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Referring to them having their own codex. I recently brushed off the dust from my old chaos, and found that I had a lot of Khorne stuff. Out of curiosity, I had a look at the World Eater's codex, and found myself severely unenthused.

One Battleline unit (Berzerkers)

Five infantry units, one of which is a direct repeat from CSM (Terminators) and 2 of which are basically the same (Eightbound / Exalted Eightbound)

One Beast

9 vehicles, 8 of which are just CSM staples.

5 characters.

And that's it. I made a 1k list and ended up 40 points short because of the lack of options.

It really seems to me like they are just unnecessary bloat which could all have fit into a detachment rule for Chaos Space Marines. Am I the only one who feels this?

It's all rather one-dimensional. You can have berzerk melee cultists, berzerk melee marines, berzerk melee marines +1, or berzerk melee marines +2... I got quite excited when I first heard the name Jakhals, I was hoping they were dog-faced beastmen of Khorne, but nope. Would like GW to rediscover things like Red Butchers and Teeth Of Khorne, and give them dedicated sets.

I was collecting World Eaters before the dedicated codex, and so far I'm still running them as CSMs as about half of my collection aren't in the WE codex and I think Eightbound are silly.

They deserve their own codex and it should be one dimensional. Adding more unique units could take away from the distinctiveness of the Berzerkers themselves.

Would be fine if they added in some of the Forgeworld Daemon Engines and Juggernaut mounted infantry. 2nd edition lists had Teeth of Khorne units, who were Havocs. See them as the outer edge of what could round out the army.

Honestly, if the Berzerkers themselves had better stat lines, I'd be happy with a Codex of just them, Kharn, Angron, Terminators, Rhinos and maybe a generic lord.

Honestly I’m fine with either, but GW needs to pick a lane.

If you want a stand alone codex, you need enough in there to justify it.

If you want to wrap it back up in the main book, be sure to have enough options to make theme armies for distinct subfactions.

This limbo where they are on thier own, but not enough meat to stand solo is a horrible place to be.

Crispy78 wrote:
It's all rather one-dimensional. You can have berzerk melee cultists, berzerk melee marines, berzerk melee marines +1, or berzerk melee marines +2...

I have the same view on EC.

I'm not sure I'd call either "unnecessary bloat" - but for some reason I think Death Guard and even Thousand Sons have a lot more dimensions to potential lists (ignoring competitiveness).

It perhaps doesn't help that some of the detachments are just... Tabletop Simulator bait? I'd like to give Cult of Blood a try for instance. But I can't believe anyone sane would own the models.
(This being the internet, someone below me is going to say "but I play Cult of Blood, here's my army...")

The current state is definitely worst of both worlds.

Emperor's Children are even worse. They don't get Predator tanks for arbitrary reasons (even WE get those), leaving the army critically lacking fire support. In theory they could be balanced around this, and sort of were, but that then meant that when they got Defilers, they shot up to become immensely powerful (exacerbated by Defilers being so strong even in a vacuum).

I still think the cult legions should be part of the main book. They should be like armies of infamy in TOW, getting certain restrictions in exchange for additional units and altered mechanics.

Can't see why there isn't two sets of marines - the renegades with the mark of that god and then the legionnaires (khorne berserkers). Works for each of the 4 legions really.

Roll them all into one book and while your at it roll the snowflake marine chapters into one book too!

 Da Boss wrote:
Roll them all into one book and while your at it roll the snowflake marine chapters into one book too!

To be honest, with detachments being what they are, I wouldn't be surprised if they did that.

If you balanced the detachments and say "Each army must have 1 detachment which defines their chapter", make those 1-2DP depending on their power, then give them a range of 1-2DP secondary detachment rules, the whole lot could go into one codex. Same for Chaos.

You could even have a simple statement for some more extreme units - saying that a Khorne Lord on Juggernaut has the "World Eaters" keyword, and having the World Eaters detachment allow you to have the World Eaters units, would be really effective to de-bloat it all into one book again.

Then Abaddon could have a rule for Chaos Undivided which allows you to take 1 additional detachment from the chaos ones for free (costed into his points) so your army can combine 2 of them.

I think the purpose of creating bespoke dexes is to create a more viable way to support the development of new models.

With everything crammed into one book, the temptation is to design for inclusivity: you want any new model to be generic enough to play a role across subfactions so that it's more likely to be taken by people using the dex. In a one book system, a WE model that can only be used if armies are built a certain way won't get used as much as a model that can be used in a greater number of potential builds.

But if WE have their own dex, they've got their own market- releasing a model for a faction that has its own dex is less of a risk than releasing a WE model that only works for a few pieces in the giant jigsaw puzzle that a big book of chaos would be. Whether true or not, that perception would stymie development.

The difficulty is we get the book NOW and we think "What a waste of a book" - what we're not seeing is that having the book now facilitates 14th ed being an awesome ed for WE. Kind of a Field of Dreams "If you build it, they will come" philosopy.

 some bloke wrote:
Referring to them having their own codex. I recently brushed off the dust from my old chaos, and found that I had a lot of Khorne stuff. Out of curiosity, I had a look at the World Eater's codex, and found myself severely unenthused.

One Battleline unit (Berzerkers)

Five infantry units, one of which is a direct repeat from CSM (Terminators) and 2 of which are basically the same (Eightbound / Exalted Eightbound)

One Beast

9 vehicles, 8 of which are just CSM staples.

5 characters.

And that's it. I made a 1k list and ended up 40 points short because of the lack of options.

It really seems to me like they are just unnecessary bloat which could all have fit into a detachment rule for Chaos Space Marines. Am I the only one who feels this?

To be fair, all chaos units/factions should be combined into 1 mega codex, if you want melee, you have some options but maybe go with khorne units, want shooting? use some slaanesh or tzeentch or undivided stuff, want a tough unit to kill? use nurgle. Chaos chilli/salad is the way to go.

I voted "they should have their own codex," but there's a big asterisk on that for me.

What I think would work well is to not have a Codex: World Eaters, but instead to have a Codex: Forces of Khorne. Have one book contain all the WE units, all the khorne daemons, all the Khorne-friendly generic CSM units, rules for khorne knights, even rules for khorne guard if GW wants to give people some real value for their purchase.

With all the Khorne stuff under one roof, you can design detachments and datasheets that assume you want a Khornate bent to your army. You can give havocs in that book that emphasizes their role in being supporting fire or can openers for the aggressive melee elements of your army. Your cultists can have rules representing them being froth-mouthed berzerkers. Your army rules can lean into something like blood tithe points. Your detachments can lean into the idea of your characters seeking worthy challenges or whatever.

Personally, I think Khorne struggles to not be boring, but a book that draws upon a variety of units and then explores a bunch of different corners of how you can represent Khornate stuff could add a lot of fertile ground for making him less boring.

And I think this approach would work even better for the other chaos gods. Basically, we shouldn't have Legion books; we should have god books where the focus is less on exclusive units and more on giving generic units a thematic twist and letting them work alongside those exclusive units.

Spiky Marines, Red Spiky Marines, Blue Spiky Marines, Pink Spiky Marines, and Green Spiky Marines should all be in one book.

BanjoJohn wrote:
To be fair, all chaos units/factions should be combined into 1 mega codex, if you want melee, you have some options but maybe go with khorne units, want shooting? use some slaanesh or tzeentch or undivided stuff, want a tough unit to kill? use nurgle. Chaos chilli/salad is the way to go.

Lord Damocles wrote:Spiky Marines, Red Spiky Marines, Blue Spiky Marines, Pink Spiky Marines, and Green Spiky Marines should all be in one book.

See, you *could* put them all into a single codex, but it does feel like you'd lock CSM in general into being a bit more vanilla at that point. Like, you probably don't end up with stuff like the Death Guard diseases or the Emperor's Children fall back and charge gimmick or the Thousand Sons rituals. Or if you *do* get those mechanics, you get them as detachment rules, and you ditch all the other rules that are currently detachment rules.

So my Thousand Sons list I've been working on that uses the vehicle detachment would go from being Thousand Sons with mechanics for exploring how wizard marines do weird stuff with machines to just being Thousand Sons that happen to also have some tanks around.

Basically, I don't want CSM to end up with the Chaos Daemons issue where you're expected to get all of a given god's flavor from a single detachment. I think creating space for more variety of rules is fine. I just also think that World Eaters demonstrate how some subfactions aren't necessarily deep enough to carry a book on their own. Making Codex: Khorne would allow you to consolidate rules into a smaller number of books, but it would also expand the themes you could explore significantly. You could have mortals lead by/serving as fodder for astartes. You could have demon getting empowered when mortals die. You could have Khornate machine armies. You could have a detachment that's all about head hunting the most prized skulls. And you could have all of those things utilizing some sort of blood tithe mechanic.

Whereas the "khorne detachment" ina generic CSM megabook would probably be something like,
"Units in this detachment add +1 to the Attacks characteristics of their melee weapons if they charged this turn."

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I voted "they should have their own codex," but there's a big asterisk on that for me.

What I think would work well is to not have a Codex: World Eaters, but instead to have a Codex: Forces of Khorne. Have one book contain all the WE units, all the khorne daemons, all the Khorne-friendly generic CSM units, rules for khorne knights, even rules for khorne guard if GW wants to give people some real value for their purchase.

This is what AOS did and it works pretty well. They also got rid of the dedicated Chaos Daemons book and divided the daemons into their dedicated god battletomes. This allows Khorne players to run mortals, daemons, or any mixture without having to rely on awkward souping detachments.

"Bloat" remains code for "choices I don't like".

 RaptorusRex wrote:
"Bloat" remains code for "choices I don't like".

Ehh. Kinda. I tend to think of "bloat" as meaning, "Stuff that was already represented by something else and doesn't carve out a significantly distinct niche for itself." Which is obviously very subjective. But as some bloke broke down in the opening post, a significant portion of their roster is just stuff that already exists for generic CSM. And Some of the unique units could reasonably have been other existing units.

Like, jakhals are cool, but their unit concept definitely could have been represented by the generic cultist kit. That the kit comes with different weapons than the generic cultist kit feels more like an attempt at justifying the distinction rather than an intuitive distinction that was begging for a kit and bespoke rules. I'm far from an expert, but my understanding is that, conceptually, 8-bound are basically just possessed? And even berzerkers, iconic as they are, are kind of just legionaires with melee weapons who get to stab harder because they're just soooooo angry! (As opposed to how chill and emotionally well-adjusted your average legionaire is.)

So while I do, as I said above, support the idea of a book for Khorne units, the way World Eaters was implemented feels like it failed to do much that the generic CSM book didn't already allow. Like, if you put Angron in the generic CSM book, there aren't a lot of playstyles the WE book offers that the CSM book couldn't offer some version of. All you'd really be missing is the casino of Khorne mechanic.

So on the whole, I think reasonable people could argue that the WE book and unit line is largely "already represented by something else" and for the most part "doesn't carve out a significantly distinct niche for itself." If the slots in the release cycle that went towards WE books were used for something else, we could have fleshed out Votan some more or avoided sending some drukhari units to legends or we could have given harlequins their own codex again or any number of other things.

But maybe the WE rules feel meaningfully unique and distinctive to WE fans out there? I'm on the outside looking in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the Signless wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I voted "they should have their own codex," but there's a big asterisk on that for me.

What I think would work well is to not have a Codex: World Eaters, but instead to have a Codex: Forces of Khorne. Have one book contain all the WE units, all the khorne daemons, all the Khorne-friendly generic CSM units, rules for khorne knights, even rules for khorne guard if GW wants to give people some real value for their purchase.

This is what AOS did and it works pretty well. They also got rid of the dedicated Chaos Daemons book and divided the daemons into their dedicated god battletomes. This allows Khorne players to run mortals, daemons, or any mixture without having to rely on awkward souping detachments.

Nice! Yeah, that sounds exactly like what I was picturing.

 the Signless wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I voted "they should have their own codex," but there's a big asterisk on that for me.

What I think would work well is to not have a Codex: World Eaters, but instead to have a Codex: Forces of Khorne. Have one book contain all the WE units, all the khorne daemons, all the Khorne-friendly generic CSM units, rules for khorne knights, even rules for khorne guard if GW wants to give people some real value for their purchase.

This is what AOS did and it works pretty well. They also got rid of the dedicated Chaos Daemons book and divided the daemons into their dedicated god battletomes. This allows Khorne players to run mortals, daemons, or any mixture without having to rely on awkward souping detachments.

And if they had actually done that for the four relevant Legions, it might not all feel as bad. Codex: Tzeentch would feel a lot different with ALL the daemons and the ability to use them in more than just a single half-assed detachment than Codex: Thousand Sons currently does.

If you were to fold all or most of the options of the World Eaters into Chaos Space Marines you would get a monster codex that's probably too bloated. What they need is a bit more of unique units to make them worthwhile like a cavalry unit, a flamethrower unit and maybe a unique transport.

Echoing the “Gimme the Big Book Of Khorne” and the same for the other three gods.
I’d love to better integrate my Death Guard and Daemons, and have a mechanical reason to snag some humans.

 some bloke wrote:
Referring to them having their own codex. I recently brushed off the dust from my old chaos, and found that I had a lot of Khorne stuff. Out of curiosity, I had a look at the World Eater's codex, and found myself severely unenthused.

One Battleline unit (Berzerkers)

Five infantry units, one of which is a direct repeat from CSM (Terminators) and 2 of which are basically the same (Eightbound / Exalted Eightbound)

One Beast

9 vehicles, 8 of which are just CSM staples.

5 characters.

And that's it. I made a 1k list and ended up 40 points short because of the lack of options.

It really seems to me like they are just unnecessary bloat which could all have fit into a detachment rule for Chaos Space Marines. Am I the only one who feels this?

They are "new" and need more passes from the Model Kit Fairy. Sadly GW has been adding new faster than they've been filling out new.

epronovost wrote:
If you were to fold all or most of the options of the World Eaters into Chaos Space Marines you would get a monster codex that's probably too bloated.

No you wouldn't.
Besides Big Angry Possessed Man, all of the World Eaters units either already have generic versions (Possessed, Cultists, Legends Jugger Lord), or are just generic Spiky Marine or Daemon units copy-pasted across.

Meanwhile they're locked out of options like Berkerkers with bolters, foot Lords, bikes, Teeth of Khorne, Mutilators, beastmen, cultists with guns, Terminator Lords...

Give them more.

Blood Slaughterer Daemon Engine. A Scout level equivalent of Cultists part way through the conversion process.

Red Butcher Terminators updated some in styling.

An open topped transport with a fighting deck. Mount a unit, and they add their collective attacks to those of the vehicle.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

epronovost wrote:
If you were to fold all or most of the options of the World Eaters into Chaos Space Marines you would get a monster codex that's probably too bloated.

No you wouldn't.
Besides Big Angry Possessed Man, all of the World Eaters units either already have generic versions (Possessed, Cultists, Legends Jugger Lord), or are just generic Spiky Marine or Daemon units copy-pasted across.

Meanwhile they're locked out of options like Berkerkers with bolters, foot Lords, bikes, Teeth of Khorne, Mutilators, beastmen, cultists with guns, Terminator Lords...

Echoing this. You could put all the actually unique units from both the WE book and the EC book into the generic CSM book and it would barely increase the page count. (But again, my vote is for Codex: Khorne.)

Anything worth a bespoke codex needs substantial amount of unique units and stuff to go with it. Forcing factions into specific lanes is the main reason for eventual Flanderization.

My particular pet peeve are the followers of Tzeentch. I hate almost everything about the Thousand Sons (GTFO with that Egyptian lover aesthetic LMAO), yet, if I am to make a Tzeentch aligned Chaos warband, I have little choice these days. I absolutely hate that *spits*

 Wyldhunt wrote:

See, you *could* put them all into a single codex, but it does feel like you'd lock CSM in general into being a bit more vanilla at that point. Like, you probably don't end up with stuff like the Death Guard diseases or the Emperor's Children fall back and charge gimmick or the Thousand Sons rituals. Or if you *do* get those mechanics, you get them as detachment rules, and you ditch all the other rules that are currently detachment rules.

Any book merging is extremely unlikely to happen before 12th at earliest, at which point detachment rules as a mechanic may be as totally obsolete as 7e Formations were in 8e.

So I don't see a problem.

With that said, the CSM can do what they want. The important thing is they leave Daemons alone. I am a Daemons player, I don't play CSM. I would be more than miffed if Daemons were reduced to cheerleaders in mixed mortal-Daemon monogod books like what happened in AoS. I have loved mixed Daemons ever since they got the book proper back in 2007. It's what I am here for. If Adeptus Mechanicus are established enough to remain their own faction then so are we (we've been our own faction for much longer than they have, in fact).

World Eaters, like the other mono-god CSM factions, have a very strong identity and deserve their own Codex.

The problem is that GW chose to heavily flanderize them while also arbitrarily preventing them from taking CSM units that would logically fit the army even in its flanderized state (jetpacks, bikes).

I guess that in 10 years they'll have enough units to support a variety of playstyles (while still being a melee-focused army) and truly feel like a complete Codex. But as things stand, they're not in a great spot.

Death Guard just got lucky because as the 8th edition new playable army, they got a very sizeable release.

EDIT : World Eaters always were my favorite renegade legion and I absolutely HATE the release they got.

Ashiraya wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

See, you *could* put them all into a single codex, but it does feel like you'd lock CSM in general into being a bit more vanilla at that point. Like, you probably don't end up with stuff like the Death Guard diseases or the Emperor's Children fall back and charge gimmick or the Thousand Sons rituals. Or if you *do* get those mechanics, you get them as detachment rules, and you ditch all the other rules that are currently detachment rules.

Any book merging is extremely unlikely to happen before 12th at earliest, at which point detachment rules as a mechanic may be as totally obsolete as 7e Formations were in 8e.

For context, I'm just talking in terms of what I'd ideally like to see. Wishlisting, basically. I'm not approaching the topic as though GW will see my post here and do what I want if and only if it happens to fit the production pipeline.

With that said, the CSM can do what they want. The important thing is they leave Daemons alone. I am a Daemons player, I don't play CSM. I would be more than miffed if Daemons were reduced to cheerleaders in mixed mortal-Daemon monogod books like what happened in AoS. I have loved mixed Daemons ever since they got the book proper back in 2007. It's what I am here for. If Adeptus Mechanicus are established enough to remain their own faction then so are we (we've been our own faction for much longer than they have, in fact).

Ideally, I'd like mixed daemons to always remain an option. That said, I'm always a little surprised when people feel strongly about wanting to specifically play mixed daemons moreso than making monogod lists work. To my mind, monogod lists make way more sense as a coherent, thematic force that can tell stories related to specific gods and their designs. Whereas mixed god armies usually read like you're playing some random warp warp incursion with no particular god behind the wheel. But to each their own. I'd absolutely love to be able to field my slaaneshi daemons with noise marines without having to take a specific detachment or worry about point ratios.

Selfcontrol wrote:World Eaters, like the other mono-god CSM factions, have a very strong identity and deserve their own Codex.

The problem is that GW chose to heavily flanderize them while also arbitrarily preventing them from taking CSM units that would logically fit the army even in its flanderized state (jetpacks, bikes).

Out of genuine curiosity: what are the strong bits of identity that you think warrant their own codex? As I said earlier, I support there being a Khorne book, but a big part of that is essentially just the idea of putting a Khorne-y twist on existing units or making room for some Khorne-themed detachment rules. When I think about the differences between a Khorne-themed vanilla CSM list and a Codex: WE list, there isn't really a huge difference in terms of aesthetic or (form an outsider's perspective) playstyle. They can both field a bunch of dudes with chainsaws that stagger waves of melee dudes. The biggest difference seems to just be the blood tithe thing.

Whereas Thousand Sons with their rituals, Tzaangor units, rubric units, abundance of various psyker types, and detachments that emphasize psykers doing psyker things feel like they'd be harder to make space for in a vanilla CSM book. Ditto Death Guard with their heartier unit profiles and somewhat extensive plague mechanics. EC are maybe a little more borderline, but a better version of EC than what we got would have more noise marine datasheets to deal with, drug mechanics, probably still something like their current army rule, and their various gimmicky detachments. I'm probably just being reductive, but I think I have an easier time picturing WE being rolled in with vanilla CSM because it seems like most of their units are just generic CSM units but angrier. Like, if you don't feel the need to mechanically distinguish between a chainsword and a chain axe, berserkers are almost just chainsword legionaires. Maybe I just have trouble treating anger as a super power on par with plague zombie durability or being a magical dust automaton. Cue Mr. Furious from Mystery Men joke here.

Out of genuine curiosity: what are the strong bits of identity that you think warrant their own codex? As I said earlier, I support there being a Khorne book, but a big part of that is essentially just the idea of putting a Khorne-y twist on existing units or making room for some Khorne-themed detachment rules. When I think about the differences between a Khorne-themed vanilla CSM list and a Codex: WE list, there isn't really a huge difference in terms of aesthetic or (form an outsider's perspective) playstyle. They can both field a bunch of dudes with chainsaws that stagger waves of melee dudes. The biggest difference seems to just be the blood tithe thing.

Your view of the World Eaters is understandable and helps explain why you feel a Codex : Khorne would be more appropriate.

Personally, what I've always liked about Khorne is that he isn't just the god of mindless close-combat brutality. In the older lore, Khorne was also a Chaos God who had a particular appreciation for technology in many forms : not just daemon engines, but even ranged weaponry (although at shorter range of course). Moreover, he isn't simply the patron of psychopathic killers : he is also a god to whom the weak may turn in the hope of gaining the strength needed to overthrow their oppressors.

I also appreciated that Khorne wasn't merely a one-dimensional brute. He had a theme of corrupted or perverted honor that suited him particularly well. His followers could be psychopathic butchers or freedom fighters who genuinely believe in honor and seek his aid. Khorne would be willing to help either, because he knows that war only leads to more war, honor leads to tyranny, tyranny leads to savagery, and in the end, the only thing that truly matters is that blood flows.

These aspects, combined with the somewhat tragic lore of the World Eaters and their gladiatorial culture, are why they have always been my favorite Legion. They have tremendous potential to embody Khorne's many facets : corrupted gladiators who still cling to notions of honor, psychotic berserkers utterly lost to the nails, dedicated melee warriors supported by firepower, and so on.

The problem is that GW decided that its monotheistic armies needed strong, simple, and easily recognizable identities, with little room for nuance. Hence the flanderization I deeply dislike.

This is, of course, a very personal interpretation of the World Eaters. Even within the limited release we received, however, I think the Codex could have been far more interesting. Instead of giving us two nearly identical variants of corrupted gladiators, we could have had the Teeth of Khorne, for example : a sort of medium/short-range Havoc unit with access to plasma cannons (because Khorne is rage and rage is hot and hot is fire blablabla, there's even a concept art by Jes Goodwin !). Likewise, the army could have included cultists modeled more after militaristic troops (imperial guards style or blood pact style) to represent the "warfare" aspect of Khorne rather than simply weaker Berserkers (with such followers would have to prove themselves through competent warfare before they could hope to become World Eaters, get the "honour" of receiving the butcher nails and gain the strength required to truly excel in close combat, etc).

Don't get me wrong, they would have still be a melee-focused army (the ranged part would have only been support). But adding a bit of nuance (both in gameplay and in visual identity) would have been great.

I'm generally in favor of moving the daemons in more with their associated chapters. I think there's branding reasons why they stay as World Eaters over something more Khorne labeled but generally in favor of the overall direction.

I do get why people that play daemons are attached to mixed daemons though. GW has traditionally designed the army in such a way that their unit variety comes from different gods providing a specific type of unit to the army. People do play mono-god but its always felt constrictive without crossover.