++ The Dark Council - A Word Bearers Community ++

[Darnok]

A side note though, would the word bearers have symbols dedicated to specific chaos gods. I’m currently working on a kit bash for one of my squad champions using the plague marine arm with the bolter hanging over the shoulder and I’m unsure if I should remove the nurgle symbol from the shoulder pad or not? The idea with the arm is that nurgle blesses him more than the rest of the pantheon, explaining the nurgle tentacle growing out of that arm.

Word Bearers are established as zealous worshippers of Chaos in all its forms. In most cases this will mean Chaos Undivided, but followers of all Chaos Gods exist as well. So visual representation of the Big Four are absolutely fine.

 

The Dark Apostles being the absolute rulers of their hosts also implies that you could just as well dedicate a whole WB army to just one aspect. Explain it as "he received a vision of X, and as a result he radically reformed his host", and even things like using the TS or DG codex is possible.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Darnok

[USNCenturion]

Yeah I’ve always taken the Word Bearers following undivided to mean more inclusivity than rejection of any of the four gods.

 

A Death Guard Force or slaaneshi warband might kill or evict a member showing signs of one of the other gods, or they may just not be granted gifts by one of the three not worshipped.

 

A Word Bearers Force might look at a Nurgle pustule or Khorne tusk and simply say, “atta boy, Fred!” Those touched by a certain god might then band together out of commonality or comfort.

 

At least this is how I like to think of them.

[NecroShadow]

Ok, thanks for all the feedback. I’ll go with the arm and keep the symbol on, just be that brother champion herulek is being favoured by grandfather nurgle a little more than the others, that is once I can get the damn bolter arm to fit properly. I might be able to have my four chaos marine squad champions each favour a different chaos god now I think about it, so that could be interesting.

 

In relation to the sigil daemonic’s general view on the pantheon, they’re more traditional in their view of chaos undivided. Sure one or two may feel the touch of a certain god more at times (heck I’m planning on doing rubric marine based vakrah jal at some point), but in the grand scheme they’re fairly evenly viewed. Some of the congregations that make up the sigil may lean in certain ways as well. I really do need to start a thread and get the lore all ironed out, cause I probably have way too many ideas for them cluttered around in my head.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Necroshadow it looks like your contrast word bearers came out great. For the red you just did mechanicus Grey base, then flesh tearers red contrast? My old formula was khorne red and nuln oil, I'm hoping flesh tearers is easier to apply more smoothly as nuln oil can leave things too dark sometimes.

 

As for marks on word bearer units, yeah as others have said the lore justification isn't hard. There's always WB who just lean a bit more towards one god, my thinking that's fine for the warhost since it serves a purpose.

[NecroShadow]

Yep, I just used a basecoat of mechanicus grey with the flesh tearer red over the top. Khorne red and nuln oil was my old colour scheme as well but I prefer the effect from this. I might even end up painting all my red armies with flesh tearer, just using different basecoats to give the difference I need. I’d be very intrigued as to what flesh tearer red over corax white might result in.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Awesome thanks for the tip necroshadow, I'll have to give that a go.

[Knight of the Raven]

I'm late to the party, but here's my understanding of the Chaos Pantheon.

It's precisely that. A pantheon.

That means the Word Bearers will beseech gifts, pay tribute and dedicate their actions in turn as they consider appropriate. A Word Bearer sent against Eldar may pray to Khorne in order to gain protection from their psychic powers or, if he has some of his own, to Tzeentch so that his sorcery outstrips that of the Eldar psykers, and still dedicate every spirit stone he breaks to Slaanesh. He may ask Nurgle for resilience or Slaanesh for lightning-fast reflexes as he prepares to charge through a storm of pulse fire, and dedicate the brutal extermination of hundreds of fire warriors to Khorne.

That pantheon also has a mind of its own. You don't need to devote yourself to a Chaos God for him to take notice of you and be pleased by what he sees.

That Word Bearer who just saved that farseer's spirit stone for last in his hommage to Slaanesh may end up blessed by Tzeentch instead for ramming a knife into the gears of an Eldar plot that displeased him, or by Nurgle because of the depthless despair he sent rippling across her craftworld after gutting its rising star and trampling her plans to save it from the clutches of a looming threat.

Killing a renowned champion of a Chaos God tends to be an effective way to get in his rivals' good books as well, even if pleasing that rival never was the victor's intent.

The marks of Chaos from the 4th edition codex didn't necessarily mean a squad devoted themselves body and soul to a specific Ruinous Power for the rest of their life either; instead, it can be what I just mentioned: taking a page out of our world's ancient cultures and beseeching whichever patron god is in charge of what's going to happen next in your life for a favorable outcome.

(There's no Chaos God of Safe Warp Travel though, so good luck with that. Especially with how many times a warband accidentally translated their ships into an asteroid field that isn't there anymore and just so happened to be in naval artillery range of a rival fleet in the same chaotic alliance that totally translated out of the Warp after the first warband did, honest.)

Lovely dark apostle by the way, NecroShadow.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Knight of the Raven

[NecroShadow]

Thank you for the opinion on the dark apostle. I’ll definitely go with that style of worship, especially considering the mixed bag of chaos marks I’ll probably end up with gameplay wise. I really do need to get myself sorted and start a topic for my guys, though I fear it’ll end up as a very mixed topic eventually considering I have plans to collect small forces for each chaos legion. Except the black legion. Though I may change my mind eventually on that front, at the mo they just don’t interest me as much as the others.

[Leonite]

Seeing as I did him for my ETL vow... here's my SmashLord, one of the Ashen Council of the host of the Burning Word.

 

[Mr Paranoid]

I'm looking to put together a Kill Team of Word Bearers but i'm struggling to get my head around Word Bearers as Khorne Berzerkers. I'd love to include Berzerkers in my roster since they're pretty good and, to my mind at least, very cool. I'm aware of the general opinion amongst Word Bearers concerning those marines who fall/worship one god alone though, so i'm not sure how to get around this for my Kill Team, any ideas?

[Celtic_cauldron]

You should go for the Sanctified. They are a splinter warband from the Word Bearers worshipping Khorne.

 

Celtic_cauldron

Edited July 25, 2019 by Celtic_cauldron

[Knight of the Raven]

I'm looking to put together a Kill Team of Word Bearers but i'm struggling to get my head around Word Bearers as Khorne Berzerkers. I'd love to include Berzerkers in my roster since they're pretty good and, to my mind at least, very cool. I'm aware of the general opinion amongst Word Bearers concerning those marines who fall/worship one god alone though, so i'm not sure how to get around this for my Kill Team, any ideas?

Falling to one Ruinous Power in particular instead of giving all of them their due only means your asset status updates from 'try to keep them alive for later use, maybe' to 'fire and forget.' Khorne being the Ruinous Power in question, these newly-minted berzerkers might end up becoming more of an asset than they were before, and that's reason enough to keep them around as opposed to stringing them up for heresy.

 

And aren't most Kill Team missions one-way tickets, anyway? 'Fire and forget,' as I said.

 

Also, chaos space marines remain individuals, even as they give themselves body and soul to a suffocating religion. As backstab-happy as they are, some Word Bearers may tolerate these berzerkers for some reason or another. They could have been friends before, for instance, and may still be that (when the Khornate part of the relationship isn't lost in the throes of indiscriminate murderous rage).

 

Not every Word Bearer is Erebus or Kor Phaeron, either, even if they probably are a pawn to one of them (and most likely, both). As much as the 4th Edition codex raves about letting no evil deed go unrewarded, they're not all going to be Skaven-like caricatures. Broken and remolded as they may be after eons of betrayals and warfare, some chaos space marines do know the embrace of brotherhood.

 

And again, Kill Teams. They're not supposed to come back anyway, and if they do, well, a new suicide mission just opened up on the other end of the planet.

[NecroShadow]

On the word bearer berserkers front, you could always just get away with saying they’re more combat oriented legionaries who are leaning towards khorne, not full on mindless butcher level berserkers. That’s my opinion at least. On the topic of cult troops amongst the word bearers, does anyone know if the rubric marine arms and wrapflamers work fine with the new chaos marine kit? I’m feeling tempted to make some Vakrah Jal inspired rubric marines for my sigil daemonic using them.

[Excessus]

I'll just remind you that ADBs warbands post is in the chaos resources pinned topic. It's worth a read in times like these...

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/271640-misconceptions-about-csm/?p=3316051

Edited July 31, 2019 by Excessus
Added link

[MegaVolt87]

I'll just remind you that ADBs warbands post is in the chaos resources pinned topic. It's worth a read in times like these...

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/271640-misconceptions-about-csm/?p=3316051

 

Yeah waiting for ADB's 40k WB trilogy after seeing that. 

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

Does anyone have any good Word Bearers lists?

[MiniB1084]

Hello Everyone,

 

I have been working on my own Host of Word Bearers now for a fair few months now and thought I would share the results with you guys so far. I have named all the Characters and given all units a designation (except for Daemon Engines)

 

 

 

Also has the hierarchy of the Word Bearers changed since the AR Word Bearer trilogy? After reading Apocalypse (Space Marine Conquests) the Word Bearers were lead by a Chaos Lord who had what seemed like authority over the hosts Dark Apostle. Are Dark Apostles still the Leaders of Hosts?

 

 

 

anyway here is my 84th Host so far:

 

 

And my Current WIPs:

 

 

I hope this is isn't too big a post with all the photos, that's if I have posted the photos right anyway. (it took a while)

 

Thanks very much

Edited October 21, 2019 by MiniB1084

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your wordbearer's look great - I look forward to seeing you complete your other models.

[Marshal Loss]

Great models brother.

 

As for WB leadership: Dark Apostles are still the de facto leaders of the host. The WB force in Apocalypse was led by a high-ranking war leader put in charge by Kor Phaeron himself, and so might represent an exception to the rule. The contrast in that novel was in part between the military leadership of Kor Phaeron & the religious leadership of Erebus. In any case with CSM you'd expect things to be flexible (and dare I say it, chaotic) from time to time.

[Confused Word Bearer]

Lovely Word Bearers, wonderful shade of red!

 

As for my own opinion on the worship of the gods, I’ll throw in my own two cents and say that it probably depends on who’s in charge. Say the Dark Apostle of one host is a strict neutralist, he might not tolerate worship towards any of the gods that does not revere all four of them at once, or something like that, perhaps seeing those who forsake the others as lesser astartes for not “properly” showing devotion and disliking the cult marines. Another might see it the opposite way, with this particular Dark Apostle being one that sees those with marks as blessed by the gods and would be glad to have berserkers/plague marines, etc. in his host. There’s room for all sorts of interpretations of Chaos worship in hosts I feel that could be a neat fluff bit for your own hosts and warbands.

[Khornestar]

Beautiful work! I think as long as a Dark Apostle can bend/manipulate his followers to his will and accomplish his goals, anything goes.

[Lord_Starscream]

First Word Bearers painted in years.

 

 

 

 

 

[Marshal Loss]

They look fantastic, gj.

[DamnedProphet]

I second that. Good job, Lanparth, and same to MiniB1084!

[Lord_Starscream]

They look fantastic, gj.

 

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