Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (section)

====Word Bearers====
While Word Bearers have access to all Marks of Chaos, unlike most legions, they have some of the weakest legion rules, which revolve around a few particular HQ choices. Possessed as Troops in a CAD with no other improvements to their rules are still a bad unit, while the Dark Apostle 6" range is small and only gives Hatred and Fearless(which other legions can get for free). The harnessing of warp charges for Conjurations on a 3+ is the strongest benefit from playing Word Bearers: combining this with a Spell Familiar, and you summon daemons more efficiently than most daemons. You will have to keep this in mind when building the list: free VotLW is the only thing your basic Chaos Space Marines gain from(not counting formation and detachment rules), without the help of your supporting HQs. 

Because Possessed themselves are bad, and Word Bearers do not get any other advantages to support running Forgeworld-heavy lists, most Word Bearers lists should start with a Grand Host rather than a CAD. Although Eight-Fold Path is mostly inferior to Path to Glory in the Black Crusade detachment (you can use it on Daemon Princes or Warpack characters, but it doesn't benefit from Favored Scions and you can't pile blessings), Crusader allows your grunts to get across the board faster while the Word Bearers Warlord Table is rather nice. The question is whether you want to do a Cultist-heavy build, or a Marine-focused build. 

The Cultist build is pretty simple: Use a Lost and the Damned Core, but try to balance the ratio of Cultists to actual killing power; the main reason for this formation is how expendable it is. The Warpack actually makes sense as an Auxiliary for this army, as taking several Daemonology Psykers means you have respectable odds of getting Cursed Earth, plus Warlord Psyker Defiler remains the most memetic Crab Cathedral (Crabthedral) to emerge from rule interactions; take advantage of Crusader so your Cultists can run forth, jam movement, etc. 

The Marine-focused build will go for a Warband, and try to take advantage of the ability to mix-and-match Marks. If you want some Cultists to support this build, one option is to use a Helbrute as your mandatory "Heavy" requirement for the formation, then take an allied Helcult so you have a second Brute and two units of super-unbreakable Cultists. If you're feeling cheeky, you can attach your Lord/Sorcerer to each Cultist unit so they also get Crusader, and move faster towards objectives (presumably the Grand Host characters are whipping them up into a religious frenzy). Bring Spawn or other..OHGODNOARRRGRMGH...as the other anon was saying, other fast-moving assault elements can put additional pressure on your opponent, so that MSU Bikes are not your only trick!

No matter whether you go for a Marine or Cultist-focused build, a Palanquin Summoner is a good pick for your army, as the blessings from Lore of Nurgle can buff your army to do nasty things, while the extra wounds give you additional breathing room for casting powers despite Perils. Though you can run Bike Sorcerers, you're not really taking advantage of the Word Bearers' main draw if you do this. On the other hand, a Daemon detachment (be it Allied Detachment, CAD, or Heralds Anarchic) can provide you a lot of extra Warp Charge to play with as well as Paradox. When you can reliably expect to get at least two free units of Flesh Hounds per turn, while you're running lots of small threats, you can maintain a momentum over your opponent that is more powerful than it appears at first glance!