The World Eaters were created in the First Founding of the Legions and still regard themselves as such. It is the later foundings under the false ‘Emperor of Mankind’ which have turned from the true path and become decadent and depraved.

Once renowned for their unswerving loyalty to the Emperor, the World Eaters became a byword for carnage and terror during the Heresy. The World Eaters continued and strengthened their blood traditions while in exile, tying themselves ever closer to Khorne and his Daemons. To show their devotion to their bloody warrior god, the World Eaters arm themselves entirely with pistols and close combat weapons, chain-axes and chainswords becoming their favoured tools of bloodshed. In battle, World Eaters squads would charge directly into close combat, roaring their praise of Khorne as they pounded forward.

As more and more of the Legion’s officers became fully fledged champions of Khorne or were possessed by Daemons, all discipline broke down. Finally, at the end of the savage Skalathrax campaign, an individual who became known as Kharn the Betrayer – an exalted and utterly insane Berzerker-champion of Khorne, set upon his brethren with such bloodlust that the whole Legion tore itself apart in a great battle which lasted days and nights without end. By the time the smoke cleared, the Legion had been shattered into dozens of warbands of crazed Berzerkers, which now move relentlessly through the Eye of Terror, seeking out battle and bloodshed.

Some of these warbands are hundreds strong, others are no more than a lone champion leading his Berzerkers on a quest for carnage. Such warbands will join with any Chaos lord who is gathering his forces for conquest, asking nothing more than to spill blood and take skulls for their lord Khorne. However even Chaos lords must be wary in case their own heads are added to the tally of the fallen.

So the World Eaters are a horde of blood-crazed fanatics who live only for war… I ask you, what self-respecting Khornate commander could resist the idea of fielding a whole army of the madmen! Fortunately, now that Codex Chaos Space Marines is out, it is possible to field an army that is entirely made up of World Eaters, or that is heavily slanted towards them. For the purpose of this article I’m going to assume you’ll be fielding an all World Eaters force, as to do anything else smacks of half-heartedness – and the last thing a World Eaters commander should be is half-hearted. Basically, if you’re going to throw in your lot with Khorne, you should live for close combat and that is all; subtle tactics should be forgotten in favour of a head-long charge at the enemy. Don’t worry – as long as you yell “Blood For The Blood God” and “Skulls For My Lord Khorne” loud enough, everything will work out all right. Trust me...

Anyway, the reason that you can now field a World Eaters army is that Codex Chaos Space Marines allows you to treat ‘cult’ Chaos Space Marines, like Khorne Berzerkers, as Troops choices in your army, as long as the army commander bears the same Mark as the cult. So, as long as the leader of your World Eaters army bears the Mark Of Khorne, you can include Khorne Berzerker units as both Elites and Troops choices, allowing you to field up to nine such units in a standard force! This is vital, because as any fool knows, all World Eaters are Khorne Berzerkers (though not all Khorne Berzerkers are World Eaters, of course).

Fortunately Dave Andrews has sculpted the awesome new Khorne Berzerker plastic set and this makes putting together an army made up primarily of Khorne Berzerker units not only possible, but also eminently affordable. This is important, because a World Eaters army needs to include a lot of Khorne Berzerkers if it’s really going to look the part. Personally, if I were to collect a World Eaters army, I’d start off with between twenty to forty of the frothing madmen, and work up from there. As long as you remember you can never have too many Khorne Berzerkers in a World Eaters army, you won’t go to far wrong.

While on the subject of units of Berzerkers, I’ll bring up the issue of sacred numbers. Years and years ago we published two books about the Chaos gods that were known collectively as ‘Realms of Chaos’, or RoC for short. These books went into a lot of detail about the gods of Chaos, and one of the things they listed was the ‘sacred number’ of each god. The sacred number of Khorne is eight (Slaanesh is six, Nurgle is seven and Tzeentch is nine), and in RoC this meant you had to field Khorne units with eight models in them. Years of experience, not to mention rather a lot of feedback from players, showed that such draconian unit sizes were too restrictive and in any case rather silly, so we dropped them – but if you want to add an extra level of detail and character to your force, try to make up units that have eight models in them, or have a number of models that is divisible by eight. You can take this further, and do things like making sure that the total number of models in the army is divisible by eight, or that the army commander has a points value divisible by eight, and so on. This won’t have any real effect in terms of game rules and mechanics, but it may earn you the favour of your patron god, and who knows, he may just send a little bit of good luck your way.

So, you’ve got lots of Khorne Berzerkers in your army, but what else can you take? Well, to be really faithful to the background, you should try to avoid anything other than Khornate Daemons and characters that bear the Mark of Khorne. At a pinch you can include other units from the Chaos army list on the assumption that they have been captured and sworn allegiance to the leader of your army, or that they are allies. However, you should certainly avoid using any Slaaneshi units in the army. Khorne and Slaanesh have an ancient enmity that goes back for thousands of years, and it really is very rare that their followers fight alongside each other. The other thing to avoid is psykers of any kind; Khorne hates magic-users, and this means that, again, it is very rare to find them in an army of his followers. It’s OK to use any of the vehicles from the list, though they should be painted up in World Eaters colours if possible, and you should avoid giving them anything other than the Daemonic Possession and Destroyer Chaos vehicle gifts. Again, there is no reason in terms of game rules or tactics that you should not include Slaaneshi troops or psykers in your army, and nor should there be (this is an aspect of the background, not game mechanics), but if you want to be a true follower of Lord Khorne, it’s best to leave them out of the army. After all, you wouldn’t want to earn the enmity of your patron Chaos god, now would you?

Last, but by no means least, you should consider the model you will have leading the army. This should either be a Chaos Lord or Daemon Prince bearing the Mark of Khorne. If at all possible I’d arm them with an Axe Of Khorne, as this weapon epitomises the World Eaters better than any of the other Khorne Gifts. All of which leads quite neatly to good old Khârn the Betrayer, a special character that no right thinking World Eaters player could possibly leave out of his collection. If your opponent agrees you can include Khârn the Betrayer in the army, but I’d really try to avoid using him in every game if you can (using him in roughly one in five games is about right). After all, you can always use the Khârn model to represent the Chaos Lord leading your army in those games that Khârn himself doesn’t take part in.

For those who don’t know, the World Eaters colour scheme is primarily red with gold trim, but not all Berzerkers are from the World Eaters Legion. Many Berzerkers originate from other Space Marine Chapters and Legions so can have whatever colour scheme you want (red, black, brass and gold work well). The Citadel paint range includes a number of shades of red, but probably the best to use for World Eaters is Red Gore. This is a smidge darker than Blood Angels Red, and will make your Chaos Space Marines look rather more sombre and, well, darker than their goody two-shoes Imperial counterparts.

The `Eavy Metal team insist that you can paint Red Gore onto a black undercoat, and that as long as you use a couple of coats of paint you’ll get a good result – and who am I to doubt them? The other advantage of this technique is that it allows you to leave some bits of the armour black, which saves you having to paint such details in later on. Alternatively you can use Red Gore over a white undercoat and simply wash over the model with red or magenta ink to tone the colours down. This is the technique I use, but this is primarily because: a) I’m too cack-handed to do that black-lining trick; and b) I’m too lazy to put two or three coats of red paint on top of black undercoat when one will do on white undercoat. On the other hand, my models don’t look nearly as nice as the ’Eavy Metal team’s. A quick tip: when painting red on top of white, try giving the white a wash with watered down yellow before applying the red. This way the red loses its pink tinge. Doing this is especially useful when applying thin coats of red.

Another alternative (very alternative) method is to undercoat using Bestial Brown. Dark reds like Red Gore and Scab Red can be applied with less coats of paint than are needed on black. The brown also makes a better base for black areas than white undercoat does. The disadvantage however is that you may need to black-line and shade the miniature, which isn’t necessary when you use black undercoat. If you want a bright red finish like the Berzerker shown below left then you can just undercoat with Blood Angels Red spray.

Once you’ve got the base colour on, you can, if you wish, add some highlights. There are two standard ways of highlighting a red basecoat. One is to add a little white to the base colour, the other is to add yellow. If this is overdone, the end result can be a pink or an orange miniature. You can always wash over a model with red or magenta ink to tone down any particularly garish pink or orange highlights. However, the real answer to the problem is simply not to worry about highlighting the model at all! Red is the most forgiving colour in this respect. If you do choose to highlight it, do it very sparingly.

Once you’ve got your World Eaters army together and painted, you’ll be ready to play some games with it. As I’ve already noted the World Eaters are hardly noted for their subtlety, but this doesn’t mean that you should completely ignore all tactical precepts. After all, Lord Khorne will hardly be very happy if your army is wiped out before it can get to grips with the enemy, will he?

You should, therefore, study the battlefield carefully before you deploy, and try to set up in positions that are close to the enemy and which will let you advance without being seen. This is rarely entirely possible, but you should do your best to find a covered route if you can.

Chaos Space Marine armies are usually quite small in terms of the number of models, and you should use this to concentrate your force as much as possible so that you will overwhelm the enemy when you do close in (just take care if the opponent has a lot of Ordnance weapons).

Having set up in cover with a nicely compact force, attempt to get to grips with the enemy as quickly as you possible can. Do not dither, as that is very bad form for a World Eaters army. Besides, the blood-splattered power armour that the Blood God has blessed you with can stand up to firepower that would send many other armies scuttling into cover like the cowards they are. Once you’ve got to grips with the enemy, do your best to get right in amongst them, and don’t let them get away. Just keep pressing the attack, until either you or the enemy have been destroyed! And remember, if all else fails, yell “Blood For The Blood God” and go down fighting with a snarl on your face. Always remember; Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, and yours too is welcome...