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So whilst browsing Etsy I noticed all the gorgeous spiky third party goodness that was on offer..

So it begs the question exactly when during the Heresy did they start adopting spiky armour and lean more into the asthetic of what they would later look like? I mean was it gradual?, was it all in as soon as they showed their true colours at Calth?. My Word Bearers are very much out the box types the Cataphractii have a skull atop their armour as a nod to "Well they aint good guys anymore" and my contemptors have chaotic icons to make them stand out...As well as skulls... so yeah I get the brief..

But I have stopped short of going balls to the wall... cause then they would no different then their 40k counterparts..

Advice insight appreciated as always...

Despite their fall to Chaos the Word Bearers didn't really go in on spikes and horns until they became truly corrupted after moving into the Eye and Maelstrom.
HH era Word Bearers were big on script hanging from their armour, runes that meant something in Chaos speak and it was only really Dark Apostles or high ranking Legion Commanders who would wear particularly stylised or baroque armour. At least until much later in the Heresy when the lines between Legion Astartes and Chaos Space Marine really began to blur.

Indeed I thought as much...

There is a rather interesting horned helmet in the Word Bearers upgrades kit that coming out.Its not to OTT either so my squad leaders may be switched out for that helmet at some point... The point with the scripture as well is a good one.. the carved armour is cool but that takes more time to freehand than I am willing to give the transfers as well working with that much of a small space on infantry anyway.

I use all the scripture transfers on vehicles such as Dreadnoughts.. I fully intend to put that on my Leviathan Dreadnoughts carapace..

I think it depends on the chapter of the word bearers too. Obviously the serrated sun were pretty chaosy while they were possessed for instance.

Some chapters in some of the books are full blown chaos on display as early as the shadow crusade (post calth) while others took a lot longer. In slaves to darkness there's some pretty heavy chaos influence going on with the unspeaking, and by the siege a lot of word bearers sound like full blown chaos marines from the descriptions. The art from echoes of eternity has a pretty corrupted son of Horus, so it's fair to imagine alot of word bearers would be at least as far down the path as him.

Then there's also some chapters that probably avoided it for as long as possible, so maybe even past the scouring.

At the end of the day they're your dudes. Aslong as you like them and they're painted then it will be fine.

What Bobug said.

I mean we have artwork that as early as the launch of the Furious Abyss Ahriman and Abaddon are already leaning heavily into their 40K styling.

My squad leaders have horned helmets, and my Contemptors have skulls nailed into the carapaces and one of them is a full on chaos possessed Mhara'Gal proxy (If I ever want to run it as thus) they also have icons. So I guess I embraced the chaos imagery from the art work plus I have a base line I suppose because I collect 40k Word Bearers as well I tend to go up to that no further.

I do like Zardu Layak the master of the Unspeaking... so yeah

Plus 40% of the army is Serrated sun so I have dipped more than a toe into that pool ...

But I do like the feedback guys thanks..

Chaos corruption, while generally increasing over time from constant exposure, has no real rules to it. Someone can be exposed to it just once and become a Chaos Spawn. Hyper-corrupted Word Bearers during the Heresy are completely valid. For my own army's lore, I'm having it that they stayed longer in the Eye of Terror than the rest of the Legion after Lorgar's pilgrimage due to getting lost. As time works differently in the warp, what was only a year or so in realspace was decades, possible centuries, for my army. Thus, when they come out, they are very changed.