The galaxy is in turmoil, friends and family turn upon each other, and entire worlds burn to the laughter of thirsting gods. What we’re trying to say is, it’s the best it’s been in years – at least, if you’re one of the chosen servants of the Blood God.
The World Eaters are slaughter incarnate, and they showed up just in time to reap the benefits of a brand new edition. Let’s see what these newcomers* to Warhammer 40,000 can do with a fresh new set of rules.
Overview
If brutal close combat is the name of your game, the World Eaters are the only players worth looking at. Their bloodletting skills are off the charts, and now that everyone’s just a bit tougher all round, they have plenty of time to get stuck in.
That’s not to say that the sons of Angron are all brawn and no brain – Khorne’s chosen Legion are surprisingly adept at wresting control of objectives away from their opponents, and can lock down their territory even as their warriors surge off in search of more blood, skulls, and other things of this nature.
Faction Rules
Khorne, like all of the Chaos Gods, can be fickle – but the World Eaters enjoy his favour more often than most, and are infamous for their rugged ability to ride the tides of war. The fluctuating attention of the Legion’s patron is represented by the Blessings of Khorne army rule, which has you roll a pool of dice each battle round in order to channel the Blood God’s power.
Of course it’s eight dice. So what exactly do you do with these rolls? If you guessed “spend them to upgrade your army with potent effects chosen from a list of six powerful abilities”, you’re right on the money. A furious warcry to accompany your choice is recommended, but not mandatory.
Each boon lasts only until the end of that battle round, but they affect all of the units in your army – daemonic allies not included, as they lack the ability. The range of options means you can pick up exactly what the Blood God ordered when there’s butchery to be done. You even get to pick two of them, so a particularly lucky roll can supercharge your turn with speed, durability, or raw power as needed.
Unit Spotlight
Khorne Berzerkers make up the mainstay of a World Eaters force, barrelling across the battlefield in a crimson tide with chainblades roaring a bloodthirsty orison to the Blood God’s might. They combine the armoured durability of a Space Marine with the strength and skill of true battle maniacs, and can whip up a startling Blood Surge of speed once an enemy attracts their ire.**
Their Objective Control characteristic of 2 and horrifying melee capabilities make Berzerkers well-suited to brawling over objectives – and once they’re in range, an Icon of Khorne will make your Blessings of Khorne rolls more reliable.
If you thought we could preview the World Eaters without showing off the Red Angel himself, though, you’d be so incredibly wrong. Angron has barely finished tearing the last edition to pieces, and he’s already back – just as you’d expect from an unbanishable daemon.
Each sweep of Samni’arius and Spinegrinder can bisect whole squads of Space Marines. Reborn in Blood returns as an ability that directly interacts with your Blessings of Khorne, so plant a few Icons of Khorne atop blood-soaked objectives to make it even more likely that a slain Daemon Primarch will come roaring back onto the field.
Canny Khornates will also notice that his Wrathful Presence now triggers in the Charge phase, allowing you to choose exactly the right Aura for the Fight phase to come. Crucially you can use these in the same turn that he Deep Strikes, immediately bolstering your nearby warriors upon his bloody manifestation.
Weapon Spotlight
Few weapons in the World Eaters armoury can be described as much more than ‘a big, sharp lump of metal’, but they don’t entirely neglect the sheer damage a good old-fashioned cannon can do. The mighty Lord of Skulls can mount several such weapons in its giant tracked body – and the daemongore cannon is getting a healthy Strength and Damage upgrade to deal with everything from tough-as-nails Terminators to super-heavy battle tanks.
Of course, even this daemon-powered artillery piece has a massive axe. These are World Eaters, after all.
Stratagem Spotlight
Being at the forefront of every bloody assault is a dangerous business, and despite their strength and resilience, the World Eaters often find themselves cut down under the furious guns of their foes. Luckily, Khorne doesn’t particularly care from whence each Blood Offering flows, and is entirely happy to corrupt a battlefield consecrated by the deaths of his own warriors.
As this Stratagem only costs a single Command point, you might want to keep a spare in your back pocket for those times your opponent levels their mightiest guns at a critical objective. Imagine the look on your opponent’s face when not even killing the last few Berzerkers sat on an objective can keep you from scoring.
The Word from the Studio
“The World Eaters are brutality made manifest – a blunt object of intense trauma that rides an overwhelming wave of hyperviolence and bloodshed,” says Rich from the Warhammer Design Studio. “When designing the rules for the World Eaters, it was clear that they shouldn’t have to rely on tricks, shenanigans, or any kind of overly complex interaction to get their point across. They are not subtle or cowardly – and neither are their rules.“With high Strength, Attacks, and AP values across the board, every unit hits like a truck with no brakes going downhill. Their Army Rule – Blessings of Khorne – allows them to adapt on the move in order to provide just the right type of senseless violence at just the right time, and additionally perform signature moments such as the potential gore-fuelled resurrection of their unstoppable Daemon Primarch Angron.”
Black Library
Much World Eaters fiction centres around the inimitable Khârn the Betrayer – a legendary warrior from the days of the Horus Heresy. Khârn: Eater of Worlds by Anthony Reynolds shows the genesis of this iconic character in the days following the Age of Darkness, while The Red Path by Chris Dows collects eight stories of his later deeds into one blood-soaked tome.
The return of Angron to the galaxy was not without its fanfare, and the terrifying tale of the Daemon Primarch’s latest trail of blood begins in Angron: The Red Angel by David Guymer. Witness the moment of his return from the perspectives of three very different World Eaters, who all have a lot to think about when their gene-sire awakens once more.
But don’t just take our word for it – the author himself had plenty to say about Angron: The Red Angel when we interviewed him in February.
Want to learn more about the factions of Warhammer 40,000 and their rules in the new edition? Check out more of our ongoing series to scope out the opponents you’ll be meeting on the battlefield.
* As their own standalone faction, anyway. The World Eaters have otherwise been around for ages.
** Note that you still can’t Blood Surge when your TRANSPORT gets destroyed – units forced to disembark when their ride goes boom are automatically Battle-shocked that turn.