World Eaters: Angron deep-dive

Hey everyone, Danny from TFG Radio here, and today, I am going to start the journey of doing a deep dive on the units available within the World Eaters codex, starting with the Big Man himself! Of course, 10th edition might not be that far away, which means that I may have to revisit afterwards, but hey, that’s part of the Eightfold Path, isn’t it? Of course, if you are doing some shopping with FLG, be sure to use my affiliate link.

I’d be a poor disciple of Khorne to not start with the angriest boi to ever angry, and Angron is all about that Blood for the Blood God. He is a wrecking ball of carnage, but he also has one of the most fun mechanics that I’ve seen in my almost 30 years of 40K, so let’s go!

Angron has a statline deserving of an immortal engine of kill maim burn, with a few key standouts.  Move 16″, WS/BS 2+, S9 T7 18W 12A 2+/4++.  That’s not anything to sneeze at, most especially 12 attacks when healthy.  His move and attacks degrade as he takes damage, but let’s look at the big numbers.  Move 16″ is actually what makes Angron far more usable than not.  That is blistering speed on Turn 1, and it means if you go first and your opponent deploys on their own line, you can get a charge first turn with a bit of luck.  He flies, so he can actually navigate the board, and his base isn’t anywhere big enough to really be too blocked by terrain, so he is going to get to a lot of places. Yes, he is a Monster, so there are just places that are hard for him to go, but overall, he has a ton of mobility, which is key.  He also just has a ton of attacks, especially since as a World Eater, he really has 13 on the charge, and well, he has 2 different attack profiles.  He can either be S14 AP-4 D3+d3 or make 3 attacks rolls per attack at S9 AP-3 D1. That’s a lot of heat, and really, add +1 Strength if he charged/is charged/heroically intervenes. At maximum effort, he can put out a staggering 39 attacks, but even 13 S15 AP-4 attacks means that a dead hard target. The sheer variety of attacks, either big, heavy hits that will annihilate anything without an invulnerable save or just 30+ dice to blitz through a large unit or even a unit with a strong invulnerable save.

He also has a choice of aura abilities, selected in the Command Phase: +1 Attack to all Core World Eaters, reroll 1s to hit in melee for all World Eaters (except himself), and enemies cannot Fall Back, all within 6″. Most times, you are going to select No Fall Back as trapping units is so powerful, but there are certainly times when you want to boost other units. It is worth noting that there is disagreement on whether you can select this ability when he is in reserves, and it was ruled at Cherokee Open that he can, but as always, I advise asking your local TO before doing such. Angron can also give full rerolls to one Core unit within 6 in the command phase, which again, can do work, but often, Angron won’t be in the position to make use of this. Still, if you can select it before he drops back out of reserve, getting +1 attack to a unit of Berserkers can be a big swing in damage output, and you can position so that even if Angron misses a charge, you can chain back a unit to get the boost.

Angron’s main benefit is Reborn in Blood, the ability to return from the dead with 8 wounds and be placed back into reserve for 6 Blood Tithe Points. This is exceptionally strong as yes, Angron will die, but he can come back, and it means if your opponent misplays and leaves an opening, Angron can come in and start wrecking face. This is really hard to overstate: this is what makes Angron good. Your opponent generally has to kill him as the last thing most armies want is for Angron to hit a unit, kill something, and then lock another unit in combat with him. This can absolutely be what decides a game, and the fact that Angron can drop in and try it all again is insanely fun. Even if he doesn’t make a roll out of reserve, the drama of the moment is to be savored. As a note, yes, you can use this even after the turn/phase when Angron dies, so he can die Turn 1, and you can bring him back Turn 4.

There are downsides here though and they are not minor and not just one. The biggest downside to Angron is that he must be your warlord. Well this makes sense. Obviously, it does really limit your army construction and what you can do, especially since there is no way to get additional warlord traits in this codex, and this is likely a byproduct of being one of the first true 10th edition books. This rigidity holds Angron back just a bit because it is hard to argue that the Lord Invocatus doesn’t have a better warlord trait, and even some of the generic ones may have a little more play like getting one free Blood Tithe Point per turn. Angron’s Warlord Trait to turn off objective secured is nice, but in all of my games it has never come up as he doesn’t count as more than one model anyway, so if he had a rule similar to Knights that he counted as five models because of his size, then this WT would have a bit more place. Hopefully, that’s coming in 10th edition as a generic rule for Monsters.

The other downside to him is quite simply that he is very killable: T7, 18 wounds with a 2+ 4++ is not bad by any stretch of the imagination but at that magic 18 number, Angron is almost impossible to hide on most terrain sets with any narrative character, and we live in a game state where there is just some incredibly scary shooting out there. In one of my games, a Tau hammerhead with a rail gun consistently pasted Angron three times, which was so funny, but also somewhat frustrating as Angron has no way to avoid that.  I have played Angron against Space Marine gun lines and Tau gun lines, and he’s definitely dead Turn one. If I roll hot, it takes a lot a fire power to bring him down, but if I roll poorly, then it’s only a few platforms needed to put him down. This downside is mitigated by his inherent recursion, and you can even work with this downside and make some lemonade here, but it is totally worth noting that he is very much killable.

As a side note, this again reinforces to me that Angron and World Eaters make one of the best codexes to use when playing a brand new player. Angron is a super cool model. He is a super threat model that can do a ton of damage, but he is totally killable, so a newer player going against him is not going to feel as if this is some broken combo that they are helpless to defeat.

The other big downside to Angron is that he is actually not the pound for pound melee champion which is a little weird, but hey, such is life. Angron cannot kill a few key threats that you will absolutely see if not in an RTT, surely in a GT event or larger. Abaddon, Ghazghkull, or a woundcap Bloodthirster is going to take the hits and just laugh, and likely kill, Angron in return. Angron also struggles to kill multi-wound units that have layers of damage mitigation like Tau crisis suits, GSC Abberants, and Bladeguard/Deathwing terminators  For such an amazing model that has a phenomenal backstory that is built around Angron being one of the scariest Melee combatants in the history of the galaxy, it does put a little bit of lemon in the Papercut to know that while he can kill a lot, he is not the most dominant melee unit in the game, and arguably, 10 Berserkers, fully loaded with certain buffs are cheaper and likely do more damage overall than he does.

To focus on the positive, with Angron, you really have several ways that you can utilize what this model does. The first is actually as a late game threat piece. With Reborn in Blood, you can bring Angron back on turn four and five if he is destroyed, and he’s going to get destroyed, because as we are covered, he does not have the defensive tech to really last against the range threat that exists in the game. That said you can easily build a list to maximize BTP, so you should have six at one point or another that you can spend at the end of your opponent’s turn to put him back into reserve and drop him down and go for a late game hit . Especially if you were playing the early rounds under the assumption that Angron won’t come back until mid game or later, you can use BTP to max out a secondary as well as get +1 to hit or a 6+ feel no pain for your army. This allows you to spread out the advantages of BTPs without overly investing in returning Angron or the other bonuses.

You can maximize this balance in the late game as you get a turn four drop that hopefully makes the charge how to take a key objective or remove a key threat. What’s left of your army can navigate the board and mission and is hopefully a bit stronger with a few key BTP buffs up as well. Angron returns with only eight wounds left, but with his defensive profile, if your opponent has suffered any meaningful damage, they might lack the ability to consistently put him back down . Even if they do, it may take the majority of their resources, which means whatever you have left can get a turn to hopefully get charges off to do some big damage and as well as start controlling the objectives.

You can, of course do the exact opposite with Angron and really build a list to maximize that he is going to come back three times or more in a game. If you are playing lots of MSU, so Spawn, Masters of Executions, minimum Berserkers and Jackals, and a Daemon patrol with a Flesh Hounds, you can really build out an army that is going to quickly generate BTP for yourself, and so yes Angron will die Turn one in most games, but he’ll be back in Turn two or Three. For my experience, I generally don’t have enough BTP to get Angron back on Turn 2, but knowing he’ll come back turn three and likely turn four and maybe even turn five is still a lot of yo-yoing that can be very frustrating for an opponent, as again each time they shoot him, they’re not shooting something else. The problem with this build, of course, is that you are often feeding kills to your opponent, which means certain secondaries are almost an auto include against you, like Assassinate or Grind them Down, which takes away your advantage on the secondaries. Also, you just might not have enough actual push outside of Angron to do meaningful damage to actually win as Angron can’t be everywhere,

There is a way to go big beef and bring Angron with other mega threats to try and force some hard target priority choices. Angron with the Lord of Skulls means that your opponent, even a Tau or AM gun line is going to struggle to kill both Angron and do any meaningful damage to the Lord of Skulls. You can also do this with a Daemon patrol and have Skarbrand and Angron together as again, your opponent really has to decide who to kill, and they might not have enough heat to take out both. This is especially potent if you go first as yes, a savvy opponent will not allow your first turn charge, but you can advance up the board enough to where if they don’t kill both, one is making it.

You can further push this in Disciples of the Red Angel and have a lot of daemon engines like blood slaughters or Maulerfiends that want to scuttle up the board, and your opponent can kill these relatively easily, but they have to kill Angron first, and if they don’t, then all of a sudden you have a pretty big nasty wave crashing into their lines on turn two or three. This also doesn’t stop you from maybe bringing Angrn back either.  Because Angron is so fast, he is generally going to be a target priority, and my only wish was that there was a way in the Arks of Omen book to be able to take An’ggrath the Unbound, who is also move 16 as this would work best with both of them together, since they are so fast and fly that your opponent has to choose which one to engage, and again, the likelihood is that they are not going to be able to drop both.

Your success with Angron is actually about positioning and threat management, meaning how to get your opponent to shoot Angron while giving your forces a chance to move up the board and get into advantageous positions. Where you deep strike Angron, when you bring him back, where you deploy him, and whether you try to fish for a long charge or simply advance all matters, and well, this boils down to the simple truth that Angron lives and dies on your movement phase. Angron really only has two phases, so you have to be really comfortable maximizing both. You never want to send him where he is going to be suboptimal, so always take an extra moment to think if there a better place to land.

So in the end, Angron is very much the ultimate Distraction Carnifex. If your opponent over-focuses on him, they can get blindsided by the rest of your army, and if they ignore him, well, he does punch pretty hard. You cannot expect him to be your unyielding rock, but well, that’s not Khorne’s style.

So overall going back to my ranking system, 0 being unplayable at any level because it is not fun and 100 being mathematically broken and needs Nerfing immediately, I would give Angron a solid 80. He can work in competitive list as he’s not a handicap if you take him, but he’s also not necessarily an auto include and he is not by any means overpowered or broken. Thanks as always for reading, and next time, I’ll take a look at good old Lord Invocatus, aka, Lord Avocado!