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Can they finally get a real themed detachment for Word Bearers.
Not that mine is the best, but definitely themed to Word Bearers or undivided

I think we should put together a well thought out Word Bearer Theme Detachment that GW might consider. Here is my initial thoughts. Character based detachment rule. Reason Word Bearers leaders have stronger connection to the Chaos Gods. Powerful detachment Rule but tempered by needing Characters. Name: Path of the Ruinous Powers. Army Rule: Dark Pact. Detachment Rule: Undivided Enlightenment:
Only when a non-named character succeeds with a Dark Pact, grants that character and attached unit(if any) one of the following Chaos Enlightenments.
1. Might of Chaos +2 Strength to weapons on your shoot or fight phase 2. Cunning of Chaos add 1 to AP weapons on your shoot or combat phase. 3. Forced Will of Chaos +1 Toughness until your next command phase. 4. Allure of Chaos add 1 to Attack weapons on your shoot or combat phase.
Enhancements: 1. Book of Chaos: add 1 to Dark Pact Rolls and leadership rolls for units within 6”. 2. Seal of the Chaos Gods: gain the keyword Daemon, Undivided. Add +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +1 Attack, +1 Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance. 3. Phylactery of the Warp: Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks. 4. Runic Armor. 2+ save, Feel no Pain 5+.
Stratagems
1. Warp Rift Advance/Charge
2. Warp Storm gives a unit benefit of cover.
3. Warp Ripple Fallback, shoot and charge
4. Warp Reality. Heal a unit 1d3 wounds. If used on daemonite, plague bearer, pink horrors, or bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit.
5. Warp portal end of fight phase, if unit is not within engagement range of an enemy unit, place unit into reserve.
6. Warp Hole. 1d3 Mortal Wounds to each unit within 3” When your unit or character is destroyed.

Daemon Princes can't attach to squads.

The Detachment rule is also OP as all hell. The only thing holding it back is how few units can be attached in the current CSM Dex. But then you barely use the Detachment rule.

Edit: Looking at it more, what about this is Word Bearers specific? It feels like just general buffs.

1. Correct. DP can’t attach to units. That means they have to run solo and can only get the detachment rule on themselves.

2. As it was stated. Powerful detachment rule. But limited on units that have a character attached or just a solo character like DP. You will have to spend more on characters to attach to units which means fewer units. Also you MUST PASS Dark Pact to get the detachment bonus.

3. Word Bearers Theme just like all the other “themed” legion detachments but still applicable to any legion. In this one, your character praise the dark gods for stronger abilities for themselves and their unit (if any). The buffs are oriented to the 4 dark gods but you only get it if you PASS the Dark Pact. Troops with no characters get only Strats and standard dark pacts. That includes oblits, vehicles, so a lot don’t get it. Yet ALL can have the Strats. As for Enhancements the book is preaching the chaos powers, the seal is giving a character or DP undivided daemon status with buffs. The armor is rune armor that WB use. The Phylactery buffs the not so used sorcerers. Who are heavy WB as well
4. This is an example. Not perfect. But definitely themed for WB without forcing it, just like all the other detachments.

1) Ah, I didn't realize that was a relic that could go on Princes. My bad.

2) Do you have an example list of how this detachment would see play, in your mind?

3 and 4) It... It really doesn't feel Word Bearers to me. If anything, wouldn't a Word Bearers detachment unlock more Daemonic Allies?

Easy enough to get daemon allies as is. But I like that idea to give reason to have daemon allies. the warp reality Strat could be heal 1d3 wounds. or return 1d3 models up to its starting unit if it’s an ally daemon battleline unit. Such as bloodletters, Daemonites, pink horrors or plague bearers.

Will comment in a bit, but wanted to reformat this a bit to make it a little more readable:

 IwinUlose wrote:
Detachment Rule: Undivided Enlightenment:
Only when a non-named character succeeds with a Dark Pact, grants that character and attached unit(if any) one of the following Chaos Enlightenments.
1. Might of Chaos : +2 Strength to weapons on your shoot or fight phase
2. Cunning of Chaos : Add 1 to AP weapons on your shoot or combat phase.
3. Forced Will of Chaos : +1 Toughness until your next command phase.
4. Allure of Chaos: Add 1 to Attack weapons on your shoot or combat phase.

Enhancements:
1. Book of Chaos: add 1 to Dark Pact Rolls and leadership rolls for units within 6”.
2. Seal of the Chaos Gods: gain the keyword Daemon, Undivided. Add +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +1 Attack, +1 Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp: Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
4. Runic Armor: 2+ save, Feel no Pain 5+.

Stratagems
1. Warp Rift:Advance/Charge
2. Warp Storm: Gives a unit benefit of cover.
3. Warp Ripple: Fallback, shoot and charge
4. Warp Reality: Heal a unit 1d3 wounds. If used on daemonite, plague bearer, pink horrors, or bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit.
5. Warp Portal: End of fight phase, if unit is not within engagement range of an enemy unit, place unit into reserve.
6. Warp Hole:1d3 Mortal Wounds to each unit within 3” When your unit or character is destroyed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Detachment Rule:
Let me start by saying that I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to vanilla CSM mechanics at the moment. So take all this feedback with a grain of salt. That said, I have a couple of concerns here.

First of all, to my knowledge, Word Bearers aren't particularly character-centric. At least, no moreso than your average legion/warband. So tying the detachment rule to characters specifically seems like a potentially kind of clunky attempt at balancing out an intentionally extra-powerful detachment rule. Which isn't great on its own, but also you risk making it harder for players to build their not-character-centric Word Bearer forces because you're essentially adding an extra character tax.

Second, if the idea here is that you do a dark pact roll, get your usual pact benefits, and then also get these benefits on top of it, I worry that you're maybe making a single rule a little overly complicated. Dark Pacts normally let you choose one of four benefits, right? So this ability functionally results in 1 of 16 different rule combos.

And third, I get that the benefits you've laid out here are all fluffy and tied to individual gods, but there's also a lot of overlap. Three of them are just variations on "kill stuff better." If I were to use this detachment, I'd want the god-specific powers to feel like they're more distinctive. Otherwise it feels like I'm just taking a pop quiz on which buff mathematically optimizes my lethality against whatever I'm about to attack.

So with all that in mind, I'd probably do some combination of simplifying the detachment rule and/or using the complexity of the rule to provide a wider variety of effects. (And/or just making the benefits a bit weaker so that you don't need the character tax.)

Enhancements:
* Book seems fine. I'd probably make it cheap.
* Seal needs to clarify which weapons get a bonus to their Strength/Attack stats.
* Phylactery sounds probably fine at a glance. +1 to damage is probably going to be a lot more powerful on some platforms than others, but Thousand Sons get away with something similar with their Vortex enhancement from the Grand Coven detachment.
* Runic Armor seems fine. I'd probably make it cheap. Weird caveat here where it's probably dramatically more powerful on a daemon prince than on a chaos lord/sorc/etc. So possibly hard to price/deserving of a variable price?

Stratagems:
1. Good.
2. This actually might be a smidge too little? It's basically Armor of Contempt that gets countered by ignores cover and only works in the shooting phase. But then again, it lasts all phase so maybe its fine. The bigger criticism here is probably that Go To Ground already exists, so this is only really useful if you've already used GTG in a given phase or if you need to make vehicles/monsters slightly more durable to shooting.
3. Good.
4. Good. Wondering if it could actually be even better on daemons? Don't want to go too crazy, but I feel like this will generally be more tempting to use on something with good durability stats like a vehicle or obliterator.
5. Good.
6. Probably needs a chance of failure. GW is pretty skittish about guaranteed mortal wound output. Slightly worried that this might make it too easy to send a bunch of cheap suicide units into the middle of the enemy formation and just nuke them for mortal wound damage turn after turn? Maybe that's fine. Infantry units would have a small area of effect, and vehicles are probably too expensive and too easily movement blocked for it to be particularly abusable. Always nice to take the sting off of losing a unit by getting something out of it.

Thanks for some pointers.
I don’t want to focus on Dark Apostle but yes, WB have more faith oriented leaders which is why character based.
1. The detachment rule is made to be different from all the others. Similar to Cabal of Sorcerers but also different and not a copycat of Pact bound (which if done right would had been WB themed) . As I said, detachment rule is focused on 2 things. Having characters and succeeding on dark pact. It’s powerful but restrained but also gives variety play style. Take away either or and it changes the entire thing WHICH I hope others can create a version that might be better than this option. Non character units still get the standard dark pacts and strats.

2. I changed the detachment rule to be less complicated. You still choose dark pact for sustained or lethal in both the shoot and fight phase. Lone Characters or in units can only get to choose a buff once in the shoot or fight phase but not both phases. except for the Toughness option. This gives the player the option on when and how to use it.

Enhancements:
1. Ok .
2. I clarified the seal. Although I would like to somehow make the Str and ATT for both shoot and melee. Intent is to give option to have undivided DP chosen over a specific allegiance
or to make a character daemon like and stronger.
3. I wanted it to be sorcerers to give sorcerers a buff to be picked. If I made it psyker everyone would use it on a MoP.
4. Made changes to non daemon character but also gave a once per battle re roll.


Strats. Need to change the names.
1. Ok
2. Changed to stealth
3. Ok
4. Changed it a bit. Gave buff option to daemons. Definitely a 2cp.
5. Ok
6. No change but options are 2cp to limit use



Automatically Appended Next Post:
New update
Army Rule: Dark pact.
Detachment Rule: Undivided Enlightenment:
Only when a non-named character succeeds with a Dark Pact, grants that character and attached unit (if any) one of the following Chaos Enlightenments which can be used only once in either the shoot or fight phase.
1. Might of Chaos : +2 Strength to weapons.
2. Cunning of Chaos : increase 1 AP to weapons.
3. Forced Will of Chaos : +1 Toughness until your next command phase.
4. Allure of Chaos: Add 1 to Attack weapons.

Enhancements:
1. Book of Chaos (10): add 1 to Dark Pact Rolls and leadership rolls for units within 6”.
2. Seal of the Chaos Gods (20): gain the keyword Daemon, Undivided. Add +1 Strength (melee weapons) , +1 Toughness, +1 Attack (range weapons), +1 Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp (15): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
4. Runic Armor (25): 2+ save, Feel no Pain 5+ (once per battle can re roll a failed check). Non daemon character only.

Stratagems
1. Warp Rift (1CP):Advance/Charge
2. Warp Storm (1CP): unit gains stealth
3. Warp Ripple (1CP): Fallback, shoot and charge
4. Warp Reality (1CP): Heal a unit 1d3 wounds; add 1 to the roll if a daemon. If used on a daemonite, plague bearer, pink horrors, or bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit and health instead.
5. Warp Portal (1CP): End of fight phase, if unit is not within engagement range of an enemy unit, place unit into reserve.
6. Warp Vortex (2CP):1d3 Mortal Wounds to each unit within 3” When your unit or character is destroyed.

Final version looks pretty good to me, I'd be fine to play against it. It also got me to thinking though, what other ways could you make a Word Bearers detachment, so I quickly threw this together if you wanted to try something different:

Army Rule: Dark Pact
Detachment Rule: Glory of Chaos Undivided.
You may include Chaos Deamons in your army list at double the normal amount for your points limit. However, you cannot have more than a 1 unit difference in the totals between the gods. (Ex: If you have 1 Khorne unit in your army, you can have a maximum of 2, Slaanesh, 2 Nurgle, and 2 Tzeentch units.)
Each unit with the following Keywords gain the following 6" auras (multiples of the same aura do not stack):
Khorne: +1 A.
Nurgle: +1 T.
Slaanesh: +1 M, Gain both bonuses from Dark Pact.
Tzeentch : +1 Invul, may re-roll Dark Pacts.

Enhancements:
Herald of Chaos: (40) Dark Apostle Only: This model gains all 4 Chaos God keywords and must be your Warlord.
Echo of the Vakrah Jal: (10) The character gains the Daemon keyword and may choose a single Chaos God Keyword.
The Book of Lorgar: (15) During your command phase a Daemon unit within 6" regenerates D3 lost wounds.
Ashes of Monarchia: (5) Once per game you may remove Battle Shock from a Word Bearers unit within 12".

Stratagems:
1. Godly Presence: (1CP) Extend the range of a Deamon unit's auras by 3".
2. Innumerable Cults: (2CP) May return a destroyed cultist unit to strategic reserve.
3. Reality Rend: (1CP) When a Daemon unit arrives via Deep Strike, each enemy unit within 12" takes D3 MW.
4. Touch of the Four: (1CP) A unit affected by all 4 Chaos auras may re-roll their hit rolls this phase.
5. Deamonic Symbiosis: (1CP) When a unit with the Daemon keyword and the Dark Pacts ability may advance and charge this turn. If their target is below half strength, they may also re-roll the charge roll.
6. Warp Portal (1CP): End of fight phase, if a unit is not within engagement range of an enemy unit, place that unit into strategic reserve.

So this I played around a lot more with the falvourful side while trying to not make it OP. Obviously putting all 4 aura's on anything makes them very strong, however with only a 6" range, you likely wont get many units that can achieve all of them and still have tactical maneuverability. It's also something easy to charge out of range of if you're not careful.

I love the detachment name, Harold of chaos, ashes of monarchia. Innumerable Cultists. It’s definitely a different detachment theme, Oriented on having more daemon types to get buffs, with the limitation on overlapping bonuses. Question I have. Do ALL units daemon or otherwise get multiple bonuses if within 6” of each other. Reality rend too powerful. Maybe closest unit within 12”.

I thought you couldn’t have a Havoc squad with a Leader.
I was mistaken-and I don’t think up to three squads of A2 Lascannons is good.

 IwinUlose wrote:
I love the detachment name, Harold of chaos, ashes of monarchia. Innumerable Cultists. It’s definitely a different detachment theme, Oriented on having more daemon types to get buffs, with the limitation on overlapping bonuses. Question I have. Do ALL units daemon or otherwise get multiple bonuses if within 6” of each other. Reality rend too powerful. Maybe closest unit within 12”.

Yes, they would all get the buffs and it's keyworded to work with the fact that you can take Khorne Berzerkers, Plauge Marines, ect in a generic Chaos list as they also have their specific God keywords even if they don't get Dark Pact. However, tying 2 of the buffs to making Dark Pact better make you want to use those types of units which typically are not tagged to a specific god to make the most of the buffs. It's a build with a lot of moving parts.

You really think so? Having to deep strike outside of 9" already limits it a lot. I find it hard to imagine a situation where you hit more than 2-3 units, and if you do, you are probably stretching it a bit, so it's not going to be exactly 9" from someone, making a charge harder. Even if its 2 units in range, it's the same statistical damage as a grenade strat, but less focused, 3 would only be a little better and is much more of a niche situation.

Change reality rend to 2cp. Should be fine after looking at it again. I wound drop cultists to 1 cp.

 IwinUlose wrote:
Change reality rend to 2cp. Should be fine after looking at it again. I wound drop cultists to 1 cp.

Maybe 1 MW instead of D3? I don't think anyone would use it at 2CP except in the perfect storm scenario. Or maybe just making it grenade the closest enemy unit (within 12") when you Deep Strike in.

When the revival strats got changed to OPG, I've always figured they should have gone down to 1, but every other revival strat is still 2, so that's where I pointed it. Also, cultists can get pretty chunky under all those buffs. Horde units always benefit the most from aura effects.

Good point on cultist. As for the MW. You need to see how it would be abused, and if so, how bad is it. You are hitting multiple units with MW in 12”.

Mine is 3” radius for example but I just reduced it to closest unit within 3” for 1d3


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is my updated list. Still looking at changing the Armor enhancement. Made some name changes and added protection from picking a HA D. Prince with Daemonic allegiance and get the detachment buffs.
Army Rule: Dark pact.
Detachment Rule: Chaos Undivided Enlightenment:
All non named Heretic Astartes Characters cannot have a Daemonic Allegiance to one of the four Chaos Gods. When a character succeeds with a Dark Pact, grant that character and attached unit (if any) one of the following Chaos Enlightenments which can be used only once in either the shoot or fight phase.
1. Might of Chaos : +2 to Strength.
2. Cunning of Chaos : increase AP by 1.
3. Forced Will of Chaos : +1 Toughness until your next command phase.
4. Allure of Chaos: Add 1 to Attacks.

Enhancements:
1. The Tome of Heretical Covenant (10): add 1 to Dark Pact Rolls and leadership rolls for units within 6”.
2. Exalted of the Chaos Gods (15): Must be your Warlord. gain the keyword Daemon, Undivided. Add +1 Strength (melee weapons), +1 Wounds, +1 Attack (range weapons), +1 Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp (15): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
4. Runic Armor (20): 2+ save. Feel no Pain 5+ (once per battle can re roll a failed check). Non daemon character only.

Stratagems
1. Profane Fanatic (1CP):Advance/Charge
2. Blasphemous Winds (1CP): unit gains stealth
3. Remember Monarcia (1CP): Fallback, shoot and charge
4. Revered of Chaos (1CP): During command phase, choose one daemon unit to regenerate 1d3 lost wounds. If used on a Daemonettes, Plaguebearers, Pink Horrors, or Bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit and health instead.
5. Warp Portal (1CP): End of fight phase, if unit is not within engagement range of an enemy unit, place unit into reserve.
6. Cursed Oblivion (2CP): 1d3 Mortal Wounds to closest unit within 3” when your unit or character is destroyed.

Sometimes you could, but rarely, like I said before, it only works when arriving from Deep Strike, so any unit that it hits has to be within that 3" ring from 9-12 inches. Yeah you could probably get 2, maybe 3 if you position sub-optimally, but I have a hard time imagining more than that.

As for yours:
I think the buffs work well, they're strong, but not universal. The combination of once each per phase and the fact that they have to succeed the Dark Pact to gain the buff make it consistent but not guaranteed, which is very Chaosey.

Every so often often a really thematic ability gets a minor buff for flavour reasons. I'm wondering if there is some kind of added buff that can be given to Remember Monarchia if used vs an Ultramarine?

Cursed Oblivion seems REALLY bad. It deals on average 2MW to a nearby unit within 3" when a character is destroyed for 2! CP. The grenades strat has a range of 8", deals 3 MW on average and is only 1CP.

Ahh. Thanks, I'll look at that. How is the old version 1d3MW to each unit within 3" of when your unit or character is destroyed

You were apt to make the comparison to Reality Rend as they are basically the same thing, so you can judge how good they are the same way.

If you're only hitting 1 target, it's still not as good as Grenades. If you're hitting 2, it's on average 1 extra MW, but split between 2 targets rather than being focused, so it's about on par. It's only if you can hit 3 or more targets that it actually gets really good, so its strength as a strat depends on the likelyhood of that happening.

For Cursed Oblivion, I have a hard time imagining a situation where you have 3 separate enemy units in 3" range of a dying character. Honestly, I think it would be better to have the strat give them an auto deadly demise. Increase it to 6". Either 1 MW for 1CP, or D3 for 2. That's my take on it.

I agree. I also found the flaw in my detachment rule. Still like the character concept but it lacks at range for everyone except havocs. Going to redo it.

Since you have the Toughness buff carry over to your next command phase, you could fix it by doing the same to the other rules as well. If a unit is very dedicated to one phase, it's not very different than the way it is now, and if it's a unit that decent at both, each buff probably doesn't effect it as much per phase anyway, so the overall power improvement should be similar.

Ok. I think I am happy with this. It removes the character tax and provides a more “enlightenment” detachment rule.

Army Rule: Dark pact.
Detachment Rule: Enlightenment of Chaos Undivided:
Heretic Astartes characters can only have Chaos Undivided as a mark keyword. On a successful Dark Pact units can re-roll hit rolls of 1. Once during the battle, you can choose one stratagem for no cost.
Enhancements:
1. The Tome of Heretical Covenant (15): Unit gets 6+ Feel no Pain. Add +1 to Leadership rolls.
2. Exalted of the Chaos Gods (15): Must be your Warlord. gain the keyword Daemon, Chaos Undivided. Add +1 Strength (melee weapons), +1 Toughness, +1 Attack (range weapons) +1” Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp (10): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
4. Runic Armor (20): 2+ save; 5+ Feel no pain. Non daemon character only.
Stratagems:
1. Profane Fanatics (1CP):Advance and Charge
2. Infernal Resilience (1CP): Worsens enemy attacks AP by 1 this phase (shooting or fight phase)
3. Vengeance for Monarcia (1CP): Non daemon unit. Add one to strength rolls. In addition, when fighting Adeptus Astartes, increase the Dark Pact lethal or sustain to 5+.
4. Revered of Chaos (1CP): During command phase, choose one daemon unit to regenerate 1d3 lost wounds. If used on a Daemonettes, Plaguebearers, Pink Horrors, or Bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit and health instead.
5. Warp Rift (2CP): End of fight phase, an infantry unit not within engagement range of an enemy unit can be place into reserve.
6. Daemonic Malice (1CP): A unit with the daemon keyword gains +1 to wound.

 IwinUlose wrote:
Ok. I think I am happy with this. It removes the character tax and provides a more “enlightenment” detachment rule.

Army Rule: Dark pact.
Detachment Rule: Enlightenment of Chaos Undivided:
Heretic Astartes characters can only have Chaos Undivided as a mark keyword. On a successful Dark Pact units can re-roll hit rolls of 1. Once during the battle, you can choose one stratagem for no cost.

Too similar to the existing detachment, the Strategm thing feels like a weird and forced way to bring parity after cutting most of the original rule.

Enhancements:
1. The Tome of Heretical Covenant (15): Unit gets 6+ Feel no Pain. Add +1 to Leadership rolls.

Annoying to resolve, doesn't really do or change anything about the unit and therefore provides little meaningful flavour. Improve the Leadership characteristic of the bearer by 1. The bearer's unit gains a 5+ Feel No Pain while within 6" of a friendly Chaos Daemons unit.

2. Exalted of the Chaos Gods (15): Must be your Warlord. gain the keyword Daemon, Chaos Undivided. Add +1 Strength (melee weapons), +1 Toughness, +1 Attack (range weapons) +1” Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.

Increase OC instead of the stat increases.

3. Phylactery of the Warp (10): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.

Shouldn't you get a thing for priests rather than Sorcerers? Could be interesting if it interacted with dark pacts somehow, heavily incentvising to always be calling on the power of the dark gods when firing magic. .

4. Runic Armor (20): 2+ save; 5+ Feel no pain. Non daemon character only.

No enemy re-rolls allowed against the bearer's unit. Makes them feel protected by higher powers, preventing things like Command Re-roll.

Stratagems:
1. Profane Fanatics (1CP):Advance and Charge
2. Infernal Resilience (1CP): Worsens enemy attacks AP by 1 this phase (shooting or fight phase)
3. Vengeance for Monarcia (1CP): Non daemon unit. Add one to strength rolls. In addition, when fighting Adeptus Astartes, increase the Dark Pact lethal or sustain to 5+.
4. Revered of Chaos (1CP): During command phase, choose one daemon unit to regenerate 1d3 lost wounds. If used on a Daemonettes, Plaguebearers, Pink Horrors, or Bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit and health instead.
5. Warp Rift (2CP): End of fight phase, an infantry unit not within engagement range of an enemy unit can be place into reserve.
6. Daemonic Malice (1CP): A unit with the daemon keyword gains +1 to wound.

Looking at it with fresh eyes having just played my first game with my CSM in 10th. .

 IwinUlose wrote:

Army Rule: Dark pact.
Detachment Rule: Enlightenment of Chaos Undivided:
Heretic Astartes characters can only have Chaos Undivided as a mark keyword. On a successful Dark Pact units can re-roll hit rolls of 1. Once during the battle, you can choose one stratagem for no cost.

So you still get LH or SH when you do the dark pact, but you also get to reroll 1s, right? That seems kind of meh on its own, and the free strat doesn't really make up for it. For my game today, I was torn between detachments that gave me basically-oath-of-moment, +1 AP any time I went after an enemy on an objective, and Crits-on-5+-with-Dark-Pacts. This seems to just be mathematically worse than all of those in most situations. And I'm not sure throwing grenades or going into reserves one extra time per game is going to make up for it. And power level aside, I'm not sure what fluff you're trying to evoke with the free stratagem. Is it just, "Something something chaos god's favor. Something something so you found an extra grenade right when you needed it?"

And am I correct in understanding that the chaos undivided only thing means that you're basically nerfing princes by not letting them get god-specific buffs?

[qutoe]Enhancements:
1. The Tome of Heretical Covenant (15): Unit gets 6+ Feel no Pain. Add +1 to Leadership rolls.
2. Exalted of the Chaos Gods (15): Must be your Warlord. gain the keyword Daemon, Chaos Undivided. Add +1 Strength (melee weapons), +1 Toughness, +1 Attack (range weapons) +1” Move. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp (10): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
4. Runic Armor (20): 2+ save; 5+ Feel no pain. Non daemon character only.

Ok I think I found a great Detatchment Rule that fits with Word Bearers desecrating what they take over.
Changes Update: * equal changes made
Army Rule: Dark pact.
*Detachment Rule: Glory to the Dark Gods.
Heretic Astartes characters can only have no mark or Chaos Undivided as a keyword. As long as you have a unit on an objective marker you already control, that objective marker remains under your control, even if your unit has less OC than your opponent, until you have no units on it.
Enhancements:
*1. The Tome of Heretical Covenant (25): Enemy units within 6" range cannot re-roll hit, wounds or damage when targeting this unit.
*2. Exalted of the Chaos Gods (15): Must be your Warlord. gain the keyword Daemon, Chaos Undivided. Add +2 Strength (melee weapons), +1 Toughness, +1 Wounds. If attached to a Daemon Prince or Daemon Prince with Wings you forgo picking Daemonic Allegiance.
3. Phylactery of the Warp (10): Sorcerer only; +1 to hit and +1 to damage with Psychic Attacks.
*4. Malefic Crozius (5) Dark Apostle only; increase the accursed crozius ap by 1.
Stratagems:
1. Profane Fanatics (1CP): Advance and Charge
2. Infernal Resilience (1CP): Worsens enemy attacks AP by 1 this phase (shooting or fight phase)
*3. Vengeance for Monarcia (1CP): Non daemon unit. reroll wound rolls when either shooting or fighting.
4. Revered of Chaos (1CP): During command phase, choose one daemon unit to regenerate 1d3 lost wounds. If used on a Daemonettes, Plaguebearers, Pink Horrors, or Bloodletters return 1d3 models up to starting unit and health instead.
*5. Warp Rift (1CP): End of fight phase, an infantry unit not within engagement range of an enemy unit can be place into reserve.
*6. Daemonic Malice (2CP): A unit with the daemon keyword gains +1 to wound.