM still are very very experienced fighters... I don't give credits to what GW can let's suppose when it comes to loyalist marines against traitors one... 'cause loyalists, you know their "so awesome and win" and all...
I prefer imagine stories and roleplay about dramatic anti-heroes, like Word Bearers.

iproxtaco wrote:Loragr then manipulated Horus, the Emperor got ZINGED! after that. At least Lorgar is alive and well, unlike The Emperor.

The Heresy was orchestrated by Kor Phaeron and Erebus. Lorgar's contribution amounted to ordering "hai guyz, make Chaos happen, kthxbai" and then going off to dick around in the warp. Now he's a daemon prince and spends his time dicking around in his tower. Even if he was given command of a black crusade, he lacks the warrior prowess and military acumen to accomplish anything of note. Straight from the horse's mouth: "This was not my design, and you know it as well as I. Let us not pretend I have any skill at orchestrating bloodshed and betrayal on this scale."

The Emperor's mercy was his undoing. He should have purged Lorgar and his fanatics like he did with II and XI. Or stopped the problem from the very beginning. Instead, he tried to be the "cool dad" by ignoring the problem for a whole damn century, and when that didn't work, tried some tough love and only made the situation worse.

Kanluwen wrote:

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

Everything the WB had (okay, you're shortened to WB... already that sucks) was thrown at Ultramar... and they lost, as a Legion. Then there's the thing were the Big E said they were the biggest disappointment and their primarch was as close to a manipulated weakling as a Primarch can be... and he's done little notable since. Finish all of this with the fact that they have let themselves be reduced to rabble rousers instead being a combat force.

They didn't orchestrate the Heresy... a want-a-be Captain (who was clearly in the Chaos gods' corner from before Lorgar showed up) and their chief Chaplain created the Heresy... the rest, well they were/are the worst of the Chaos Marines (like their primarch).

Lobukia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

putrid one wrote:by good i meant battle wise, they get beaten by the ultramarines, black templars, just about every one :(

Oh joy. Another of these threads.

The Word Bearers are just fine in terms of combat. The reason they 'get beaten by the Ultramarines, Black Templars, and just about everyone' is because as we're seeing them at this point in time, they don't really operate as a Legion any more. They operate more as rabble rousers and malcontents, stirring up the pot to bring about the downfall of the Imperium and its worlds while at the same time trying to convert as many as they can to the Ruinous Powers.

Everything the WB had (okay, you're shortened to WB... already that sucks) was thrown at Ultramar... and they lost, as a Legion. Then there's the thing were the Big E said they were the biggest disappointment and their primarch was as close to a manipulated weakling as a Primarch can be... and he's done little notable since. Finish all of this with the fact that they have let themselves be reduced to rabble rousers instead being a combat force.

They didn't orchestrate the Heresy... a want-a-be Captain (who was clearly in the Chaos gods' corner from before Lorgar showed up) and their chief Chaplain created the Heresy... the rest, well they were/are the worst of the Chaos Marines (like their primarch).

And beaten back by the Ultramarines, who outnumbered them. It also wasn't everything they had, Lorgar wasn't present along with however many he had with him.
The Emperor said that he was a disappointment because Lorgar didn't want to be a warrior, 'manipulated weakling' wasn't even hinted at. Angron's the only Primarch to have done anything notable in the last 9,500 years. They're a unified Legion, whose goal is to insight Heresies amongst the Imperium. When called upon, they're still Space Marines, very powerful ones at that, since they are favored of the Pantheon.

Actually, they did. Kor-Phaeron, the First Captain, never let go of his ties to the Old Faith of Colchis, although he didn't know it was Chaos at the time. He encouraged Lorgar to seek answers. Lorgar basically took command after he learned of Chaos during his journey into The Eye of Terror. So, it was the Word Bearers who started the Heresy.

Kanluwen wrote:Is it really so difficult for people to type out 'I don't know' instead of IDK?

Quit whining.

Kanluwen wrote:Is it really so difficult for people to type out 'I don't know' instead of IDK?

IDK what you mean ?

Why do you two exist?