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I have been pondering the idea of starting a 30k World Eater force for sometime now and have done some google searches on what the best way to get into it is. Although my most basic questions of like what box set to start with (Calth or Prospero) and what Legion I would want to play (World Eaters) have been answered I have been struggling with a few more specific problems.

1) I wish to use this 30k force in both 30k and 40k games, I am more of a casual gamer for 40k so I know that will be acceptable in my local gaming groups, but is 30k unbalanced in the world of 40k?

2) I wish to start a World Eater force that maximizes close combat unit builds so what would be an ideal way to build the Calth set into that type of force (note: I'm leaning towards two units of 15 man tac squads with bolt pistols and chain axes. Is that viable under the World Eaters ROW?)

3) Lastly is there any general advice for a newcomer to 30k when building ones army? I want to build something very fluffy for World Eaters while also being something I can enjoy playing in both 30k and 40k. Winning isn't everything to me so I just want a force looking to slaughter every enemy or get themselves slaughtered in the process.

Thanks in advance for any answers to these questions.

p.s blood for the blood god

1) There are two big problems with trying to mix 30k and 40k. First off you can't shortcut the need for infantry to spam tanks/Titans in 30k as easily as you can in 40k, so an all-comers 30k army is going to have a lot more anti-infantry stuff than an all-comers 40k army. Secondly 30k is designed for bigger games, so you may come across people wanting a 500-750pt game and find you need to play Unbound or use a Zone Mortalis FOC to play at all. 30k and 40k aren't strictly unbalanced against each other, but they are different play environments and you may need to do a bit of tweaking to make them mesh.

As for the competitive/casual balance you may just have to experiment a bit to figure out what's too powerful for your playgroup. Plopping down Phosphex mortars against Tyranids may be a bit much, but I've seen a Necron deathstar fight Vulkan to a standstill. If you tell us a bit more about your playgroup we may be able to give suggestions about specific units that should be used or avoided.

2) Any World Eaters build should be starting with immense quantities of dudes with chainaxes. You'll need to find the arms, but if you can do that starting from two fifteen-man chainaxe squads is totally workable.

You will want some sort of firepower to add onto the Calth box, but being World Eaters you probably want that to come from a Spartan (to shoot while driving a hold full of screaming berserkers at the enemy) or Dreadnaughts (to shoot while rampaging forward to punch the enemy in the face) more so than traditional artillery.

3) You've got to throw a lot of what you learn playing normal Space Marines out the window when you go for the Legion list. Quantity is important, you will live or die on morale and combat resolution, your vehicles can do a lot more work, and Terminators aren't a sad joke masquerading as terrifying elite infantry. The internal balance of the Legion list is reasonably well thought out, if you've got the option to take something there's almost always a situation where it's a good thing to take (sometimes it's a narrow situation; Breachers are fantastic in Zone Mortalis, but once you get to normal-size tables they're mostly good for thumbing your nose at the clever Guard/Auxilia/Militia player who's trying to batter past your 3+ save with a volume of high-AP blasts). Don't look for the god unit that solves all problems, build an army off of basic structural elements rather than looking for loopholes to let you spam the flashy units, and you'll be fine.

(Postscript: As a World Eaters player you are contractually obligated to make a Contemptor-Cortus talon with chainfists represented as Dreadnaught-scale chainaxes, for the greater glory of the Blood God and the Red Angel.)

(Post-postscript: The short story After D'Shea in the Tales of Heresy anthology is a worthy read. And you get to dismiss other peoples' fancy high-tech Legion choices as 'high-rider weapons not fit for a warrior on the hot dust' before bowling them over with a stampede of basic dudes with chainaxes.)

30K has enough differences in it right now to make it almost a different game from 40K. I'd say it's very, very difficult to make an army that would both do well in 30K and in 40K. There is wargear that has the same name, but very different rules in 30K (for example, Grav weapons are totally different in 30K). 30K has weapons that would just decimate any army without MSU; You also don't have And They Shall Know No Fear. Think about that for a second- suddenly, morale tests, pinning tests, leadership tests all become very, very important. Being swept in close combat is a very, very real possibility. Fearless, stubborn, and even a couple other rules that effect your leadership in a positive way are very, very few and far between. Unless your playing Thousand Sons, you basically have no Psykers AT ALL. Librarian? What's that? Oh! You want to pay 100 points for a very, very bad Level One Psyker? OK... The Lords of War choices available to a 30K player would make a 40K player wet their britches. And of course, Primarchs... You and your 40K opponent would really need to be on the same page and talk about the type of game you want to play, and then build army lists accordingly. Otherwise, the game might become very one sided towards one player or the other.

30K doesn't really start to become viable until 2,000 points, and the sweet spot is 2,500 points. I'd say start making your core first: Praetor, Paragon Blade, Master Crafted, Iron Halo, and Digital Weapons. Then build two 20 model Legion Tactical Squads. After that, concentrate on the advantages your Legion has and the Rite of War you are taking. Do you want a shooty army? Armored army? Close combat army? etc. etc. With no Formations in 30K, you have to follow the Force Organization Detachment rules. On top of that, you get to select a Rite of War- benefits that apply to your entire army, but restricts your Force Organization Chart. And you get Warlord Traits on top of that. You may not have as many different or complicated rules as you get out of a 40K Formation, you can still stack up a lot of different bonuses for different units. Plan accordingly!

As a Sons of Horus player, I'll say that bolt pistols and chain axes are very viable and very deadly. I try to take as many chain axes as I can. Forge World does make a chain axe upgrade kit if need it!

Welcome to 30K and good luck!

 AnomanderRake wrote:
with the Book 6 footnote making all traitor World Eaters Apothecaries confer a 4+ FNP

Where is this foot note? It interests me greatly...

 edbradders wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
with the Book 6 footnote making all traitor World Eaters Apothecaries confer a 4+ FNP

Where is this foot note? It interests me greatly...

I've been misreading it, unfortunately; the Narthecium Primus (FNP 4+) from Gahlan Surlak (Book 6, page 249) isn't conferred to other Apothecaries, the Exhortation of Butchery rule (activate to give all non-character models in your unit +1 Attack, but at the end of the phase roll a die for each non-character model in your unit and one a 1 they're RFPed with no saves of any kind allowed) is.

Still a good reason to take large units and Apothecaries, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
...Forge World does make a chain axe upgrade kit if need it!...

(I'm scanning Ebay for people parting out chanaxe bits from the plastic Khorne Berserkers kit, but it looks like plastic 30k has driven demand up to the point that they're about the same price per chainaxe as the Forge World ones. That said getting surplus Berserkers and chopping arms/hands off will solve the issue with the Calth models only coming with bolter arms...)

I wouldn't worry too much about trying to get chainaxes for every model; as long as the majority have them, you should be fine. Unless you just really want them.