There is no World Eater Legion in 40K!!!

[Zweischneid]

Came across one of those all-red armies again (and using the Space Wolves Codex on top because it's more "fluffy"). Well, I think it needs emphasising again that in 40K (as perhaps opposed to "historic" Heresy Era play), there is no World Eater Legion, with or without Juggernaughts. The just don't exist. Finished! Done with! History!




The Battle of Skalathrax was the final action of the World Eaters Chaos Space Marines as a unified Legion. Skalathrax is a Daemon World within the Eye of Terror and was the site of conflict between the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children.

The World Eaters slaughtered and destroyed their way across the planet, but as the battle raged, the world's freezing night approached, promising death to those not in shelter. The World Eaters halted their attack. A World Eater champion of Khorne, named Khârn, furious with his fellow warriors for their weakness, took up a flamer, burning his fellow berserkers and their "hiding holes". The city burned as the madman tore and burned indiscriminately through friend and enemy. The Legion tore itself apart along with the Emperor's Children as the World Eaters fought for what little shelter remained.

The World Eaters were, ever since, broken as a Legion, fragmented into countless, marauding warbands. Khârn has become the mortal incarnation of Khorne's ideal of maddened bloodlust and hate, killing any worthy enough to serve as a blood offering to Khorne. Only those who share his insanity would fight alongside him, for Khârn knows no friend or ally. In all his years of war he has known only victory, for only death could halt the rampage of one as relentless as Khârn.


Sorry, but had to get that out public once again.

[Night System]

Well yes... there is no OFFICIAL legions...

but how big is a warband?

The original legion was tens of thousands of berserkers strong. Warbands are not as big, but they can still get to the size of chapters, if not bigger, depending on the Chaos Lord who is holding them together.

Indeed, just in 499.M41 Angron managed to gather a warband in the size of Thousands of berserkers to attack armageddon.

There are *no* official legions, that is true, but there are still sizeable forces, far larger than anything a standard 40k army can represent.

And not all world eaters and raving mad psychopaths.

Indeed, there notable feature of them, and khorne, is that of martial honour, not just killing people, therefore World eater havocs are present - with there signature weapon being the autocannon.

And even if the warbands were just 10s of marines strong... Whats wrong with them being on jugganauts? Im sure somewhere in the 40k universe there is a band of Berserker Cavalry pillaging on there deamonic mounts somewhere.

[Grailkeeper]

Which legions still fight as one. The black legion do thanks to abaddon

World eaters, night lords don't

[Baron Spikey]

Iron Warriors and Word Bearers.

The rest are split into warbands of indeterminate loyalties (well I assume that for the Alpha Legion as no one really has any clue how they are structured).

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

In Throne of Lies the Night Lords gather over half their Legion together....

[AirHorse]

I get the impression that alot of chaos space marines are warriors of dual loyalties. They seem to act almost like mercenaries most of the time, fighting for which ever warlord is offering the best deal, often with members of multiple traitor legions fighting as one. The black legion is the perfect example of this, it got almost wiped out and now consists of renegade marines from loads of different backgrounds, from thousand sons and death guard to renegades of ultramarine geneseed. (It only became the black legion when abbadon rebuilt it after the near wipe out).

But they are still members of their original legion, should there ever be occasion for the original traitor legions to gather as fully unified fighting forces I pretty sure we know where their loyalties would ultimately lie.

There do seem to be some general exceptions to this like the iron warriors, who while not neccesarily united as one legion(they tend to fight against themselves alot :P) do seem to distance themselves from other legions.

[Vaddok Sek]

The only legion that is said to still fight cohesively are the Word Bearers. Others might include: the Thousand Sons (not counting Ahriman and his retinue in exile), and the Alpha Legion (in thier own way).

[Artein]

To be honest, there's only one Legion in 40k.

Space Wolves.

What? Oh.... Word Bearers too? Oh, right....

Ok, there are only two legions in 40k.

Space Wolves and Word Bearers.

[Baron Spikey]

To be honest, there's only one Legion in 40k.

Space Wolves.

What? Oh.... Word Bearers too? Oh, right....

Ok, there are only two legions in 40k.

Space Wolves and Word Bearers.

Space Wolves aren't really big enough to be considered a Legion, Black Templars now they're almost half the size of the smallest Legion!

[gwensdad]

Space Wolves aren't really big enough to be considered a Legion, Black Templars now they're almost half the size of the smallest Legion!

I thought it's been implied that some of the Wolves Great Companies are almost the size of chapter. Having 12 of those would put the current Space Wolves at about the size the Thousand Sons were right before Prospero.

[Drew da Destroya]

I think that got Retconned in the most recent Space Puppies codex... although I can't find the page reference right now.

[Baron Spikey]

I thought it's been implied that some of the Wolves Great Companies are almost the size of chapter. Having 12 of those would put the current Space Wolves at about the size the Thousand Sons were right before Prospero.

It was implied that the Legion's Great Companies were at least the size of a 40k Chapter, the SW Chapter's Companies can be larger than the Codex equivalent but the 2nd largest Great Company is known to be Ragnar's with 200 Warriors (ref. Codex: Space Wolves 5th Ed.)

[Daemonette666]

We have known the world eaters broke up into Company size or less warbands for years now. If you are saying that they should not design rules to use World Eaters as a Chaos Legions force in any new codex they might design, then I would say your out of your mind. You still have to allow for The remaining World Eaters, and others who have since joined their ranks and undergone the Psycho Surgery to be able to fight in a company size warband of World Eaters led by a Daemon Prince or other Champion of Khorne.

They could make rules for the Army, but you could not deploy a force of anything over company size warband without a good explanation.

Oh and there is a Second Legon in 40K - The Black Legion- HUH.

They still have a great ammount of their original forces spread out over many planets under warbands allied to Abaddon. The Black Legion also has many other forces for both renegade Marines, and seduced Chaos Space Marines from other Legions to bulk out their forces.

Sure not all the Chaos Marines employed by the Black Legion have Horuses original Geneseed anymore, but they are still considered a united legion. Abaddon inspired the different warband/company commanders to fight in differnet areas, and when they are required, they join for the dark crusades.

There are 2 other Chaos Space Marine Legoisn that have kept their legions individual companies in contact, and at a decent strength. Although there has been a bit of in-fighting recently which has culled their numbers down to about 5 or 6 great company size warbands each, both the Iron Warriors and Word Bearers have councils who meet regularly to decide the direction of their Legion. This would demonstrate that they have some for of Legion identity and have the strebgth of numbers.

[Grailkeeper]

What about the Death Guard or the emperors children?

I'd say its more likely that the emperors children are fractured due to the individualistic nature of slaanesh and the fact their primarch is possessed.

[Drew da Destroya]

Didn't Typhus take a large chunk of the Legion and run off in the Terminus Est, after declaring Mortarion a wuss for hanging out on the plague planet?

[Daemonette666]

Well ignoring the fact that everyone will want their favourite Chaos Space Marine Legion, or imperial space marine (original founding) chapter to be considered able to called a legion still, We know that the Black Templars are not an original legion. They might have the numbers of a severely weakened one because they have spread into so many crusading fleets.

The topic for this thread is that the World Eaters can no longer be considered a legion for the purpose of having the numbers and organisational hierarchy to command a force the size of a legion. This I agree with.

What I do not agree with is the notion anyone might have that warbands even upto company size could not exist. That you could not built a force using the old Chaos 3rd edition - 1999 release or 3rd editoin revisised 2002 release codexes as guides to create a Chaos Legions Codex (obviously I am not referring to the current Nerfed 4th edition 2007 release Chaos Space Marine Codex).

I could write up a decent balanced codex for Chaos Legions using a simple set of flexible rules that allows will limit or add to the FOC for your army due to the legion you take. It would limit certain troop types or disallow those with certain marks, and I would include things which have since been designed by Forge World such as Drop pods, Daemon engines of all manner, and I would also add in some Personalities for the different legions. I could also have a short list of old characters we no longer see such as Doom Rider, and add in the new Forge World Characters that would fit into the codex. There are lists of Special Characters for the different legions available on the web, and most of these have been written up about in the novels. From these I could write a up special rules that could allow certain unit types to be used as troop types, pass on certain abilities or USRs to the army or unit they are attached to, and have some nice nasty weapons or armour they can add to the game. The cost for the characters would reflect their effect on the game though. It should be fun to design up a legion codex. Unfortunately it would only be in word not Adobe, as I am too stingy to go out and buy the program.

I think it would be good if we started a new thread and submitted what we think would be a good character or 2, and the relative options /limits for the individual legion. Add in stats for the particular daemons based on Codex Daemon, and use USRs that would suit you legion, not what you want them to have. I.E. Iron Warriors could have Tank Hunters for their havocs and Obliterators, because it suits their combat style. Emperor's Children would not have that skill, but would have free Noise Weapons /reduce cost blast masters. World Eaters could have Furious Charge and Counter Attack, but can not carry any heavy weapons, only special weapons, and can only take vehicles as heavy support choices. These are just examples off the top of my head, but we could all contribute, and come up with something really invigorating that everyone would enjoy using.

I will be away for a week with work, but I think we should start a new thread, possibly in the rules/ or general discussion section. What does everyone else who plays Chaos think?

[miteyheroes]

I will be away for a week with work, but I think we should start a new thread, possibly in the rules/ or general discussion section. What does everyone else who plays Chaos think?

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=13148 does that sort of thing already? So it might be good to just add to that thread?

[cobra6]

Although I highly doubt he meant it this way, he is probably right in another way. With the exception of Kharn and maybe one or two other anomolies, every single one of the original World Eaters would be looong dead by M41.

There were what, lets say 50,000 of them (if that) at their peak in the Crusade? A bunch of them remained loyalist at Istvaan III, and were all killed - along with a slew of traitor World Eaters, who were in the thick of the very protracted fighting there. Then factor in all the losses at Istvaan V. Then factor in the huge losses in the various battles on and around Terra, not even including any battles during the voyage there. How many World Eaters would have survived the cataclysmic loss at Terra? And then the Scouring? And then the brutal internecine warfare against the Black Legion and Emperor's Children in the aftermath of the Heresy? And then Skalathrax? And then 13 Black Crusades, Armageddon, etc, etc. Essentially, every last World Eater with Angron's blood would have died a violent death millenia ago.

I can see getting some recruits by implanting cultists, and turning the odd disgruntled Ultramarine or something. But given the nature of the WE's, their losses would have vastly outstripped their ability to make new Marines.

As much as I despise the "renegade" focus of the current C:CSM, it is the only way that makes the least bit of sense, at least for a Khorne-themed army of Zerks and "World Eaters." I mirror this in my own force, with my Chaos Lord (see my avatar) being the only one in the force who was an original member of the Legion (he was a tactical sergeant in the 24th Company.) the rest wear red armor, and have WE symbols, but they all started out as cultists or Imperial Fists or vanillsa CSMs or something, before they found their way to the "legacy" World Eaters.

[Grailkeeper]

Although I highly doubt he meant it this way, he is probably right in another way. With the exception of Kharn and maybe one or two other anomolies, every single one of the original World Eaters would be looong dead by M41.

There were what, lets say 50,000 of them (if that) at their peak in the Crusade? A bunch of them remained loyalist at Istvaan III, and were all killed - along with a slew of traitor World Eaters, who were in the thick of the very protracted fighting there. Then factor in all the losses at Istvaan V. Then factor in the huge losses in the various battles on and around Terra, not even including any battles during the voyage there. How many World Eaters would have survived the cataclysmic loss at Terra? And then the Scouring? And then the brutal internecine warfare against the Black Legion and Emperor's Children in the aftermath of the Heresy? And then Skalathrax? And then 13 Black Crusades, Armageddon, etc, etc. Essentially, every last World Eater with Angron's blood would have died a violent death millenia ago.

I can see getting some recruits by implanting cultists, and turning the odd disgruntled Ultramarine or something. But given the nature of the WE's, their losses would have vastly outstripped their ability to make new Marines.

As much as I despise the "renegade" focus of the current C:CSM, it is the only way that makes the least bit of sense, at least for a Khorne-themed army of Zerks and "World Eaters." I mirror this in my own force, with my Chaos Lord (see my avatar) being the only one in the force who was an original member of the Legion (he was a tactical sergeant in the 24th Company.) the rest wear red armor, and have WE symbols, but they all started out as cultists or Imperial Fists or vanillsa CSMs or something, before they found their way to the "legacy" World Eaters.

Thats been a problem with all of the traitor legions. The way it is dealt with in the fluff is that time moves differently in the warp. What for traitors in teh warp may feel like weeks, may outside be hundreds if not thousands of years.

[cobra6]

That may be, but I've always considered that a fluff cop-out, so to speak. That just means they wouldn't have died of old age (the implication being that the heresy-era loyalists did, I guess?) But they could still all die in battle. Heck, there have been individual historical battles on earth where that many guys have died - I can imagine way more than that being killed in the Siege of Terra.

In the end, it just comes down to suspension of disbelief. It is constantly clear that the canon-fluff makers (understandably) put ALOT less thought into all this than many of us fans do.. :rolleyes: