I've recently been pondering collecting a Word Bearers army so am potentially interested in this. I'm thinking I could collect an army to use dual purpose as a late Heresy corrupted Word Bearers army in 30k epic games as well as CSM in 40k era epic.
Black Legions list isn't really that great and has probably never been tested. I really think the Word Bearers list should be a combination of the existing well tested Red Corsairs and Black Legion trial lists, with ideally no or very minimal add-ons and definite downsides in contrast to using them. Honestly, it's unlikely so see much playtesting and it's better to keep things simple and balanced. Depending how you go with the list I may use and playtest it as my go to for chaos list when I do my army, but I'll likely skip it if it's much different or seems unbalanced.
If you have a good read of the revised daemon related rules the current trial Black Legion list does an very good job of making demons and greater demons more playable. Each Daemonic Focus now adds one free demon to your demon pool and a Chaos Champion stand adds +2D3 summoning points or can be sacrificed and killed to generate 6, enough to guarantee making a Greater Demon. Undivided formations can now summon demons of any sort, though for balance these cost twice as many summoning points as normal.
Word Bearers Daemonic Summoning
Summoning loads of daemons is the Word Bearers theme and should be central to Word Bearers armies. I very strongly suggest a note in the army list that ALL eligible infantry formations in the army MUST take Daemonic Focus. You wouldn't necessarily want to do this with all your formations tactically, but it is very fitting to be forced to and it adds flavour and a downside.
Secondly I advocate generally using the Black Legion trial demon rules. However if it were twice as much to summon a daemon there would be less daemons appearing in Word Bearer armies than Black Legions ones, the opposite of what is wanted. I strongly suggest modifying the rule to include “each lesser daemon costs twice as much to summon if the formation already contains a daemon or greater demon of a different chaos god”. DO NOT use Black Legions formulation of allowing any daemon to be freely used without penalty, it's much too good and will allow combinations to be abused and gamed.
Other things:
I get the Word Bearers not having access to Slaanesh daemon engines and titans, since they don't get on well with the Emperor's Children but the list should really include a Tzeentch option as well as Nurgle and Khorne. I vote for including Tzeentch Silver Towers, but leave the Tzeentch flyers and stick with the standard ones.
Drop the Kathartes entirely from the list. A humanoid being able to catch up with and attack a fighter aircraft at supersonic speeds is entirely ridiculous and should be ignored. You could model them anyway and just use them as Raptors.
Include Obliterators! I don't give a monkeys if a particular Black Library author X didn't depict any
in book Y, this list should be a general Word Bearers list that may mention a particular campaign for background flavour. The BL novel Daemon World has Obliterators fighting alongside Word Bearers anyway. Obliterators are a combination of marine and daemon – they're an absolute perfect fit with the Word Bearers ethos. It also keeps the list closer to the other existing ones and easier to balance.
Include Titans! They're a powerful legion and Word Bearers would have access to Chaos Titans in the Eye. They fought with the Fire Lords traitor Titan Legion during the Battle for Calth in the Horus Heresy and would likely have maintained links with them.
As well as the cult marines I suggest dropping the Havoc formation as another downside and differentiator of the list. It's a useful little formation, but the list needs some downsides and differences vs BL and RC to balance out its advantages. Havocs would still be available, just only as an upgrade for the Retinue, not on their own.
Daemon Princes are highly appropriate for Word Bearers, as exemplars of CSM joining with daemonic powers. I don't understand why Black Legion's list didn't include them but they should definitely be there. I found a lexicanum page listing all mentioned daemon princes in the background and 4 of them are word bearers ones.
|
WordBearersV1.1.zip [72.12 KiB]