Hey everybody, Danny here from The Frontline Gaming Radio to once more delve into my favorite Traitor Legion, The World Eaters.
We are going to look over their new Warlord Traits, Artifacts, and finally a few lists to bring it all together. Be sure to check out the Tactics Corner for a huge collection of resources to help you #gitgud.
In previous articles, I went over the general special rules for World Eaters available to any formation/detachment, and then I went over the Butcherhorde, but to really get a full view of what the World Eaters can do, we need to see what else they bring to the table, and the answer is: Blood for the Blood God.
Warlord Traits:
- Arch-Slaughterer: Warlord gains Rampage
- Slaughterborn: Every time your Warlord rolls on the boon table, you can instead choose to increase his attacks by 1.
- Unrivaled Bloodlust: Your Warlord and his unit can charge an enemy unit currently engaged with another friendly unit. But wait, you get to do this at the end of your opponent’s charge subphase!
- Disciple of Khorne: In a challenge, your Warlord rerolls all To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.
- The Berserker: While locked in combat, your Warlord has Feel No Pain (FnP) and Eternal Warrior.
- Violent Urgency: All friendly Mark of Khorne units within 8 inches and your Warlord plus his unit roll 3d6 and take the two highest when charging.
Wow, there is a lot of awesome in there. I mean there isn’t a bad trait in the whole bunch. Yes, Rampage isn’t amazing, but it certainly isn’t bad, and that is arguably the weakest one. Slaughterborn is situational, but it also stops your Warlord from ever becoming a spawn. It would be better if you could plan to get it as I’d spend 10 points for a Gift of Mutation to up a Lord’s attack by 1. Unrivaled Bloodlust is just spectacular as out of activation movement can absolutely win your games (see Warmachine), so if you are canny with placement and timing, you can slingshot your Warlord and his unit into combat on your opponent’s turn.
Rerolling everything in challenges is pretty great as a Chaos Lord loaded-for-bear is going to put the hurt on just about any other character, and getting your Warlord both FnP and Eternal Warrior for being stuck in combat is amazing and lets him tank a bit in a fight. Violent Urgency also synergizes so well with the army, ensuring that not only are you getting a reroll to charges, you get 3d6 and drop the lowest, pretty much ensuring you a 7 inch charge and radically upping the odds you start to hit 8 or 9 inch charges. Just wow.
Overall, you can roll on this chart and be pretty happy no matter what happens, but there are a few worth fishing for. I’d always take Violent Urgency over any other.
Artifacts:
- Talisman of Burning Blood: Bearer and unit add 3 inches to their moves, runs, and charges.
- The Berserker Glaive: +2 Strength, AP 3, Two-Handed, Specialist Weapon, Daemon Weapon. Also, the Bearer loses the Independent Character special rule but gains FnP and It Will Not Die.
- Brass Collar of Borghaster: Bearer and unit Deny the Witch on a 4+ (but never better than this). If a power was nullified, the caster suffers Perils of the Warp.
- Gorefather: +2 Strength, AP 2, Two-handed, Unwieldy, Armourbane, Murderous Strike (wound rolls of 6 are Instant Death).
- The Crimson Killer: Strength 7, AP 2, Soulblaze Pistol
- Blood Feeder: +1 Strength, AP 2, Specialist weapon, Unwieldy Power Axe. Also, you do not use your attack stat but rather roll 2d6 attacks each round of combat (you do get normal bonuses like charging, extra weapon). If you roll a 1, you do a wound to yourself with no armor save.
Ok, again, just a lot of wow in there, but with a bit more suck. First off, the pistol is junk. Sorry. The Brass Collar is interesting, and while it could come in handy, there are too many other options here. The obvious star is the Talisman of Burning Blood as you can build one hell of a super unit with it. While it specifies “in the movement phase”, so you don’t get to use it for your Butcherhorde move, you can still theoretically get 9 extra inches of movement in Turn 1 for 25 points. That’s insane. Put this on a Khorne Lord in a Bike squad or Raptor Squad, and on average, your opponent cannot be more than 4 inches from their table edge if they don’t want to get charged on the Top of 1. That’s just bananas with extra bananas with some Kill! Maim! Burn! thrown in for good measure.
The weapons are also pretty decent with the most dependable and solid being Gorefather. This is a great weapon for barely more than a Powerfist, and being able to get Instant Death or tear through armor with ease is legit. If you expect to run into a Knight-heavy meta, giving Gorefather to a Daemon Prince pretty much makes him a Titan-Killer. I really like the Blood Feeder on any character where you have rerolls to hit, so maybe as a companion to Kharn or with a Dark Apostle.
While it is swingy with the dice, the chance for just some absolute blender of death action is too sweet to pass up. Finally, the Berserker Glaive is actually pretty interesting. Putting it on a Daemon Prince gives him S9 on the charge, AP 2, 5+D6 attacks at initiative 8!. Oh, and it gives him Feel No Pain. Since he’s already going to be solo, there is no real downside here. Another interesting way is to run this on a Lord from the Raptor Talon formation.
He may ride alone, but you can send him at anything without a 2+ save and watch him get to work, and while his charge out of Deep Strike is Disordered, he’s still Strength 6, AP3 with 3+D6 attacks. Of course, if he lives after the drop and charges again, he comes in at Strength 7, AP 3, with 5+D6 attacks. You could also do a suicide Jugger-Lord with it, but the Daemon Prince is probably better at that although to be fair, the Jugger-Lord is cheaper,
So yah, there is a lot of solid wargear here, and let’s face it, Talisman is easily one of the best pieces of equipment in the entire Traitor Legions book. You can (and maybe should) build an army around it as with the right unit like Bikers or Raptors, you can almost guarantee a first turn charge with it. That’s insane. It’s also the World Eaters’ greatest meta-shift; it is not just “corner-case” to get a first turn charge with them; it is almost inevitable.
Ok, with all of this in mind, let’s build some funky, funky lists, all 1850 mind you.
If you want to check out some Funky lists using some of the new World Eaters rules, check out the rest of the article on Frontlinegaming!
