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.

Hey Dakka! I'm currently working on a world eaters project for my store escalation league.
I was enamored with Kharn and had to buy him and some Zerkers.

I've always been a Lore Snob for 40k, and have avoided the World Eaters because of that. However, I just finished the night lords trilogy, and had an Epiphany about Khorne Worshippers... atleast in the night lords novels, they only became psycho killers on the battlefield, and were somewhat normal (whatever that means for torturous murder heretics) off the battlefield.

So my question is: are there any non-berserker world eaters? Are they intelligent enough to operate a fleet? some tanks? I'm genuinely curious and I'm unable to find a good lore answer

Thanks friends!

Of course they are.. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to field those items in game. There comes a point where they are too far gone, but that can take a while.

I assume you're talking about 40k, post khorne world eaters. The butchers nails drive them to aggression, but most are capable of coherent thought.. Kharn for example. I like to think that most are still capable of performing to some degree of tactical acumen also.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Of course they are.. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to field those items in game. There comes a point where they are too far gone, but that can take a while.

I assume you're talking about 40k, post khorne world eaters. The butchers nails drive them to aggression, but most are capable of coherent thought.. Kharn for example. I like to think that most are still capable of performing to some degree of tactical acumen also.

40k Kharn seems to fight like bloody sherlock holmes in the RDJ movie, literally plans each move and counter move, weaknesses etc. and appears quite sane

So then my next question:

World eaters cultists? could those be a thing?

I know khornate cults exist, but I have a hard time imagining them lasting very long aboard a World Eaters ship

You could make an argument for khorne cultists... Although they wouldn't really be cultists.. If you read eater of worlds, it features human crew members who fight in their own gladiatorial pits in imitation of the world eaters marines, so you could model them as humans like that. Ships crew, engineers etc.

For cultists in WE, bloodreavers fill a lovely gap. Add some chainy/cably bits and pistols and they look perfect. Right out of gladiator pits the WE have.

On the topic of sane thought, world eaters are very good at cold, calculated thinking and strategy, however the bloodlust of the butcher's nails in their heads often overwhelms them and the urge to kill just takes over them, falling into a vicious rage. This cannot easily be controlled by the marine, but the nails start pumping hormones at the mere thought of battle.
So yes, they do think, they think very well in fact, however they too easily collapse to the urges of khornate destruction

 McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:
For cultists in WE, bloodreavers fill a lovely gap. Add some chainy/cably bits and pistols and they look perfect. Right out of gladiator pits the WE have.

On the topic of sane thought, world eaters are very good at cold, calculated thinking and strategy, however the bloodlust of the butcher's nails in their heads often overwhelms them and the urge to kill just takes over them, falling into a vicious rage. This cannot easily be controlled by the marine, but the nails start pumping hormones at the mere thought of battle.
So yes, they do think, they think very well in fact, however they too easily collapse to the urges of khornate destruction

+1 friend

That was easily the best reply i've ever seen on the topic of WE

Blood reavers are a little large for regular humans if you're inclined to concern yourself with scale though. I use blood reaver torsos for my gladiator style world eaters minus chest plates.

I'm thinking of using the marauders, and giving them ork arms with guns. Idk how well that will work

Ork arms will be WAY too big. Use the marauder arms. They look small and puny by will be perfect scale against normal SM. another option would be looking at some of the necromunda gangs. Not goliath though because they're bigger than SM!

Its not so much the Nails as Khorne. In Talon of Horus Lorhe and his squad non devout World Eaters who were pretty rational, one even tried to study the nails effects to control it. The significance of the Nails is that they make it easier for Khorne to take hold and once Khorne takes hold its pretty much over. Think Uzaz.

 Redbad wrote:
So then my next question:

World eaters cultists? could those be a thing?

I know khornate cults exist, but I have a hard time imagining them lasting very long aboard a World Eaters ship

Khorne has a certain duality to it.as stated before the crew imitates the WE but khorne is also tactically capable and has an extremely calculating side to him, so formations like the bloodpact exist.

In the end it would not be unlikely to find psychotic IG veteran regiments serving alongside WE units.
Also the legion is fractured so how each warband in built is fairly free lorewise for you.


In the end you could either soup in some allied R&H or a horde of bloodthirsty cultists.
Additionally not all WE have gotten the nails.

Not many though... Angron insisted on it, so those without tended to abandon the legion or become blackshields and the like.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Not many though... Angron insisted on it, so those without tended to abandon the legion or become blackshields and the like.

Angron insisted on it ten thousand years ago when the WE were a unified legion. Since Skalathrax, they've been thousands of independent warbands and Angron's been busy fighting for Khorne in the Warp (or occasionally slumming it on Armageddon). Any veterans of the HH will have the Nails, but anyone recruited since then might not if their warband's leader decided not to give them the Nails yet.

 Duskweaver wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Not many though... Angron insisted on it, so those without tended to abandon the legion or become blackshields and the like.

Angron insisted on it ten thousand years ago when the WE were a unified legion. Since Skalathrax, they've been thousands of independent warbands and Angron's been busy fighting for Khorne in the Warp (or occasionally slumming it on Armageddon). Any veterans of the HH will have the Nails, but anyone recruited since then might not if their warband's leader decided not to give them the Nails yet.

Or if they're a smaller warband they may not have the expertise - books like Nightlords omnibus show that among various Chaos forces there are smaller raiding warbands that have pretty minimal medical support (no apothecary, no ability to make new marines etc). The Nails presumably involve some amount of brain surgery to install so I would think it's not something you can just do in the field.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Not many though... Angron insisted on it, so those without tended to abandon the legion or become blackshields and the like.

Yes and no, it would be suspected that after the prohibition of the Praxis the ammount dropped quite heavily.

Also the berzerker chirugeons mostly work now for the BL.
Or warbands that can pay them, and the splintered WE certainly can't Ressource wise compete with a lot of the other groups so their recruits mostlikely will not have the nails.

Also Zhufor hasen 't nails implanted and a lot others did not aswell so whilest surely half the legion got "nailed" I doubt anything more got them, especially after the librarius incidents.

True. Do you have a solid reference for zhufor not having them? I don't believe his lexi entry explicitly states he doesn't. His model doesn't have them the same way kharns does, but I'm not sure that's enough to say he hasn't got them.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True. Do you have a solid reference for zhufor not having them? I don't believe his lexi entry explicitly states he doesn't. His model doesn't have them the same way kharns does, but I'm not sure that's enough to say he hasn't got them.

I belive in one of the Vraks books, heh i should actually know but i only ever got IA13.

HA, turns out Zhufor before was an loyalist, that got tinkered with (read torture to break his imperial indoctrination), not nailed, but still turned into a psychopath.

Yeah I knew he was shanghai'd into the legion but I always assumed he got nailed when they did it. I have his model that needs finishing. Broke into every bit possible during my recent house move despite layers of bubble wrap.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah I knew he was shanghai'd into the legion but I always assumed he got nailed when they did it. I have his model that needs finishing. Broke into every bit possible during my recent house move despite layers of bubble wrap.

Well that's bad.

They did experiment on him though but the nails he never got.
Maybee he got an experimental bastardisation /(maybee even lobotomization) instead?