Warhammer 40,000: 500 pts of 9th Edition Word Bearers

I've been threatened with a 500-point game of Warhammer 40,000, so I'd better get my army ready.

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Since my last game, the 9th edition Chaos Marine codex dropped, and changed quite a lot of things. First and foremost, it destroyed the MVP of my previous games by capping Cultists at 20 models per unit and nerfing Tide of Traitors completely. However, it gave my Word Bearers a useful legion trait as well, so win some, lose some, I guess.

I'm still bringing my old Necromunda Escher gang, even if I can only have twenty of them. I painted these Escher juves:

And added these Brother Vinni Jungle Fighters.

Finally, here's two fairly ancient Sisters of Sigmar I found to round out the unit.

That makes 14 models and the champion with autopistols and close combat weapons, because I'm hoping I can swamp some Marines in close combat again. That leaves five more, and since I can now have two grenade launchers in the squad for no cost, and I arguably have the models, why not? That leaves three autogunners.

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I wasn't that sold on my Chaos Lord last time around, so this time I'm bringing back my favorite 8th ed. HQ choice: my Dark Apostle. She now automatically comes with two Dark Disciples, and I have a Davidians Command box from Raging Heroes (which I used earlier to make an Enginseer for my machine cultists); it occurred to me that they would also make nigh-on perfect Slaanesh Dark Disciples.

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Last time, I had a Vindicator that got very little done and blew up. This time, for a little taste of Gladius, I got myself a Chaos Dreadnought.

This was a fun model to assemble, with lots of weapon options. I went for the Gladius loadout of reaper autocannon and power scourge, but magnetized everything so I can swap them out if I want. The gun arm was easy: I drilled a hole and slotted in a magnet.

The model has been done quite cleverly so that all the various weapons fit onto the shoulder joint, and with a matching hole and magnet on the weapon, it fits perfectly.

The left arm is different, with each mêlée weapon having its own shoulder, so I put a magnet on the body and another one inside the power scourge shoulder.

Here's the finished article:

The dreadnought is wearing the same dark green and silver livery as my Chaos Lord, and I kinda like it. Now that most of the weapons don't cost anything, though, I built myself a multi-melta.

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I also wanted to bring my Berzerkers, Faciebam Deum Ex Sanguine. In their debut, they were gloriously wiped out in close combat, carving their way through several characters and a conscript blob. They were also the stars of our third game, where they were nearly destroyed beating up some loyalist vehicles and Knight Armigers. I love my Berzerkers, and I've managed to paint them as well.

I will again register my disappointment that they no longer get any meaningful wargear choices. I don't like this new 40k at all.

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Here's the list:

HQ - Dark Apostle - 95 points 

Troops - Cultists Mob (20) - 100 points [195] 

Elites - Helbrute - 105 points [300] 

Elites - Berzerkers (8) - 176 pts

+ Mark of Khorne [15], Berzerker icon [5] = 196 points [496]

And here's the army.

My strategy is very simple: I'm going to run at the sniveling loyalists and beat them up.