In this article series we’re taking a look at the leader options available to each faction, looking at what units they pair with, and talking about the combos available to those units as well as tips for running them solo. You can find our Competitive Faction Focus article on The World Eaters here.
The World Eaters don’t have a ton of datasheets and that extends to their Leader options. That said, the characters they do have can make a big impact on their units and with the release of their tenth edition Codex they added a new option to lead Eightbound. With that in mind, it’s worth diving into them in more detail individually to talk about how they work and the impact they can make.
Changelog
- Update (Latest): 2025-07-07 for the Codex
- Update: 2024-04-10 for the Q1 Dataslate and MFM
- Published: 2023-12-19
Let’s start by looking at the faction’s character options and where they can be added:
Right away some things stand out. First, nobody can join Terminators, Jakhals, or Goremongers, and only one of the Daemon units – Bloodcrushers – has a leader option. Which means that outside of detachment or aura effects, those units are pretty much as good as they are ever going to get. Second, you only have five options, and two of them are named characters.
Kharn the Betrayer
The closest thing the faction gets to both a Chaos Lord and an Exalted Champion, Kharn comes with a power armor body, a 4+ invulnerable save, a plasma pistol and a relatively nasty melee profile – 8 Attacks at S7 AP-2 3 damage (which will typically pick up +2S and +1A on the charge in your Berzerker Warband Detachment). He can only join Berzerkers, and he gives any unit he joins the ability to re-roll hit and wound rolls of 1, making them significantly more consistent in melee. As a new wrinkle in the Codex, he no longer fights on death but now stands back up on a 2+ with 3 wounds remaining, which is a better deal given that you can now get fights on death via Blessings of Khorne. As with the rest of the army’s infantry, Kharn is faster now, with 8″ movement.
But then there’s that whole Betrayer thing. At the end of your Charge Phase if this model’s leading a unit and not within Engagement Range of 1+ enemy units, you have to take a Leadership test for Kharn (6+). Fail and one of his bodyguards is destroyed.
If that seems like a fine price to pay well, you’re not wrong. Kharn’s a solid value add to a unit of Berzerkers and he helps give them a ton of extra punching power, especially when it comes to vehicles, where his ability to punch at S9 is a huge addition. He’s also cheap enough to be worth pushing into a list, typically with a 10-model unit in a Rhino.
Lord Invocatus
The Epic Hero variant of the Chaos Lord on Juggernaut, Lord Invocatus (that’s his name, not a title) used to be a must-take in the army, but has been toned down substantially with the Codex. He still maintains his relatively durable profile – T6, 8 wounds, and a 2+/4++ save – plus a 2-damage axe which can dole out Devastating Wounds. But he’s lost some speed, dropping to 10″. He still has Scouts 6″ – a solid ability to have when attaching him to a unit of Eightbound – but he’s lost the ability to give Scouts to other units.
Instead, Lord Invocatus’ Fire Riders ability gives his unit the Deep Strike ability and the ability to move through models and terrain features when making normal, fall back, Advance, and charge moves. His Bloody Stampede unit does mortal wounds when he ends a charge move, letting you roll a D6 for one enemy unit within engagement range of him – on a 2-3 you do 1 mortal, D3 on a 4-5, and D3+3 on a 6.
These abilities are just OK. Without the ability to improve your odds of making a charge out of deep strike, giving that to a unit is merely OK, and Eightbound are expensive enough that you don’t often want to spend points to add to them, instead using them as utility pieces which make your other units better with their +1 to hit aura. Lord Invocatus is OK, but doesn’t really have a role in the modern World Eaters army.
World Eaters Lord on Juggernaut
The generic flavor to Invocatus, the Lord on Juggernaut got a very solid glow-up in the Codex, gaining a pair of abilities that make him the ideal leader for a big unit of Berzerkers and the ability to join a unit of Bloodcrushers. Let’s start with his abilities:
- Aggressive Advance gives his unit a movement characteristic to match his own (10″), and the ability to move through terrain features when making a normal, advance, fall back, or charge move. When joined to Berzerkers this is mostly for him, but when attached to a unit of Bloodcrushers it helps you circumvent one of their biggest drawbacks, letting them stage behind a wall and then push through for a charge.
- Crush All Who Stand Before Us lets the Lord on Juggernaut’s unit fight if they’re within 3″ of an enemy model in the fight phase, letting you go much deeper and hit from further away (it doesn’t extend engagement range, just fight eligibility). This is great both for big 20-model berzerker units that may struggle to get all of their models in base-to-base contact, and for Bloodcrusher units where large bases can cause similar problems.
These are great abilities and they give the lord on juggernaut a lot of value. That said, taking a 20-model unit of Berzerkers is more a novelty than a real competitive tactic (though it’s one I love – if you’re doing it bring a Daemon Prince so they can do -1 damage for only 1 CP), so where you really want to bring this guy is in Khorne Daemonkin, where the Disciple of Khorne Enhancement lets him join a unit of Bloodcrushers. This is huge, as it allows them to move through walls and get full value every time they fight. You don’t always want Bloodcrushers in KDK, but if you’re taking them, you need to pair them with a Lord on Juggernaut.
World Eaters Master of Executions
The Master of Executions is a solid leader in Chaos Space Marines. In World Eaters he’s on an entirely different level. The Master of Executions can only join units of Berzerkers and comes armed with an Axe of Dismemberment – 5 Attacks, WS2+, S7 AP-2, 2 damage with Devastating Wounds and Precision. He comes with two abilities: Forwards, For Blood! gives the unit he joins the ability to re-roll Blood Surge moves, and A Worthy Skull, which gives him (and only him) the ability to re-roll Hit and Wound rolls against enemy character units, and when he kills one you get 1 CP.
This isn’t as good as the Fights First ability he used to have, but the Master of Executions ends up just being a great piece of additional damage for a unit of Berzerkers that sorely needs a third 2-damage swinger. His character-hunting abilities are very solid, and with a +1 damage enhancement he can punch up to devastating effect against a number of threats. Lists often take one with a unit of ten Berzerkers in a Rhino.
Slaughterbound
The new character introduced with the Codex, the Slaughterbound is a possessed Chaos Lord who comes with 10” Movement, T6, 6 wounds, and tragically, only a 3+/5++ save. He’s got a Lacerator and Daemonic claw as weapons, which combined are a single melee profile with 6 Attacks that hit on 2+ at S8, AP-2, 2 damage. He can join units of either Eightbound or Exalted Eightbound, and he’ll gain both Deep Strike and Scouts 6” if he attaches to one of those units. He returns a dead model to his unit in each of your Command phases – nifty for full-size units of Eightbound – and once per battle he can use his chaos lord ability to get +3 Attacks and [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] until the end of the fight phase.
This guy is… just OK. His biggest issue is that Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound are pretty expensive and don’t want to cost more. On top of that, his abilities aren’t really the kinds of things you want – you want things that prevent your models from dying more than things that bring them back – though it works well with fights on death. The other problem is that he only does 2 damage. That’s pretty rough for a supposed lord of carnage, and leaves him feeling pretty anemic unless you can buff his damage with an Enhancement like Berzerker Glaive.
The biggest upside to the Slaughterbound is that he’s preetty cheap, which isn’t bad for a T6, 6W character. His save profile isn’t ideal, but he’s fast enough to be potentially dangerous as a solo threat. But then, you can get more durable options for around the same price. The Slaughterbound likely functions best as a solo threat – a melee missile you can throw into an opponent early to act as a distraction and cause problems while you stage, forcing opponents to deal with him instead of other, bigger threats.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately World Eaters don’t have a ton of choices at the character slot but what they do have is very good, and the current competitive lists basically take every one of these. Playing World Eaters well requires knowing how these characters work, when to join them to units and when to run them solo, and understanding what they are and are not capable of. Most of that will take practice, but good rolls on your Blood Tithe table every now and then are a fine substitute.
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