Blood, skulls, and three savage new detachments for World Eaters players are coming to 11th edition.
It’s time to put on our rabbit ear helmets and pick up our tactical tree-trimmer for today’s examination of World Eaters in 11th edition 40k! A video overview kicks things off before diving into three detachments in the format we’ve come to expect. World Eaters have been kicking ass for some time now, and it looks like that’s a trend that is going to continue.
Brazen Engines
Daemon Engines have always been peak 40k for me (I’ve wanted a Lord of Skulls for actual decades), so I’m stoked to see this detachment. There are a bunch of very cool Daemon Vehicles like the Defiler, Forgefiend, and Mauler Fiend that can benefit from these rules, whether you make them the core of your force or just as supporting pieces.
At its core, the Rampaging Terrors ability turns your Daemon Vehicles into the fear-inspiring monuments to the Blood God they were always meant to be. With the changes to battle-shock (you now have to test to lose the status instead of it being automatically dismissed), this is a fantastic ability. Adding this kind of “tank shock” effect means your big guys can readily contest objectives and provide some great battlefield control.
This enhancement is just for your Maulerfiends, but it’s absolutely brutal. CLEAVE 2 makes the Maulerfiend insanely effective at slaughtering massed infantry. Your opponents will have a lot more trouble slowing your advance with big tarpit units thanks to this benefit.
A straightforward stratagem for a straightforward army. Spend 1 CP and grant one of your Daemon Vehicles the ability to ignore all modifiers on BS, WS, hit, and wound rolls. Tricky opponents that rely on debuffs have historically been a big problem for World Eaters players, but this really helps level the playing field.
Butchers of Khorne
Khornate terminators take center stage here. The veterans of the Long War are among the most feared killers in the armies of chaos, and this detachment gives them a powerful set of tools with which to ply their bloody trade.
This is pretty wild stuff. Your already lethal terminators gain the benefits of a Blessings of Khorne roll, which stacks with any others they may already have active. Potentially, three Blessings could be in play here, granting the unit Sustained Hits, Lethal Hits, and Devastating Wounds all at the same time. This alone makes your terminators capable of absolutely shredding even enemy space marines, and this is just the tip of this detachment’s iceberg.
Another simple quality-of-life enhancement here. +1 WS really bumps up the damage output of a unit like Terminators and means (correct me if I’m wrong) that even their chainfist attacks are hitting on 3+.
Canny opponents may try to tie up your terminators with high armor, high wound models that they’ll struggle to kill. You can neatly mitigate that tactic with this effective little stratagem, improving their wound rolls against the biggest enemies on the table. Combined with the above benefits, there’s almost nothing a dedicated Khornate terminator squad can’t handle.
Vessels of Wrath
We’ve seen champion-focused detachments in other armies’ Faction Focus, so it comes as no surprise that the World Eaters receive something along those lines. The champions of Khorne are legendary combatants, and this detachment will let your champs live up to their full, blood-soaked potential.
William Shatner voice: Khooooooooornnnne!
I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. Where was I?
Right, take this detachment and give all your World Eaters Characters CLEAVE 1 or +1AP to their melee attacks as you desire! Naturally, named characters like Angron and Kharn can’t use this, but it’s not like they need the help. This is a great foundational bonus that will prevent your champions from getting bogged down in a difficult match-up.
This looks bonkers-good to me. A once-per-game ability that grants one of your commanders, like a Daemon Prince or Slaughterbound, every single Blessing of Khorne until the start of your next turn. Naturally, this benefit extends to any unit they may be attached to, as well. This is a crazy set of abilities to have active all at once. Not many enemy models will be able to withstand this kind of frenzied assault.
The final preview for today is another delightfully brutal enhancement. Spend 1 CP and grant a character +1 A and +2 S. Your champions will absolutely decimate the enemy with this. Stacked with some of the bonuses above and their innate murderous stats, your champions of Khorne are going to be able to skip merrily down the path to glory.
As with all the Faction Focus detachments, all of these will cost 1 detachment point, with the existing codex detachments costing 2 DP. Mixing and matching detachments is going to be a huge part of army building in 11th, and I’m getting more and more excited to see some really thematic forces hitting the table this summer.
Games Workshop has promised that tomorrow’s Faction Focus will spotlight the forces of the Tau, and it’s going to be interesting to see an army that’s the diametrical opposite of today’s close-range killers.
Seriously, though! When do I get to see how my Biel-Tan Aeldari are going to fare in this edition!?
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Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
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