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 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tell them to run the Word Bearers as World Eaters as the color schemes are close but one is infinitely more useable.

Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing and not actually answering the question: What models/units are good in Word Bearers, and should be included in the army?

The only thing they have is like 1-2 Strats and another Smashlord build. That's really all they contribute. So honestly it wasn't bad advice for your friend.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So I am building my friend a Word Bearers army from scratch, because he is interested in playing, but can't afford the cost. Aside from Daemons, can anyone give me some tips on good must have models for a WB army? Also, where is a good source for cheap counts as cultist models?

If you want to use Psychic Awakening, I second @techsoldaten - and add a chaos lord with the Possessed trait and the Chainaxe relic. Why should his victims be allowed to run away, eh?

If your friend is somewhat new to 40K and you don’t want to drown him in A4 hardcover art books, Dinobot Daemonkin is how I ran my WBs during the first two years - especially after MoPs dropped. We invented Defilers, let’s make use of them! Cultists to farm CP, and a Daemon detachment or two to run a useful Locus - Nurgle for punchier Defilers, Slaanesh for sprinting Maulers, Tzeentch (Changeling & Daemonspark Herald) for tough Forgefiends, Khorne Crimson Crown to make anything A N G E R Y. To actually make use of vanilla WB traits, a Daemon Prince or Dark Apostle with Voice of Lorgar is handy. Also, Obliterators!

Re cultist minis - Corpse-grinder gangs, beastmen, and Plague Monks have done me well. Pretty easy to swap in some pistols or rifles. But now you can just get the £6 Cultists and the £15 Cultists of the Abyss, it’s actually pretty easy to get a WYSIWYG horde. Props for building an army for a friend to use, by the way!

So he is a pretty hardcore baptist, and he chose WBs because he felt they represented the Babtists of 40k, which I thought was so hilarious I decided I would make him his army. So far I have a Chaos lord with a thunder hammer and plasma, 2x five man CSM squads with 1x autocannon, about 20x cultists, and 20x blood letters. should I throw in a Venom Crawler or a daemon prince?

Daemon prince for that battalion action

Definitely DP, fills the battalion and a good match for WB warlord trait.

Also, Word Bearers being the Baptists of 40K… wasn’t ready for that

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So he is a pretty hardcore baptist, and he chose WBs because he felt they represented the Babtists of 40k, which I thought was so hilarious I decided I would make him his army. So far I have a Chaos lord with a thunder hammer and plasma, 2x five man CSM squads with 1x autocannon, about 20x cultists, and 20x blood letters. should I throw in a Venom Crawler or a daemon prince?

Allways go for ATLEAST one Battalion, better two, because CSM are CP hungry, especially with F&F.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Definitely DP, fills the battalion and a good match for WB warlord trait.

Also, Word Bearers being the Baptists of 40K… wasn’t ready for that

Just think the next time you see Westboro Baptists church.....CHAOS HERESY

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
Definitely DP, fills the battalion and a good match for WB warlord trait.

Also, Word Bearers being the Baptists of 40K… wasn’t ready for that

Just think the next time you see Westboro Baptists church.....CHAOS HERESY

wasn't there the whole 8pointed star and scientology meme?

i 'd think from a background and gameplan position that you'd want to build a battalion out of cultists to get access to the special detachment for DA and cultists. That way you can use 1 CP to make a prayer pass. Further, you can allways elevate a DA with the WB stratagem making them in combination with dark disciples. for a nice boost in reliability.
Beyond that , whilest possessed would be the flavour, they sadly are a bit iffy to deliver there can be an argument for nurgle and tree , or slaanesh and warptime to maybee get a t1 charge off. I'd howver go a diffrent route.

Greater possessed are pretty mean beatsticks and with M7 not too slow. further they got charachter protection. A bunch of them hidden inside a mass of angry cultists can make a decent surge forwards. In this case you can also profit from daemon engines.
Infact, i'd go so far as to actually field a brigade maybee with WB.

3 HQ are easy to fill for CSM.
DP with wings.
DA
Sorcerer / MoP

3 x Greater possessed?

6 x 10 cultists

3 x Warptalons? (Host raptorial in such a case would come in handy, also they are daemons, making WB warlord traits a quite nice danger.)

3 x vindicator? Venomcrawler? either off those has advantages, for one the vindicator is now actually for what he can do damage wise ,pretty darn cheap. otoh , the veonomcrawler has a lot of synergy with WB overall, and can be suicide flung with warptime at your enemy potentially. Not to mention that if you want to summon daemons they are actually a nice thing if you go for a MoP.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
as for cheap cultists, depends a bit, IG come to mind but need conversion work.
GSC neophytes have the equipment options covered for Cultists down to a tee and look more dishelved, not to mention that you can have mutants made out of them, suggestion there, get yourself some other heads and pieces of equipment, ask ig players for some bits and gsc players. Alternatively slaves to darkness aka chaos warrior bits fit well. (did the same for my R&H hordes. )
Anvil had platoons with discounts. allowing you custom formed units, sadly they don't do that anymore.

Are NLs Host Raptorials actually worth it at the moment? Certainly there’s a lot of tricks (easy to make it in from deepstrike, overwatch free on the warp talons, cancel nearby auras with a relic or strat, and prevent infantry fallbacks), but... are they generally applicable enough to make it worth it?

In my mind they’re pretty CP intensive and CSM already has issues generating CP without wasting a big chunk of your list on Cultists or wasting a detachment on Red Corsairs. And stuff like infantry fallback cancelling feels powerful in niche cases but frequently useless in some matchups? Similarly Auspex Scan can wreck them if there isn’t terrain in a good position to shield you. Plus their damage is pretty tame ultimately.

I want them to work but in playtests they really haven’t. Am I missing something or are they more gimmicky and amusing than actually good?

Pomguo wrote:
Are NLs Host Raptorials actually worth it at the moment? Certainly there’s a lot of tricks (easy to make it in from deepstrike, overwatch free on the warp talons, cancel nearby auras with a relic or strat, and prevent infantry fallbacks), but... are they generally applicable enough to make it worth it?

In my mind they’re pretty CP intensive and CSM already has issues generating CP without wasting a big chunk of your list on Cultists or wasting a detachment on Red Corsairs. And stuff like infantry fallback cancelling feels powerful in niche cases but frequently useless in some matchups? Similarly Auspex Scan can wreck them if there isn’t terrain in a good position to shield you. Plus their damage is pretty tame ultimately.

I want them to work but in playtests they really haven’t. Am I missing something or are they more gimmicky and amusing than actually good?

It depends, wasting a detachment on RC, which is incidentally also assault focussed faction might actually be less off a waste then you thnk.

A combination of a Host raptiorial detachment, preferably warptalons over Raptors and a battalion of RC might actually work decently in your favour.

F.e.
2 Lord discordants and DP with wings with warptime.

3 x 5 CSM with AC

Is still relative cheap way to generate CP and have a lot of bite.

I’ve only tried non-AL Discos one time and they were shot off the board before reaching anything, so I’m a bit wary of taking them unless I have a much bigger scarier threat to attract fire, like a Knight. Is there a decent answer for that issue?

I was bringing Raptors alongside WTs because they’re fairly cheap and allow me to bait out Auspex or screen characters against Auspex. Bringing WTs alone meant losing most of the squad if I couldn’t drop behind ruin walls, I found.

On another note, what’s the preferred way of handling massed heavy armour? Triple tank commanders with triple exorcists, that kinda thing. Always bring a melee contingent to wrap them up? Spam oblits and hope to roll hot?

Nah, my idea was heavily assault centric with them beeing just another danger, flung at them.
That said, i wouldn't even go out of the house without my 3 lord discordants, even though they are AL, in my Daemonengine list, survivability for them is still an issue so long knights and other equiv durable LoW are common place.


As for raptors. i don't feel like the perform, period. They often lack the numbers for tripointing, require a lot of preinvestment to even make the charge but also have to eat overwatch whilest simultaniously beeing honestly quite bad for melee.

Heavy armor handling depends on the list really.
Lord discordants can handle the occaisional tank rather heasily, Lascannons spread out in differing CSM squads can do some decent work aswell and often times just get ignored because what are 5 CSM with a lascannon going to do?

Havocs, especially the non reaper variation.

Obliterators require some support but are one of the better bets.

Daemon princes.

Possessedbombs or any variation of brute melee infantry we have access to.

Agreed, nix the raptors and go for the warp talons. Way better in cc plus ignoring overwatch is great. Auspex scan wouldn't be as bad if gw hadn't nerfed "in midnight clad". Still convinced they did that for just that reason.

Yeah, I work on the assumption that Raptors will do zero damage. They’re just there to make the charge and so open up easy aura cancelling and fallback denial, because of how vulnerable to auspex equivalents I found taking only WTs was. Usually the opponent won’t auspex the raptors because they know the WTs are waiting, so I can drop them and HQs safely. And if the raptors get auspexed then great, I can drop the much better WTs right then.

Thanks for the advice against heavy armour. Faced a Guard tank commander + basilisk spam yesterday and did fairly well. Conceal on the Havocs who had deployed on a midfield third storey was vital to being able to exchange fire. In my last game they got wiped out with small arms fire, so I guess I need to factor in the CP cost as a natural price to pay.

Here’s my current list for this league I’m in (we’re allowed to change lists between blind matchups, but not allowed to change factions so I’m locked into CSM+TS soup):


I used to bring a Supreme Command of TS and two CSM batts, but I felt 60 cultists had become a liability. Hard to deploy well, easy to give up kill points (the league is playing ITC missions), usually a great choice of target for small arms fire, no real threat, etc. So I swapped out a DP for a budget -2 to be hit AL Jump Lord and used Rubrics to prop up a TS batt. I wish they were AL Rubrics, but need that CP sadly. This time it went a lot better - Rubrics are threatening enough to be useful, and resilient enough to be annoying to remove.

I still feel like my punch is restricted to four expensive and mostly fragile (besides the scarab occults, who are resilient as hell) guns, but I’m not sure what more I can do to alleviate that at this point.

You could replace the scarab termis with CSM termis with combi plasma and axes. Deepstrike them, cast prescience, overcharge, votlw, endless cacophony, and spam 40 safely overcharged plasma shots at S8 AP-3 D2, hitting on 2s, +1 to wound. Add a chaos lord to reroll 1s. Replace the levi dread with obliterators.

 p5freak wrote:
You could replace the scarab termis with CSM termis with combi plasma and axes. Deepstrike them, cast prescience, overcharge, votlw, endless cacophony, and spam 40 safely overcharged plasma shots at S8 AP-3 D2, hitting on 2s, +1 to wound. Add a chaos lord to reroll 1s. Replace the levi dread with obliterators.

This is a decent suggestion.

But as for your issue with the glasscannony damage dealers, you just gotta suck it up.
The truth is CSM are that way by design, and as soon as the CP run dry good luck even with damage dealing units. The prevalence of anti marine and anti knight weaponry due to their skewing effect on the meta for certain also worsens that issue overall.

Not to say to make an insanely durable list is impossible, it is, but it also would be a whole diffrent list and would lack alot of damage dealing elements overall.

(it'd be also auras all over the shop)
the most durable way for CSM to play is to just have as few units on the field deployed as possible and getting in the first strike overall, maintaining initiative at all costs basically, which is incidentally the reason why you see the cheaper obliterators again, or why CSM termites with combiplas are liked.
It's also a reason further for why AL is just better then most legions, due to allowing you to actively hide more units overall in reserves or moving these around pregame. On top of a slew of durability improvements.

Thanks for the suggestions! And yeah I guess fragile firepower is just something to play around beyond what measures I’ve already taken. DS the oblits, Conceal the Havocs, Benediction of Darkness + Delightful Agonies the Lev Dred seems to work for me ok.

@p5freak: swap the lev dread for a second trio of oblits? I worry that loses the reliability of S8 2dmg shooting that the Lev Dred provides, while also being squishier. But maybe I am influenced by one of my early games being against Ad Mech, who simply couldn’t hurt the Lev Dred after I removed the laschickens turn one. As for the chaos lord, I actually start the Jump Pack lord on the board to give rerolls to the havocs and dred for the first couple of turns as everything moves to claim the midfield, then warptime him over screens etc and touch tanks or character assassinate.

CSM termies with plasma instead of Scarabs is interesting. They are ever so slightly more expensive I believe, and trade a very strong defensive profile (0+ save, 1-3 revivable per turn, and 3++ if all buffs go off) and a vast volume of fire (double shoot strat if they haven’t moved, so close to 80 shots) for the higher strength, damage and point of AP, as well as the AL -1 and strat access. I’ll test it out, but I suspect for my “I wish I was more durable” tastes I may prefer the scarabs - will have to see how much damage they can produce first-hand! Probably need to push Prescience onto a Thousand Sons sorceror instead also, to make it more of a sure thing and ensure the better plasma damage, which means going without it turn 1. Also may try doing a 5 man squad of each.

On another note, i am starting to believe that i should really start focusing on a more durable build now.

Maybee a build that generates a lot of invulnerable saves which seems to be something we are relatively easly able to do.

Some basic thoughts sofar would be

AL:

Elites i'd pick 3 x 5 Plague marines with 3 PG each.

DA with cult leader and ilusion prayer babysitting a core of cultists which profit heavily from him , maybee add in a blob of slaanesh and a sorcerer off slaanesh for a additional FNP.

Squad of Obliterators.


Something along that veins. Maybee even go with a vindicator squadron babysitted by a warpsmith and DA? (a 5++ on a t8 model actually sounds enticing when not bound to the BS4+ drawback of daemonengines...)

Agents of Bile/Consortium speculation? I'm assuming no new models beyond the Primogenitor and Igor
(Though I'd love the Canister bearing lackey from the 2nd artwork)

Will they be restricted from some choices but be able to tinker with all their available infantry? Will Bill be allowed to get in a transport?

 Eldarain wrote:
Agents of Bile/Consortium speculation? I'm assuming no new models beyond the Primogenitor and Igor
(Though I'd love the Canister bearing lackey from the 2nd artwork)

Will they be restricted from some choices but be able to tinker with all their available infantry? Will Bill be allowed to get in a transport?

I thought off them as a whole seperate faction sofar, as in , the rumors stated them to be seperate.

How widely seperate they are? I don't know.

But i can imagine everything from the eye of terror campaign lost and the damned list in content, too a seperate unit (aka newman) and then beeing unmarkable csm core units without god alignment.

Of course i hope for something more substantial.

That said, i think we will see a New Man kit mostlikely.

They were described as a sub faction to CSM so I'm not expecting large scale deviation. A New Man kit would be amazing. Can't think of too much off the top of my head from the Rumor Engine that would fit though.

 Eldarain wrote:
They were described as a sub faction to CSM so I'm not expecting large scale deviation. A New Man kit would be amazing. Can't think of too much off the top of my head from the Rumor Engine that would fit though.

Frankly we are still overdue for a kit off:

Cultists, Chosen, Possessed.

Off those all can fit with new man theme imo.

I do hope though that it is an actual diffrent list.

Pomguo wrote:

@p5freak: swap the lev dread for a second trio of oblits? I worry that loses the reliability of S8 2dmg shooting that the Lev Dred provides, while also being squishier. But maybe I am influenced by one of my early games being against Ad Mech, who simply couldn’t hurt the Lev Dred after I removed the laschickens turn one. As for the chaos lord, I actually start the Jump Pack lord on the board to give rerolls to the havocs and dred for the first couple of turns as everything moves to claim the midfield, then warptime him over screens etc and touch tanks or character assassinate.

Well, oblits have some advantages over the levi dread. You can use votlw and ec on them. You can conceal them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarain wrote:
Agents of Bile/Consortium speculation? I'm assuming no new models beyond the Primogenitor and Igor
(Though I'd love the Canister bearing lackey from the 2nd artwork)

Will they be restricted from some choices but be able to tinker with all their available infantry? Will Bill be allowed to get in a transport?

Maybe we are going to see the equivalent of primaris SM for CSM ? Bile does experiment with cloning and genetic engineering.

still undecided between 3 oblys or 10 AL slaanesh termy, problems of oblys is against a skilled opponent hardly you can touch his veichles or heavy stuff, you will spend their firepower over infantry so then not sure if wort.

 blackmage wrote:
still undecided between 3 oblys or 10 AL slaanesh termy, problems of oblys is against a skilled opponent hardly you can touch his veichles or heavy stuff, you will spend their firepower over infantry so then not sure if wort.

I assume you'd take the Combiplas version with Chainaxe right? If my math pans out, since i am away from my dex, that'd be 330 pts vs 285 pts.

You got diffrent advantages and disadvantages.
Combiplas termites require bit more babysitting because you'd need a +1 to hit whilest the obllits are fine with just reroll 1 allready mostly.
Otoh, Combiplas do quite well against infantry, what with each termite having allways 2 bolt shots on top off plasma.

Normaly, from an armchair position i'd say the Oblits because smaller footprint (ehhhhhh their bases are still rather large sooo..) and less lifeline support needed.
However the versatility and higher overall higher firerate makes the Combiplas termites just generally better option.

Granted if we would know what list you intend to put them in then we could help you out better.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
On another note, anyone any idea on how to best run Venomcrawlers`?

I allways find them a bit iffy, what with their rather specialistic ruleset and requirement off support. Otoh at 115 pts they are actually quite cheap now.

(shame we have no stratagem to make our daemonengiens go boom more reliably.)

i use chainaxe+chainsword termies, they have to be cheap in my opinion
You could play slaanesh VC with slaanesh demon character support, +1 strenght and move+run+charge is great.

 blackmage wrote:
i use chainaxe+chainsword termies, they have to be cheap in my opinion

erm that is a ilegal combo?
You mean Combibolters and chainaxes instead right?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
i use chainaxe+chainsword termies, they have to be cheap in my opinion

erm that is a ilegal combo?
You mean Combibolters and chainaxes instead right?

sorry chainaxes+combibolter

 blackmage wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
i use chainaxe+chainsword termies, they have to be cheap in my opinion

erm that is a ilegal combo?
You mean Combibolters and chainaxes instead right?

sorry chainaxes+combibolter

Well that is a whole other unit now isn't it then compared to obliterators. With a completely diffrent target unit type.

my experience with chainaxe + cb termies is in general rather good. Shoot one thing charge another or attempt too. great at removing screens because allways 4 shots is nice.
Reaper AC isn't bad either if you want to go dakka

but against vehicles they do fall short if you don't use votwl. And even then...

I wonder if it's still possible that we'll ever be able to make custom warbands like SM can create custom successor chapters. I'd love to be able to combine the Khornate choppiness of the World Eaters with the daemonic leanings of the Word Bearers, or maybe choppiness plus the IW ability to ignore cover.