<![CDATA[Latest posts for the thread "Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?"]]>

<![CDATA[Latest posts for the thread "Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?"]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/69.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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?

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829278.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829278.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? 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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829285.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829285.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829292.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829292.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? 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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829294.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829294.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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...")]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829295.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829295.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829298.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829298.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829300.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829300.page GMT Re:Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829302.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829302.page GMT Re:Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829306.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829306.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829313.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829313.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829318.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829318.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829337.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829337.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829361.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829361.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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."]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829365.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829365.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829371.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829371.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829374.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829374.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829386.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829386.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.

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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829396.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829396.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829399.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829399.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? I’d love to better integrate my Death Guard and Daemons, and have a mechanical reason to snag some humans.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829402.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829402.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829413.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829413.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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...

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829425.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829425.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829429.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829429.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.

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.)]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829431.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829431.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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*

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829469.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829469.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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).]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829476.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829476.page GMT Re:Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? 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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829480.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829480.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829488.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829488.page GMT Re:Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

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.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829491.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829491.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
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. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829495.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829495.page GMT Re:Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

Selfcontrol wrote:

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.

Thanks! I appreciate the the thorough answer. You may have helped me gain a little more appreciation for all things Khorne.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829496.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829496.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

LunarSol wrote:

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.

Well, my mono Nurgle & mono Khorne also double as AoS forces.
In Sigmar I cant mix them.
So each has its own carry case.

I dont mix them in 40k simply out of laziness.
I dont want to swap things between cases.

My Nurgle works really well here in 40k.
Honestly I have no need to mix it with anything else.
The Khorne? Its really only ever been an excuse to put as many Juggernaughts (one of my favorite models) on the table as the rules allow. Fill remaing pts with other Khorne demons.
This one works better in AoS, but there's still fun to be had with it 40k wise.
It wouldn't be the worst idea in the world (mechanics) to mix in some Tzeentch someday.
But the case is full, so....]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829504.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829504.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

Wyldhunt wrote:

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.

I am not sure what you mean by this. They're like Drukhari. The Covens, the Wych Cults and the Kabals infight all the time, so much so that Commorragh is justifiably called the most dangerous city in the galaxy. They have truly Skaven levels of infighting going on, held back only by the fact that they're not inherently a comic relief faction, not even in part.

That doesn't change that it's pretty iconic to have all three Drukhari subfactions be fielded together, heavily lore-supported, and absolutely should not be restricted. Daemons aren't really that different.

The idea that people think you can't tell a functional story with a mixed army feels fundamentally tragic to me. We've had decades of mixed Daemon armies appearing in White Dwarf narrative battle reports and the like, to say nothing of the representation undivided gets through various mortals across the various Warhammer settings. It works perfectly fine. When N'kari in WHFB invaded Ulthuan in narratives written like twenty years ago, he had a bunch of Khornate Daemons with him, because of course he did, mortal souls were on the menu which is all the reason they'd need to bury the hatchet for a while.

The idea that a newer generation of Warhammer players seem to think mixed Daemon armies are "lorebreaking" for some reason (?????) is beyond heartbreaking, and yet it's increasingly cropping up on social media. I don't know where this came from (my theory is Age of Sigmar, where crucially Chaos is currently winning and controls the majority of the setting, meaning they infight a LOT more) because mixed Daemons are Chaos in its truest form, a kaleidoscopic carnival of multicoloured creatures come to visit unpredictable horrors on the foe. Strictly segregated, neatly colour-coded cheerleader bands just isn't all that chaotic, you know?

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.

And I'd still like to be able to field my 5 man Bladeguard squad, my 5 man Eradicator squad, my 3 man Ravener and Stealth Suit units, and so on, but we can't always get what we want.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829548.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829548.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?
Arguably it's much like the issues flagged for DE when GW was trying to build them up as factions not just thematic elements of a wider DE list. It leads to the idea that if we want to expand DE we need shooty Wyches and stabby Kabalites and idk fast Wracks. But this is just duplication of what already exists.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829550.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829550.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

Ashiraya wrote:

I am not sure what you mean by this.

I just mean that when a demonic force is made up of a single god, my brain tends to go to more elaborate and (to me) thematic stories. Like, if you end up with a specifically slaaneshi invasion of a planet, you might be telling the story of how some mortals' greed or hubris snowballed out of hand and lead to a satisfying comeuppance. If you have a purely Nurgle force, you can tell the story of some exotic or even mystical disease that has some cool, symbolic resonance with whatever world it is infecting. Heck, you can even have a pair of gods in a single force, and then my brain starts wondering what symbolism has brought them to the same location. Is it a Fracture of Biel-Tan style wager between Slaanesh and Khorne? Are Nurgle and Tzeentch waging a war of stagnation vs change? Are war and death flooding through a pre-existing battlefield causing Nurgle and Khorne forces to slip free of the warp?

Whereas when it's a mix of 3+ gods, my first thought is. "Oh. So is it just a random patch of the warp being puked into reality, or are we doing yet another four-way god contest?" Obviously there are tons of better stories than that that you can tell with a skittles army, but that's just where my head goes. YMMV.

It's kind of like when people are trying to come up with fluff for their campaign and they end up having this convoluted Armageddon style narrative where everyone and their mother is showing up to fight over this one planet all at once. Vs a story that's just two factions duking it out and leaving space to showcase their individual strengths and weaknesses and how they play off of eachother. The ork vs nids planet (Octarius?) vs Armageddon, basically.

But I'm not here to yuck your yum. If you're forging cool narratives with every flavor of demon, more power to you. You're clearly just better at coming up with quad-god storylines than I am.

... because mixed Daemons are Chaos in its truest form, a kaleidoscopic carnival of multicoloured creatures come to visit unpredictable horrors on the foe. Strictly segregated, neatly colour-coded cheerleader bands just isn't all that chaotic, you know?

Sure. I guess part of it is that I feel like the "chaotic" part of chaos is kind of overstated. I like it when the gods and their servants are engaging in cohesive, thematic plots with coherent goals rather than just... being soup together. Quad god armies make me think that the army is like, the result of a random tear in reality or what have you, making the demons present essentially a sample platter of random encounters that someone ladled up out of the soup of the warp. Whereas monogod armies make me go, "Okay cool. Clearly something about this world or the people on it resonated with this one specific god. What's the story there?"]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829558.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829558.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? FWIW, I think this edition has decent potential to at least make the design of restricting the daemons to a single detachment in their codex at least something that's a 1 DP design intended to mix with most everything else.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829562.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829562.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

Wyldhunt wrote:
Heck, you can even have a pair of gods in a single force, and then my brain starts wondering what symbolism has brought them to the same location. Is it a Fracture of Biel-Tan style wager between Slaanesh and Khorne? Are Nurgle and Tzeentch waging a war of stagnation vs change? Are war and death flooding through a pre-existing battlefield causing Nurgle and Khorne forces to slip free of the warp?

Whereas when it's a mix of 3+ gods, my first thought is. "Oh. So is it just a random patch of the warp being puked into reality, or are we doing yet another four-way god contest?" Obviously there are tons of better stories than that that you can tell with a skittles army, but that's just where my head goes. YMMV.

You can indeed have 2 gods in a single force (and the Codex shows this off plentifully) so I don't necessarily see why it's any different with 3+. Though the way the codex presents it is different from the way you do. You speak of it as the forces being rivals in the same army, whereas the Codex shows examples where they simply have common cause. When the Sanctuary of Gethsemane's wards collapsed, both Tzeentch and Khorne had evidently plenty of reason to ensure they would not rise again, and when Phaedox XIII was invaded, their "both indolence and unclean practices" ensured both Slaanesh and Nurgle Daemons intermingled in the manifesting assault. (Both are from the 9e Daemons codex.) In both cases, the forces don't really have much reason to have any internal friction, they're there for the same objective and are as cohesive as any other faction (which is how the faction works).

In either of these cases you could very easily see 3 or 4 gods attack together, especially the former. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829579.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829579.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat?

Ashiraya wrote:

You can indeed have 2 gods in a single force (and the Codex shows this off plentifully) so I don't necessarily see why it's any different with 3+. Though the way the codex presents it is different from the way you do. You speak of it as the forces being rivals in the same army, whereas the Codex shows examples where they simply have common cause.

Totally! I didn't mean to suggest it was always a rivalry. The point I'm more getting at is that each god you add to a given force makes the nature of the teamup that much more complicated and steers you that much further away from the sort of symbolic "vibes-based" daemon invasion that I tend to like. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829585.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829585.page GMT Are World Eaters just unnecessary bloat? CSM book has made both worse. Monogod legions have poor unit selection and lack access to a ton of units they should have. On the other hand main CSM are very plain, and they would benefit from being able to mix with the weirder units monolegions have.

Chaos has become boring and non-chaotic. I don't like that. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829601.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819206/11829601.page GMT