Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Word Bearers, one of the more fanatical CSM legions. if someone was going to make a small detachment of WB what would it include? Would it be an elite detachment of daemon mutated space marines? (think mutilators, obliterators, possesed) led by a Sorcerer making damning pacts to the dark gods in exchange for daemons and gifts? Or would it be a dark apostle screaming blasphemous chants and prayers to the dark gods supported by a large amount of fanatical chaos cultists? Or is it a mixture of the two? Please comment I'm having trouble making a Word Bearers army and a key thing in this army is I want it to be able to summon daemons in some form. (Side note: Dark Apostles really should be lvl 1 malefic psykers because they make tons of sacrifices and pacts with the dark gods and yet they some how they don't summon daemons... or do anything a sacrifice should give you... Also, this is 40k backround because I'm asking about what would be in a Word Bearers masters of faith esk attachment so please don't tell me to move this to list making.

cultists, CSMs, posessed CSMs. terminators. proably few if any cult troops.

So if I was making a small detachment what should I prioritize for Hq(s) and troops
Edit: OOPS by troops I meant all infantry

for HQ I'd go with a dark apostle. and then maybe a chaos lord if you wanna double HQ.

for troops go with a mix of standard CSMs and cultists.

Word Bearers don't have many cult troops, they view the worship of a single god a little weird. They have plenty of cultists, which they happily throw away without a care in the world.

Each chapter has a Dark Apostle, who is the spiritual liege of the chapter. The second in command is the Coryphaus, who is the commander of the chapter. He does all the tactical work, and fulfils the whims of the dark apostle.

They do work a lot with daemons, and routinely run in the warp with their Gellar shields down, so daemons come on board the ship. As such, you'll get a lot of possessed marines, as they find possession by a daemon to be very holy. You'll also find marked marines, although no real cult marines.

You'll also find daemon engines, so heldrakes, the two fiends and defilers.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Word Bearers don't have many cult troops, they view the worship of a single god a little weird.

That's old fluff. The last codex retconned them. Now they each worship 1 of the Chaos gods. On the table top you'd represent this by making sure that all your units have a mark.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Word Bearers don't have many cult troops, they view the worship of a single god a little weird.

That's old fluff. The last codex retconned them. Now they each worship 1 of the Chaos gods. On the table top you'd represent this by making sure that all your units have a mark.

I got it from one of the Dark Apostle books, where one of the characters criticises another for heading to far towards Slaanesh.

I'd still say Cult troops are too far, you very rarely see them outside the legions (except plague marines, which end up in every warband no matter how small) of their origin. I'd say marked troops is as far as they'd go.

What source retconned the Word Bearers? I always understood them to be the pagan-like embodiment of Chaos Undivided, refusing to commit themselves to any single Chaos deity. They're all gods, after all, and therefore worthy of devotion.

Not a Word Bearers expert here, I'm genuinely curious.

In the 6th edition chaos space marine codex, their tiny little fluff section on page 13 says "dedicating every new blasphemy to the ruinous powers, they each venerate one of the chaotic pantheon with manic fervour."

To OP, my Word Bearers make extensive use of CSM squads, cultists, obliterators and possessed, though cultists fit very well too. My own warband utilises heresy tech like contemptors and a storm eagle to represent their unity as a legion allowing more advanced tech to survive in a useable state. Typically, if it has the daemon rule you're not going wrong.

If purely fluffwise, than mandatory units would be:

Dark Apostle
Cultists
Possessed
Icons and Gifts of Mutation everywhere possible

This is what determines them. But otherwise, i don't think there are lots of restrictions other than not going too heavy on a mark of one particular god.

Oh, and they'd strongly like to work alongside daemon allies.

So, a fluffy yet worthy force could be something like:

Dark Apostle leading a bunch of cultists.
Crymson slaughter sorc with Prophet of the Voices artifact surrounded by possessed and summoning daemons
A bunch of rhino marines with different icons/marks in rhinos with dirge casters
One of the helbrute formations
Allied daemons
Anything else.

Koooaei miss a good point, the helcult is very fluffy for word bearers.

To be honest, i've played with something like that not long ago

1500 pts
POTV unmarked bikersorc + Possessed
Unmarked marines with melta + combimelta in a rhino
Cultists
1000 sons in a rhino
2 nurgle obliterators
3 unmarked plasmatermies
Murderpack (5 helbrutes)

And i did quite good - eventually won. Summoning is great especially when you're not too numerous to begin with. And murderpack did unexpectedly good. They've blown up a couple of pods, denied opponent the flank allowing me to safely farm maelstorm points and killed a scout-bike squad with two chaptermasters.

Lack of massed obsec bogged me down at first but than helbrutes supported by shrowded and summoned daemon bauble-wrap did their thing.

Another game i tried to build a more powerful list, so exchanged possessed + potv sorc for regular sorc with spawns, dropped 1000 sons and termies (even though, i find termies pretty potent - but i was mainly testing murderpack, so they had to go) and took an allied daemon detachment of pink horrors + herald. I aslo dropped obliterators but can't remember what i took instead

This list did even better. Even though i've played vs GK.

 Sheokronath wrote:
In the 6th edition chaos space marine codex, their tiny little fluff section on page 13 says "dedicating every new blasphemy to the ruinous powers, they each venerate one of the chaotic pantheon with manic fervour."

To OP, my Word Bearers make extensive use of CSM squads, cultists, obliterators and possessed, though cultists fit very well too. My own warband utilises heresy tech like contemptors and a storm eagle to represent their unity as a legion allowing more advanced tech to survive in a useable state. Typically, if it has the daemon rule you're not going wrong.

I missed that, good catch.
I think GW's been trying to move away from chaos undivided of late. all the recent source material plays it down, and Black crusade REALLY pushed the "gotta choose a god to get anywhere" element of things. at the time I figured it was just FFGs take on things, but it looks like GW's moving that direction too. notice the lack of unmarked DPs in this codex?

Well, technically, you get an unmarked dp through ascentiaon if the character used to be unmarked too. But fluffwie there was something about Chaos Gods themselves not willing to create no more undivided DP after Be'Lakor.

 koooaei wrote:
Well, technically, you get an unmarked dp through ascentiaon if the character used to be unmarked too. But fluffwie there was something about Chaos Gods themselves not willing to create no more undivided DP after Be'Lakor.

Kinda makes you wonder which god Lorgar is dedicated to? Or maybe they'll just retcon him to not be a daemon prince after all. Probably killed by Guilliman or Draigo or some dreck like that...

It's probably just another part of contradicting fluff written by different people. We can always just go: "It's warp - there's no past or future in there, so Lorgar, Petr could have always been daemon princes as well even before/after/simultaniously with Be'Lakor" and such stuff.