How to Play World Eaters in Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition

This is the section to read first, because the World Eaters army rule is a shared resource rather than a per-unit ability, and because the way it gets described casually is usually wrong.

Blessings of Khorne. If your Army Faction is WORLD EATERS, then at the start of the battle round, you can make a Blessings of Khorne roll. To do so, roll eight D6. You then use those dice to activate up to two Blessings of Khorne. Each Blessing specifies the dice results it requires, and where a number is specified, a double or triple of that value or higher is required. You can only activate each Blessing once per battle round. Any unused dice are then discarded. Once activated, each Blessing applies to all units from your army with this ability until the end of the battle round.

Read three things in that carefully, because together they define how the army plays.

It is per battle round, not per turn. You roll once, at the start of the battle round, and the same two Blessings are live through your turn and your opponent's turn. There is no second roll on their turn.

It is army-wide. Blessings are not targeted at a unit and have no range. Every unit in your army with the ability gets them. There is no decision about who benefits, only about which two.

The cap is two. Eight dice sounds generous, but the ceiling is two Blessings regardless of how well you roll. Extra dice buy you choice, not quantity.

The six Blessings:

• Unbridled Bloodlust. This unit has +1 to charge rolls.
• Rage-Fuelled Invigoration. Pile-in and Consolidation moves are up to 6 inches instead of up to 3.
• Total Carnage. When a model is destroyed by a melee attack, if it has not fought this phase, roll a D6: on a 4+ it is not removed, it fights after the attacking unit finishes, and is then removed.
• Martial Excellence. Melee weapons have [SUSTAINED HITS 1].
• Warp Blades. Melee weapons have [LETHAL HITS].
• Decapitating Strikes. Melee attacks targeting an INFANTRY unit have [DEVASTATING WOUNDS].

The second army rule. Pact of Blood is a mustering restriction rather than a battlefield ability: unless specifically stated otherwise, you cannot select BLOOD LEGIONS as your Army Faction. The Khorne Daemonkin detachment is the stated exception, letting you include BLOOD LEGIONS units up to a points cap while your Army Faction stays WORLD EATERS.

More dice. Khorne Berzerkers and Jakhals carrying an Icon of Khorne bank a Bloodshed point each time their unit destroys an enemy unit, and each Bloodshed point adds one extra D6 to your next Blessings of Khorne roll, after which they are all spent. That is the only way to grow the pool, and it is why cheap icon-bearing units earn their place.

Sourcing note. The pack does not reprint Blessings of Khorne in full. Its Rules Updates section rewrites the Unbridled Bloodlust Blessing by name, which makes that part first-party. The eight-dice procedure and the other five Blessings are read off a community rules mirror. We are telling you that here because it is the one part of this guide that is only partly backed by the pack.

The correction. Our own earlier army guide described the rule as a per-unit blessing economy with numbers it admitted might not be exact. There is no per-unit economy. It is one roll of eight dice, two Blessings, army-wide, per battle round.

In 11th edition you spend a Detachment Points (DP) budget rather than picking one detachment. The budget scales with game size: roughly 2 DP at 1,000 points (Incursion) and 3 DP at 2,000 points (Strike Force). The Munitorum Field Manual points at the Warhammer 40,000 app for exact figures.

The World Eaters spread is bottom-heavy, with one expensive detachment and a wide cheap tier:

• 3 DP: Berzerker Warband.
• 2 DP: Cult of Blood, Goretrack Onslaught, Khorne Daemonkin, Possessed Slaughterband.
• 1 DP: Brazen Engines, Butchers of Khorne, Vessels of Wrath.

Now the constraint that shapes list-building, which for this faction is unusually simple: there is none beyond the budget.

Exactly one World Eaters detachment carries a Unique Tag. Brazen Engines carries UNIQUE: ONSLAUGHT. Because a Unique Tag only stops you taking two detachments that share it, and no second World Eaters detachment carries ONSLAUGHT, that tag blocks nothing. The World Eaters have no illegal pairing at all.

We are confident in that in both directions. Brazen Engines' tag is doubly first-party: the pack prints a UNIQUE: ONSLAUGHT banner above the detachment title and its detachment rule says in words that it cannot be taken with another ONSLAUGHT detachment. For the seven with no tag, we checked the Munitorum Field Manual's World Eaters section with a parser we validated the same day in both directions: run against the Astra Militarum page it correctly recovers eleven detachments and four tags, and run against the Grey Knights page it correctly recovers nine detachments and no tags at all.

One honest caveat, because two official documents disagree. Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 lists no Unique Tag for Brazen Engines, while Faction Pack v1.2 prints one. Both are official. We tell you the tag exists, because the pack states it twice and in words, and we tell you it restricts nothing, because under either document no second detachment shares it. We assert nothing beyond that.

Run the arithmetic and there are sixteen legal multi-detachment armies at 2,000 points: twelve that pair a 2 DP detachment with a 1 DP detachment for exactly 3 DP, three that pair two 1 DP detachments and leave a point unspent, and exactly one three-detachment army made of all three 1 DP detachments together. Berzerker Warband spends the whole budget alone.

No World Eaters DP cost is contested. The Munitorum Field Manual and Wahapedia's own detachment index agree on all eight, and the Munitorum Field Manual prints no increase or decrease marker on any World Eaters Detachment Point cost.

The menu is one whole-army identity at 3 DP, four mid-weight themes at 2 DP, and three cheap specialists at 1 DP.

Start here. Butchers of Khorne (1 DP) is the right first pick. Adamantine Avalanche turns on a third Blessing of Khorne for your Terminator squads in the Fight phase, which is the only way in the faction to break the two-Blessing cap, and it does so from the cheapest tier on the menu. It teaches the army rule by making you care about it.

If you want one detachment to be your whole army. Berzerker Warband (3 DP) is the faction's default: every WORLD EATERS unit that charges gets +1 Attack and +2 Strength on its melee weapons, with no keyword restriction and no cap. That is why it costs the entire budget.

If you like transports. Goretrack Onslaught (2 DP) gives anything that disembarks +1 to charge rolls and [lance] until the end of the turn. It is the answer to the faction's real weakness, which is the walk.

If you like daemons. Khorne Daemonkin (2 DP) is the allied detachment. It lets you include Blood Legions daemons up to a points cap and ramps Blood Tithe points into permanent army-wide abilities, up to a 4+ invulnerable save or handing the daemons Blessings of Khorne outright.

If you like possessed. Possessed Slaughterband (2 DP) moves your possessed units forward when they are shot at, turning your opponent's shooting phase into your advance.

If you like hordes. Cult of Blood (2 DP) promotes Jakhals and Goremongers to Battleline and radiates three once-per-battle auras off your biggest war engines.

The remaining 1 DP specialists. Brazen Engines makes daemon engines terrifying and lets any World Eaters vehicle buy in for 15 points. Vessels of Wrath buffs your non-Epic-Hero characters, and carries Archslaughterer, the one enhancement in the faction that turns on every Blessing at once for a unit.

Our recommended first 2,000-point army is Goretrack Onslaught plus Butchers of Khorne, the most interesting is Brazen Engines plus Goretrack Onslaught, and the best character list is Possessed Slaughterband plus Vessels of Wrath.

Most factions in this programme have a pairing the arithmetic invites and a rule forbids. The World Eaters have the opposite problem, and it is worth a section of its own because the mistake it causes is invisible: a player rules out a good army and never finds out they were allowed to build it.

[Brazen Engines plus Goretrack Onslaught](/40k/armies/world-eaters/detachments/brazen-engines-goretrack-onslaught) costs 1 DP plus 2 DP, which is exactly the 3 DP Strike Force budget, and it is entirely legal.

It reads as illegal for a good reason. Brazen Engines carries UNIQUE: ONSLAUGHT, and its own detachment rule says in words that it cannot be taken with another ONSLAUGHT detachment. Then you look down the menu and there is a detachment called Goretrack Onslaught. A careful player who has just read the tag rule does exactly the right thing and rules the pairing out.

They are wrong, because a Unique Tag is a printed property, not a name. Goretrack Onslaught carries no Unique Tag under Faction Pack v1.2, under Munitorum Field Manual v1.3, or on the community mirror. Nothing is shared, so nothing is blocked.

Mechanically the two do not even overlap: one buffs DAEMON VEHICLE units, the other buffs units that disembark from a TRANSPORT. That makes it a genuine two-threat list rather than a stacked one, and it is one of the better armies in the faction.

Both detachment pages suggest each other, deliberately and in both directions, and the collision gets its own page.

The general rule to carry away: in this faction, check the tag line, not the name. Only one detachment has a tag, nothing shares it, and every combination that fits the budget is legal.

Three habits separate a World Eaters player who wins from one who charges into the middle and dies.

Pick your two Blessings for the whole battle round, not for your turn. Because the roll happens at the start of the battle round and lasts through both turns, a Blessing that only helps on your turn is worth less than one that also helps on theirs. Unbridled Bloodlust is dead weight once you are already engaged; Total Carnage keeps paying while your opponent swings back. Think about the round, not the phase.

Solve the walk before you solve the damage. This army has almost no shooting, so every turn spent crossing the table is a turn of free enemy fire. That is why Goretrack Onslaught and transports matter more than another point of Strength, and why the reactive-move detachments, Brazen Engines and Possessed Slaughterband, are better than they look: they turn being shot at into forward movement. Damage is the part of this army that takes care of itself.

Bank Bloodshed points early. Icons of Khorne on Berzerkers and Jakhals turn each destroyed enemy unit into an extra D6 on your next Blessings roll. Killing a cheap screening unit on turn one is therefore worth more than the unit is worth, because it widens your choice of Blessings for the rest of the game. Kill the small things first, then use the better Blessings on the big ones.

The straight answer: [Combat Patrol: World Eaters](/40k/boxes/combat-patrol-world-eaters). It is the cheapest way into the faction, it is a legal Combat Patrol force on its own, and its contents are the units the army is actually built on rather than a set of oddities. Everything in it stays useful when you scale up.

If you want an army box rather than a starter. Battleforce: World Eaters is the bulk-value option and the closest thing this faction has to an army-in-a-box. Boarding Patrol: World Eaters is a smaller, cheaper bundle aimed at the Boarding Actions game mode, which is worth knowing before you buy it as a matched-play starting point, because those detachments are not among the eight legal ones on this page.

Then buy toward a detachment, not toward a wishlist. The units that earn their place fastest:

• Khorne Berzerkers. The core Battleline unit, the only unit Berzerker's Wrath and Fury Unleashed name, and an Icon of Khorne carrier. No World Eaters list regrets these.
• Jakhals. The cheapest bodies in the range, promoted to Battleline by Cult of Blood, and another Icon carrier.
• Exalted Eightbound. The heavy melee unit, and the one that gains most from Relentless Rage.
• Slaughterbound. Only if you are building Possessed Slaughterband, where it is the only model that can carry Malicious Vigour.
• Lord Invocatus. A strong character, though note he is an Epic Hero, so Vessels of Wrath's detachment rule does not apply to him.
• Angron. The centrepiece. Expensive in points and money, and worth it in most lists, but not a first purchase.

On painting. We are asked often which contrast paint gets a World Eaters army table-ready fastest. We do not stock or track a World Eaters paint set, and we are not going to point you at an approximate product to answer the question, so here is the honest version instead: the army is overwhelmingly red armour with brass trim, which is the single best case for a contrast or speedpaint approach over a red primer, and the brass is the part worth doing properly by hand. That is a two-step recipe for the bulk of your models, which is why this faction has a reputation for painting quickly.

What we deliberately do not link. Several datasheets these detachments are built on have no exact entry in our catalog, including Maulerfiend, Defiler, Chaos Terminators, Goremongers, Eightbound and the Khorne daemon units. We leave those unlinked rather than point you at an approximate kit, because buying the wrong box is worse than being told we do not have it.