5 reasons why Word Bearers could defeat the Imperium

[Kefka]

So I was reviewing my Word Bearers fluff (I miss my old 3rd edition army...) and I began to wonder why Word Bearers don't do more to fight the Imperium. They were the ones to initially cause the Horus Heresy, converting and twisting Horus as well as a few others. Yet they hide away in the Eye of Terror and Maelstrom. Anyways, here are my reasons why Word Bearers could put up a rather decent fight against the Imperium by themselves (but maybe BEATING the Imperium themselves is a little presumptuous).

- Logar, the Primarch, is still alive, and, essentially, Immortal. I am not sure if this mean Immortal in the "never ages" term, or if normal mortal wounds mean nothing to him (well, mortal for a space marine) and he is almost unkillable. Either way, he would be a force to be reckoned with on his own, let alone his legion still backing him up.

- Word Bearers have the largest unified Chaos Legion. They have not divided like the Marine Chapters, or most of the Chaos chapters either. They are zealous and united in their cause, so there would be little in-fighting when reaching a common goal. They still have vast numbers, with "Hosts" commonly being the size of a space marine company, and sometimes as large as two.

- They can summon demons. Lots of them. enough to use as shock troops and cannon fodder to protect their Marines. surely seeing thousands of demonic apparitions will strike fear into their enemies, especially of the dreadful demons are considered "weak cannon fodder" by the rest of the enemy.

- Word Bearers also have enormous cult followings on several worlds.For Dark Apostles to convert a few loyal imperial citizens into crazed fanatics is not hard for them to do. This serves to bolster their numbers further, and start civil wars on planets before the Word Bearers even lead their fist assault.

- They Rule 2 dominated planets in which to strike from. Sicarus, in the Eye of Terror, and Ghalmek, in the Maelstrom. Fighting a war on 2 fronts is difficult (especially if divided by light years of space) but if the initial assault is well planned and not expected by the enemy, the imperiums forces will be greatly stunned and disorganized. They will also have to divide their forces, but have little time to react. Hopefully, giving the two Word Bearer armies, to meet up and continue their assault.


Maybe this is a fanboy dream (really, I think the Word Bearers are the strongest legion) but Word Bearers just seem like they should be the ones leading the rest of the Chaos Legions, and wreaking havok on the Imperium.

[Pyros57]

This is what i like to see a true Bearer of the word.

[Abominable Plague Marine]

5 reasons why the Word Bearers would lose.

1. It only took 100 Grey Knights to defeat Angron, what makes you think Logar is going to do any better?

2. Hosts led by Apostles interpret "the word" differently and are no more alligned than any other Chaos Legion.

3. Most Chaos Legions can summon Daemons, lots of them. Problems with Daemons, they dont last very long out of the Warp and thus are only useful as a shock troop, they cannot hold positions for any length of time.

4. The Imperial Cult has a GABILLIONZILLION followers throughout the Imperium.........

5. Two Word Bearer planets vs millions of Imperium planets......

6. 13 Black Crusades later, with the combined forces of Chaos, only made small impression.

7. Horus Heresy, even with a 50/50 split in the Imperium, no success.

Ooops, thats 7............haha, fanboy.

[eldargal]

We had a really arrogant player with a Word Bearer army in our group, so we nicknamed them Turd Bearers just to annoy him. I've not been able to take them seriously since then, which is a shame because if I were going to have a CSM army it would be Word Bearers.

[Cryl]

I'll admit I'm a big fan of the Word Bearers, they've got a really well done back story, I love that Erebus is still alive and running things for Lorgar, they're the original and best chaos marines imo.

Organisation wise Erebus and Lorgar (less directly) have control over each Dark Apostle and hence control of each Host... I forget the name of the council that apoints new Dark Apostles but it certainly exists as a command structure. Interpretation of the word can be different but all apostles are going to do what Erebus says in the end.

That said there's no way they're defeating the Imperium on their own, even if they could get out of the eye through Cadia what's left would be taken down pretty quickly by the rest of the Imperial Guard, SoB, GKs, Astartes chapters etc. They might make a mess on route but I can't see it being a serious one in the grand scale of the imperium.

[AirHorse]

The Word bearers are pretty cool, definately true chaos marines. But lets face it, even with hordes of demons and cults turning some worlds to civil war, the Imperium would barely even notice. Theres countless civil wars and incursions from aliens and chaos all over the place, and plenty of characters who are pretty damn impressive themselves, even if they are mysteriously absent waiting for prophecies or wolftime or whatever :P.

They could certainly do some damage if they went for somewhere cool black crusade style. It would be awesome to see another global campaign eye of terror style with a different legion doing the leading for a change! Even abbadon must be bored of the black crusades by now :P.