Azuza001 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
This just in, we can field heretic astartes Lord of War for just 1 CP in an Aux Detachment as long as we have a heretic Astartes warlord. Our DG warlords have heretic astartes keyword.

So, yes, we can field LOWs like Lord of Skulls for just 1 CP now! Its always good to have more options like these. lol Previously, 3CP was steep. But at 1 CP ... well, its very interesting.

Where is this change at?

It's in the CA2021 page that describes CP's per game size, how many datasheets you can have etc.

I did go 5-0 with pure Death Guard without Mortarion at a Major recently (as per the YouTube video I shared a page or two ago), but I agree that AdMech is going to make repeating that performance very difficult and Sisters and Orks will only make it even harder if they are as busted as Drukhari and AdMech.

If it helps Virules, I am hearing from playtest folks that Sisters are not meta-altering at all. Grain of salt, but it sounds like a decidedly "decent" book.

There is a lot that makes sisters powerful right now that probably won't survive the new codex.

Although I thought that about ad mech losing the Cawl robot parking lot Wrath of Mars etc and look how that turned out ..

I don't want to get us off topic, but Sisters feel like a house of cards. Pull Bloody Rose or Repentia down and their competitive standings plummet.

So, how do we handle the new admech as DG? Their shooting honestly scares me. A 20 ranger or vanguard blob can easily blow a Deathshroud terminator squad off the map. Their lascannon Chickens are probably the shootiest unit in the game right now. So, that will kill our vehicles. And they got fliers, and they got those doggies which can move block and then run away when we charge them and other fast units that can do lots of tricky stuff.

Anyone thought of anything? Even if we have to soup in something? How do we counter admech?

 Virules wrote:
I did go 5-0 with pure Death Guard without Mortarion at a Major recently (as per the YouTube video I shared a page or two ago), but I agree that AdMech is going to make repeating that performance very difficult and Sisters and Orks will only make it even harder if they are as busted as Drukhari and AdMech.

Loved the video. Thanks for taking the time to write out all of that, do the preparation, and make the video. Some good stuff in there.
The first thought that popped into my head, was how tailored to your meta did the list end up being? You mentioned you kept your meta in mind while list building, and as you faced Orks with Ghaz twice, it seems it payed off. Now, for me, in a completely different meta, where I almost never see orks, what differences would you implement in your list? Plague Skull and Typhus were specifically listed as reasons to get extra mortals on these "x wounds per phase" units, but are they worth it independently of that fact in your opinion?

Furthermore, were you glad you did not run the Terminus Ex army of renown (in your army, dropping 2 plague burst is the only cost right, and yes that is still quite the cost), but the upside could potentially be worth it (strategums, psychic powers). Thoughts?


On a separate note, yea these FAQ/Updates hurt me. I was in love with Warpy Morty. Now no allies. Sigh.
Actually felt ok against Dhrukari with a Ferryman list built around warptiming a drone and shooting it like a bullet at the opponent's raiders, add in gift of contagion and flash outbreak, and BOY did it feel good droning 5 enemy raiders turn one and halving their movement. Now that's not an option, and there's really no way to mess with the enemies movement turn one, which vs dhrukari feels like the only turn it matters. I guess we will adapt, and keep trying, but these changes, combined with Dhrukari and Admech release, do not paint a pretty picture for DG.

Drukhari I actually feel like there might still be stuff we can possibly do to counter. Outside of a darklance spam list, which is not so common. Drukhari's playstyle is they want to come into close combat with the opponent because they have good melee units and the turn 2 advance and charge. So, at least they will come at us and we will have a game. And like I posted in another thread. Super chunky T8 knight that won't immediately die to a few couple of dark lance shots is something they will find hard to deal with. Souping in that is possible strategy. We can even soup in just 1 Lord of Skulls for 1 cp if we don't want to go Knight superheavy detachment.

Admech though. I always feel like it "feelsbad" playing admech. Their goal is literally to shoot you off the table. Feels like the leaf blower type lists of the past. Except the new admech not only shoots extremely well, but got lots of good fast attack units that go do objectives, stop deep strike and hinder you from moving around the table in general too. Lets say they succeed super well in their overall strategy. You would probably get shot off the board by turn 4. Nothing feels worse than having your whole army obliterated while you couldn't get to do much.

Maybe give GW a bit of time with admech though. Like they hit Drukhari with a couple of nerfs recently so that Drukhari are at least no longer quite so oppressive. GW will probably observe Admech for a while before they act. The whole 20 man rangers and vanguard just erasing stuff from the board... like if they hit cultists so hard with successive nerf bats last time, then why would they allow rangers and vanguard to essentially do the same thing now. Give them some time.

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
On a separate note, yea these FAQ/Updates hurt me. I was in love with Warpy Morty. Now no allies. Sigh.
Actually felt ok against Dhrukari with a Ferryman list built around warptiming a drone and shooting it like a bullet at the opponent's raiders, add in gift of contagion and flash outbreak, and BOY did it feel good droning 5 enemy raiders turn one and halving their movement. Now that's not an option, and there's really no way to mess with the enemies movement turn one, which vs dhrukari feels like the only turn it matters. I guess we will adapt, and keep trying, but these changes, combined with Dhrukari and Admech release, do not paint a pretty picture for DG.

Now that the greater blight drone can take contagions, you could try a similar thing with it? 14+D6" move on the first turn and then flash outbreak and gift of contagion. Not as good as before, and a bad advance roll ruins it, but its a possibility.

my DG is a lazy side project, can someone explain how Morty still isn't an auto include? I thought with his damage and durability he'd still be in all the lists.

 laam999 wrote:
my DG is a lazy side project, can someone explain how Morty still isn't an auto include? I thought with his damage and durability he'd still be in all the lists.

Mortarion is still great. But he is a lot of points wrapped in one model. So, even if you have him on an objective, for example, that still counts as just one model who is not obsec on an objective. Good players know how to play around him. He can't be everywhere. He can only be in one place at one time. Certain lists can kill him quicky. Other lists can tarpit him with transhuman, etc. He is still extremely good, but if you look at the more recent DG lists which have done well in GTs, Mortarion is not on those lists.

I think the thing is worth Morty is that people saw how durable he became in 9th and presumed he was still as offensive as he was in 8th and they were rightly terrified.

Don't get me wrong, he still wrecks face, but he's a 500pt model and hits about as hard as a pair of Redemptor dreads.

The loss of DTTFE granting him cascading hits and change to blades of putrification has neutered his damage output somewhat.

What it means is that, while he's still great, he's not as devestatingly good as the initial furore indicated and people are finding lists without him are often stronger.

With the loss of ability to warp time him in the new FAQ, that's another popular way he was used gone.

Honestly I was never convinced that was the best use for him and I think there's probably more mileage in leaning more into his buffing/debuffing abilities and using him as a counter charge might be the better way to go.

He's in a funny place tbh because he can be oppressive in casual games if your opponent doesn't have the tools to deal with him, but competitively I think he's just fine.

Yes, don't field Mortarion against newbies. They will definitely find him very oppressive and they will hate you.

New Mortarion is great for Lord Of War brawls though. He can finally tear stuff like Lord of Skulls or Knights a new one.

 Jidmah wrote:
New Mortarion is great for Lord Of War brawls though. He can finally tear stuff like Lord of Skulls or Knights a new one.

Maybe he can tear through knights easily because they don't get a save in melee against Mortarion (most of the time). But Lord of Skulls has 5++ invul and 28 wounds. And if you wound him but don't kill him, he gets more attacks, and each attack of that cleaver is damage 6. I think it would be a close exciting fight between Lord of Skulls and Mortarion which will boil down to who can make the invul saves, and who outlasts who. (And Mortarion of course also gets his revoltingly resilient saves too). I don't see Mortarion walking away from the fight without serious injury though, even if he does win.

 lare2 wrote:
Got my first post pandemic tourney this Saturday. My FLGS does both a 2k and 1k event but just went for the 1k option as I'm incredibly rusty. Gonna try something new with the Wretched. Never ran them yet. List below. Will let you all know how I get on.

Spoiler:

Death Guard
Total: 52 PL, 5CP, 995pts
Patrol Detachment, Incursion
Plague Company: The Wretched

HQ
Death Guard Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour [6 PL, 105pts]: Lightning Claw x2
Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, -1CP, 95pts]: Spells - Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality, Curse of the Leper, Strategem - Sevenfold Blessings [-1CP], Relic - The Daemon's Favour, Warlord Trait: Eater Plague

Troops [11 PL, 205pts]
Plague Marines [6 PL, 105pts]: Boltgun x5
Poxwalkers x20 [5 PL, 100pts]

Elites [14 PL, 285pts]
Blightlord Terminators [10 PL, 210pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter x3, Flail, Blight Launcher
Plague Surgeon [4 PL, 75pts]

Fast Attack [7 PL, 130pts]
Foetid Bloat-drone [7 PL, 130pts]: Plaguespitter

Heavy Support [9 PL, 175pts]
Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: Entropy cannon x2

Well, was fairly happy with my performance today. Lost 2 won 1. Pretty standard for me - I'm not the best at the game! Think I get too carried away! Scored relatively high throughout though so finished 14th out of 26. I'll write up in more detail on Monday when at work... beats actually doing work. Pic below of my boys holding the line.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
New Mortarion is great for Lord Of War brawls though. He can finally tear stuff like Lord of Skulls or Knights a new one.

Maybe he can tear through knights easily because they don't get a save in melee against Mortarion (most of the time). But Lord of Skulls has 5++ invul and 28 wounds. And if you wound him but don't kill him, he gets more attacks, and each attack of that cleaver is damage 6. I think it would be a close exciting fight between Lord of Skulls and Mortarion which will boil down to who can make the invul saves, and who outlasts who. (And Mortarion of course also gets his revoltingly resilient saves too). I don't see Mortarion walking away from the fight without serious injury though, even if he does win.

That's still a huge improvement over having no real chance of killing the LoS while it just one-shotted him.

 lare2 wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Got my first post pandemic tourney this Saturday. My FLGS does both a 2k and 1k event but just went for the 1k option as I'm incredibly rusty. Gonna try something new with the Wretched. Never ran them yet. List below. Will let you all know how I get on.

Spoiler:

Death Guard
Total: 52 PL, 5CP, 995pts
Patrol Detachment, Incursion
Plague Company: The Wretched

HQ
Death Guard Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour [6 PL, 105pts]: Lightning Claw x2
Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, -1CP, 95pts]: Spells - Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality, Curse of the Leper, Strategem - Sevenfold Blessings [-1CP], Relic - The Daemon's Favour, Warlord Trait: Eater Plague

Troops [11 PL, 205pts]
Plague Marines [6 PL, 105pts]: Boltgun x5
Poxwalkers x20 [5 PL, 100pts]

Elites [14 PL, 285pts]
Blightlord Terminators [10 PL, 210pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter x3, Flail, Blight Launcher
Plague Surgeon [4 PL, 75pts]

Fast Attack [7 PL, 130pts]
Foetid Bloat-drone [7 PL, 130pts]: Plaguespitter

Heavy Support [9 PL, 175pts]
Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: Entropy cannon x2

Well, was fairly happy with my performance today. Lost 2 won 1. Pretty standard for me - I'm not the best at the game! Think I get too carried away! Scored relatively high throughout though so finished 14th out of 26. I'll write up in more detail on Monday when at work... beats actually doing work. Pic below of my boys holding the line.

Great work buddy! There’s no better way to knock off the rust than to play in an event . You really get to know your army and you’re armed with more knowledge for the next one! Good job on the win!

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
This just in, we can field heretic astartes Lord of War for just 1 CP in an Aux Detachment as long as we have a heretic Astartes warlord. Our DG warlords have heretic astartes keyword.

So, yes, we can field LOWs like Lord of Skulls for just 1 CP now! Its always good to have more options like these. lol Previously, 3CP was steep. But at 1 CP ... well, its very interesting.

Where is this change at?

It's in the CA2021 page that describes CP's per game size, how many datasheets you can have etc.

For those of us who are very dumb, can you share the text? I read the chapter approved mission tactics and core rule book errata 3 times after seeing your post and not finding it =(

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So, how do we handle the new admech as DG? Their shooting honestly scares me. A 20 ranger or vanguard blob can easily blow a Deathshroud terminator squad off the map. Their lascannon Chickens are probably the shootiest unit in the game right now. So, that will kill our vehicles. And they got fliers, and they got those doggies which can move block and then run away when we charge them and other fast units that can do lots of tricky stuff.

Anyone thought of anything? Even if we have to soup in something? How do we counter admech?

Not surprising that there was no answer to this question here. Maybe someone smarter than me has one, but from where I’m standing there is none. I have no idea why GW thought buffing the chickens made any sense whatsoever. And for a team that already realized that you need put a premium cost on buff stacking, there should be no reason they allowed 20 man skitari units to be as good as they are.

From a soup angle allying in shooting and fast melee units makes some sense. However, chaos as a whole has no shooting options near as powerful as ad-mechs (and playing a worse version of another army doesn’t work) and faster options only really work in a threat overload build, which is much worse due to the warptime nerf.

Furthermore, I’m far more hesitant to soup in general due to losing warptime. DG already have faster units in drones, morty, and haulers, and can get ok shooting with crawlers and volkite dreadnoughts. There are some better options in wider chaos, but these options aren’t so much better that losing -1 T contagion feels worth it in most situations.

So TLDR, GW has done quite the excellent job of railroading us into a play style that gets dunked on by ad-mech (even it’s a fine against many other armies). Rock isn’t supposed to beat paper after all.

I saw a video of a blood angels vs admech matchup and the blood angels army scraped out a win. But unfortunately, blood angels playstyle is very different DG. Blood angels has hard hitting units which can fly and are very mobile. So, they can hug the obscuring terrain while fly hopping up the board. This works well against the new admech because nowadays they prefer to bring Ironstriders and don't bring much disintigrators and Ironsriders need line of sight. So, if you can make your way up the board without getting shot and then charge in, Admech will have problems because they are ultimately a shooting army, less of a melee one.

But DG playstyle is simply not like that. Its a totally diffferent playstyle. So far, the only I can think of is this. It is extremely expensive in CP, but it might buy us the time to do what we need to do.

So, the idea is to advance up the flanks with something that is fast and mobile. The fastest thing in our arsenal is the greater bloat drone. I think it moves 14 inches. Hope there is obscuring terrain in the midboard on the sides that the greater bloat drones can hide behind.

Then spend 4CP to give a huge terminator block (blightlords I think) cloud of flies and march that straight up the centre. The characters can follow that block. But every other unit stays behind obscuring terrain or maybe deep strike if deathshroud. So, because the drones at the flanks moved up so much, they will be nearer to the opponent than the terminator block. So, even if Admech wanted to shoot that terminator block, it cannot because of cloud of flies.

This gives us that 1 turn where we can move up the center and we will hopefully then be in a much better position to move and charge on turn 2. Plus more importantly, it allows us to push forward to create more space for ourselves so that turn 2, when deathshrouds deep strike in, they can do that in the midboard.

Turn 2, we move up further, shoot whatever we can, and then charge whatever we can and get mixed in. Because if Admech has something like Dragoons or stuff which can charge our drones, that means they should be within charge range of our terminators too.

This assumes we are in a good position to do mass charges on turn 2. If we are not, we may need to spend another 4 CP to cloud of flies again to get into position for a turn 3 massed charge.

This strategy is horrendously expensive in CP. But its really the only thing I can think of which at least allows us to still play the usual style of DG. It still requires two fast units that can move up the board at the sides till they get to a good spot behind cover so that they are the ones who will be nearer to Admech rather than the block of terminators marching up.

The other thing is that the ranger and vanguard blobs must die. I rate these even more dangerous than ironstriders. I think I would even lob all my plague burst mortars into them for the max shots and just to reduce them down to a size where their strategems won't cause them to do quite so much damage. The only consolation is that if they are running big blobs of 20, these won't be so easy to hide. So, they will be open to being shot at. (Mortars ignore line of sight anyway).

A cheaper way to do this would be to use a 10 man block of Plague Marines instead of terminators. Most Admech list probably don't have the melee to handle 10 plague marines with 2 flails backed up by our characters. So then cloud of flies will only be 2CP instead of 4.

Oh, one more thing, they can only use shroudspalm on one of the turns. Shoot them hard when they don't have that canticle on. I absolutely hate that canticle. Either that, or take Mortarion's chosen. I believe Mortarion's Chosen's ignoring cover also negates Shroudspalm because that additional armor save is technically a cover save. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I am so tempted to bring two Foul blightspawn instead of just the usual one because Mortarion's chosen also has that relic flamer that does 7 shots. Its good against Admech flyers too anyway. So one will have stench vats and the other will have Vormitryx.

Thats about all I can think of... Anyone else has ideas on how to handle Admech ?

I haven't played them yet and the only battle report I've seen of them was the absolute drubbing on art of war the other week.

I'm inclined to think Nanavetti could have played it better had he been better informed on how the new admech codex worked so I'm confident the power level distance isn't quite as bad as that.

I'm also heartened by the nerfs handed to Drukhari this week to attempt to realign them closer to the middle ground so right now I don't think it's worth getting to upset about how strong ad mech are right now.

That obviously doesn't help if you come up against them in a tournament in the next few weeks.

I'm already keen to do some experimenting with dreadclaw drop pods following the changes this week, I wonder if they could help to close the gap quicker and a big lump of PMs dropped into rapid fire can do some damage and attract at least some firepower whilst you advance the rest up the table. If you can make the charge with either the PMs or the pod then happy days

Well, on the subject of countering meta (the 2 top dogs are Drukhari and admech) Oddly enough, CSM's current broken state still seems to have some tools which make them efficient against Druhari.

Take a Havoc squad with 4 autocannons. Cheap, and you can cacophony to shoot it twice, give it VOTLW, etc. Autocannon profile is really good against Raiders. And oddly enough, the Havoc squad is great against Dark lances. All that d3+3 damage is wasted when you only have 1 wound lol. The first Darklance that goes through will kill a sergeant. Even 3 darklance going through killing 3 models will only half its firepower. Alpha legion Havocs with autocannons are probably a nightmare for Drukhari to deal with as long as they can stay far far back out of range of small arms fire. Even 2 squads of autocannon havocs with cacophony on one of them will mean 24 shots of str 7, AP1, D2. That could potentially cripple or destroy 3 Druhari transports. And a squad of Havocs is just 125 points, cheaper than most tanks.

And the other weapon CSM has. The Reaper chain cannon. Its 8 shots, str 5, AP 1. Again, 4 reaper chain cannons shooting into a 20 man blob squad of Admech should wreck it hard. That's 32 shots!

So, CSM has some interesting stuff against the Meta. Souping in an Alpha legion (-1 to hit) or Iron Warriors (ignores cover) detachment for Havocs, CSM psychic and possibly fast attack like Raptors is interesting. Cloud of Flies still works if CSM raptors are nearer to your opponent than your cloud of flies unit. The dedicated admech shooting units still don't like to be tagged in combat.

Honest question - what is so bad about AdMech for DG? What kind of lists are giving us troubles and why?

We only have one AdMech player here and it's just one of his many armies, so he doesn't always play them.

I believe the big blobs of vanguard really hurt us due to the huge amounts of 1D firepower they put out. 20 rangers putting out 80 S5 -2 1D shots at 18" is

Since I'm quite sure that he doesn't have huge blobs of those already and is unlikely to buy and paint them up quickly, am I "safe"?

Yeh on a more casual competitive level generally I think ad mech are quite safe to play lol.

Obviously people playing top table GTs will react much quicker but I know most people that play ad mech locally are more leant into Kastelans and Kataphrons so a lot will need time to retech their armies

 Jidmah wrote:
Since I'm quite sure that he doesn't have huge blobs of those already and is unlikely to buy and paint them up quickly, am I "safe"?

Yup. I think you are safe. Everything else is not as oppressive, though ironstriders are very good. Admech is still shooty though. Something you have to factor into when facing Admech. They are probably one of the few shooty armies that can be so shooty as to be a problem to DG. Of course, a lot also depends on the terrain set up in your area. If there is enough obscuring terrain all around, it should be fine. But if its a shooting gallery... yeah, that could be a problem.

 Brymm wrote:

 lare2 wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Got my first post pandemic tourney this Saturday. My FLGS does both a 2k and 1k event but just went for the 1k option as I'm incredibly rusty. Gonna try something new with the Wretched. Never ran them yet. List below. Will let you all know how I get on.

Spoiler:

Death Guard
Total: 52 PL, 5CP, 995pts
Patrol Detachment, Incursion
Plague Company: The Wretched

HQ
Death Guard Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour [6 PL, 105pts]: Lightning Claw x2
Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, -1CP, 95pts]: Spells - Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality, Curse of the Leper, Strategem - Sevenfold Blessings [-1CP], Relic - The Daemon's Favour, Warlord Trait: Eater Plague

Troops [11 PL, 205pts]
Plague Marines [6 PL, 105pts]: Boltgun x5
Poxwalkers x20 [5 PL, 100pts]

Elites [14 PL, 285pts]
Blightlord Terminators [10 PL, 210pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter x3, Flail, Blight Launcher
Plague Surgeon [4 PL, 75pts]

Fast Attack [7 PL, 130pts]
Foetid Bloat-drone [7 PL, 130pts]: Plaguespitter

Heavy Support [9 PL, 175pts]
Plagueburst Crawler [9 PL, 175pts]: Entropy cannon x2

Well, was fairly happy with my performance today. Lost 2 won 1. Pretty standard for me - I'm not the best at the game! Think I get too carried away! Scored relatively high throughout though so finished 14th out of 26. I'll write up in more detail on Monday when at work... beats actually doing work. Pic below of my boys holding the line.

Great work buddy! There’s no better way to knock off the rust than to play in an event . You really get to know your army and you’re armed with more knowledge for the next one! Good job on the win!

Cheers! Excelsior, as they say! Will hide my write up in the spoiler.

TLDR: I love the malignant plaguecaster and pox in Wretched lists and I need more practise!

Thanks for the answers. In general people here are quite competitive players, but since it's mostly dadhammer, no one has the time or money to chase the current meta.

If those units are as oppressive as you say, it's a given they will get hit by a nerfhammer in 3 months or so, no one will have completed an army of them by then.

20 man blobs from Admech should be relatively easy to take out if we focus fire them. Like you said we could use mortars against them if we have to, but heck even regular bolter fire from normal 10 man Plague Marine squads ( 20 shots ) or Combi Bolter fire from our 5 man Blightlords ( another 20 shots ) should do decent work in combination with other firepower/heavy/special weapons added/Stratagems/Tallyman. If a 20 man blob is going to give you problems, just shoot the crap out of it then move on!

Those 20-man blobs can have 2+ functional saves for one turn, and 3+ the remaining turns. For 160pt, and people regularly expecting to take 60 dudes... just shooting them isn't going to be an option.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Those 20-man blobs can have 2+ functional saves for one turn, and 3+ the remaining turns. For 160pt, and people regularly expecting to take 60 dudes... just shooting them isn't going to be an option.

Then may I suggest we get a Bloatdrone or Plagueburstcrawler close enough to the 20 man blob, get them in contagion range, and hit them with the Plague Spewers and then the bolter fire cleans the rest up with ignore cover, -1 ap, or more wounds from wretched.

Another great squad to take would be a 10 man Plague Marine unit in a Rhino, and give them 2 plage belchers and 2 plague spewers, Mortarions Son's detachment, roast them with the flamers, and even better ignore cover when they are in contagion range.

Also remember we can chuck out mortal wounds, add Plague Skull, stratagems, and smites, whatever you got till that 20 man blob is gone.

Are those 160 points for a 20 man squad just the base cost or does it include the special weapons?

They don't take special weapons. Their base guys are far stronger than I think you realize.

Likewise, Plague Marines are so points inefficient, and so easily removed by Ad-Mech (Rhino included), that you're making it easier for them to win. Those Rangers/Vanguard will always be screened by their shockingly strong Serbyrs Raiders, to boot.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
They don't take special weapons. Their base guys are far stronger than I think you realize.

Likewise, Plague Marines are so points inefficient, and so easily removed by Ad-Mech (Rhino included), that you're making it easier for them to win. Those Rangers/Vanguard will always be screened by their shockingly strong Serbyrs Raiders, to boot.

Dang, and here I thought Plague Marines were awsome. Oh well, guess ill just sell them on ebay and pick up the Admech codex along with the Vanguard and rangers and the rest of the army. Apparently Ad Mech are awsome! Guess ill buy them!

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 Virules wrote:
I did go 5-0 with pure Death Guard without Mortarion at a Major recently (as per the YouTube video I shared a page or two ago), but I agree that AdMech is going to make repeating that performance very difficult and Sisters and Orks will only make it even harder if they are as busted as Drukhari and AdMech.

Loved the video. Thanks for taking the time to write out all of that, do the preparation, and make the video. Some good stuff in there.
The first thought that popped into my head, was how tailored to your meta did the list end up being? You mentioned you kept your meta in mind while list building, and as you faced Orks with Ghaz twice, it seems it payed off. Now, for me, in a completely different meta, where I almost never see orks, what differences would you implement in your list? Plague Skull and Typhus were specifically listed as reasons to get extra mortals on these "x wounds per phase" units, but are they worth it independently of that fact in your opinion?

Furthermore, were you glad you did not run the Terminus Ex army of renown (in your army, dropping 2 plague burst is the only cost right, and yes that is still quite the cost), but the upside could potentially be worth it (strategums, psychic powers). Thoughts?

Glad my video was so helpful! Plague skull is always worth it. Typhus is debatable. The problem is that I have to expect Ctan and Ghaz in my area. Not much I can do. Terminus Est is tough without fast models painted like spawn and possessed. Plus GW screwed up by making the warp charge on the powers too high and the strats too expensive, on top of the very punishing restrictions of no Mortarion or vehicles. It's a shame GW took a dump in the bed on the Terminus Est rules. But if you have 120 poxwalkers maybe try it.

 Black Knight wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
They don't take special weapons. Their base guys are far stronger than I think you realize.

Likewise, Plague Marines are so points inefficient, and so easily removed by Ad-Mech (Rhino included), that you're making it easier for them to win. Those Rangers/Vanguard will always be screened by their shockingly strong Serbyrs Raiders, to boot.

Dang, and here I thought Plague Marines were awsome. Oh well, guess ill just sell them on ebay and pick up the Admech codex along with the Vanguard and rangers and the rest of the army. Apparently Ad Mech are awsome! Guess ill buy them!

Especially in this thread, you need to pay attention to who is writing stuff. There many people here into top competitive gaming who are essentially playing a completely different game than your average store or garage game.

I think admech is a tough but playable matchup. A lot depends on the terrain and the skill of both players. Just have to say, we need to respect the firepower they can put out. Even their troop units can shoot our terminators off the board. So, they have a lot of lethal stuff, and they also have board disruption in their fast attack choices. So, we just have to be very careful playing them.

Skitaari are T3 4+ 6++
Lucius gives them +1 to save against 1D weapons
A techpriest manipulus nearby with Lucius WLT and Logi Holy Order gives them transhuman and ignore -1 and -2AP
A Skitaari Marshall nearby gives them always in cover or +2 to save in cover

Pretty much all of our anti infantry firepower is at best -1AP and 1D. Bolters, spewers, spitters, reaper autocannons, sluggers.
So apart from bight launchers we're generally wounding on 4s and they save on 2s. Ferric Blight is doing nothing for us, -1T is doing nothing for us.

Offensively, those 20 vanguard put out 40 S4 -2 1D shots at 39", 80 at half range with a strat, hitting on 2s in Protector Imperative and rerolling 1s to hit and wound because of the Marshall.

Oh and they can teleport so getting within 19.5" isn't too tricky so they can wipe a 5 man Blightlord Terminator unit.

Their offensive power can be boosted even further if you go Mars or something but I picked Lucius to demonstrate how tough they are for us to remove.

I actually don't think Ad Mech is a good match up for us as they largely ignore our strengths...

I played against Ad Mech last weekend and it was for sure a tough match up, but then thye always have been for me.
But he doesn't have anything near the optimized list people bring up online as being powerlists and his shooting still nearly tabled me. The Robots are still nasty when buffed up, the chickens are ridiculously cheap for their firepower and the Canticle (I think?) that gives them +1 to hit for a turn in shooting is very dangerous.
However I did win that game so it is not impossible. I used a defensive demon prince to lock his robots and kept throwing small PM squads at objectives to outscore him, having lucky DS charges also helped. I have no clue how I'd handle a list with lots of those rangers though, I don't think DG has anything that can really trade with those cost effectively.

Can you share the list that you played?

Abaddon303 wrote:
Skitaari are T3 4+ 6++
Lucius gives them +1 to save against 1D weapons
A techpriest manipulus nearby with Lucius WLT and Logi Holy Order gives them transhuman and ignore -1 and -2AP
A Skitaari Marshall nearby gives them always in cover or +2 to save in cover

Pretty much all of our anti infantry firepower is at best -1AP and 1D. Bolters, spewers, spitters, reaper autocannons, sluggers.
So apart from bight launchers we're generally wounding on 4s and they save on 2s. Ferric Blight is doing nothing for us, -1T is doing nothing for us.

Offensively, those 20 vanguard put out 40 S4 -2 1D shots at 39", 80 at half range with a strat, hitting on 2s in Protector Imperative and rerolling 1s to hit and wound because of the Marshall.

Oh and they can teleport so getting within 19.5" isn't too tricky so they can wipe a 5 man Blightlord Terminator unit.

Their offensive power can be boosted even further if you go Mars or something but I picked Lucius to demonstrate how tough they are for us to remove.

I actually don't think Ad Mech is a good match up for us as they largely ignore our strengths...

From what I understood reading the data sheet for the codex review on youtube, the Vanguard's base gun is 18" range str 3 0 ap, assault 3. what am I missing? that should be 60 str 3 0 ap shots, which are pathetic vs plague marines. It looks like they can take special weapons but nothing like you described. The rangers base gun is heavy 2 str 4 -1 ap, is that the gun you were referring to? Heavy weapons with max 40 shots, but thats without any stratagems or special weapons. Add special weapons and the cost of these units will creep up to 200 points.


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Oh wow just saw the stratagem, for 2 CP they can change from heavy 2 to rapid fire 2. But its still only -1 ap if you go Lucius.

The fact they can teleport into rapid fire range for 80 shots is worrisome. hhmm.

Yep sorry I was referring to rangers with galvanic rifles.
Heavy2 S4 -1 1D and 30" range.
Lucius adds 3" to the range while the Tech Priest Manipulus boosts the range a further 6" and gives them an extra point of AP.
And yeh, the strat turns them to rapid fire 2.

The offensive output can be boosted more if they give up some of the defensive boosts granted. As Mars they can use Wrath of Mars for a basically guaranteed 6 MWs or if they go Artisans instead of Logi on the Tech Priest they can boost the strength of the galvanic to S5.

So I guess the big question is how many points do each of these other units cost that stack with them to make them uber.

Also if they teleport they lose all those stacked bonuses, because they will no longer be in range of said bonuses, but if they go lucius thats still a good way to go to protect them on turn 1 then hammer a juicy target off the table.


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So on average, 26 shots out of 80 will miss if they teleport in. About 18 wounds vs Plague Marines or Blightlords. Thats 3 failed saves for Blightlords and Plague Marines in cover, 6 wounds to Plague Marines outside of cover.

So at worst around 3 dead Plague Marines from a teleporting squad.

Not scared of it honestly, although with the ways of swingy dice in 40k, anything could happen and you could lose more.

If however they have all the buffs stacked, it is much scarier but you have a chance to position and deal with them properly, we just need to come up with a battle plan.

Thing is they don't need to teleport in with 39" rapid fire weapons but they can if they wish. As far as buffs go they can just as easily teleport into buff range if they are recycling units.

I don't think it's terrifying, but it's worth being prepared going into your first game against it because they can really punish us. If you can ride out the worst of their buffs, a few of which are one and done or rapidly fall off on power once you begin to whittle down their units then you will come back into the game.

Vanguard have a strategem called Enriched rounds that only cost 1CP but it allows their radium guns to autowounds on hits of 4+. Their basic gun already shoots 3 times per gun. So, 60 shots from a 20 man Vanguard blob with that strategem will do 30 wounds even if they roll average on a 4+. (This is not factoring anything else to support, or the fact that Vanguard actually have a BS of 3+). You are likely looking at at least 30+ wounds.

Its the sheer number of wounds. 30 over wounds on a squad of 5 plague marines will kill it even if they have a 3+ save and roll average on their saves.

The rangers method to do a lot of damage need more CP (the rapid fire 2 strategem and the wounds on 6s is mortal wounds strategem), but the range is longer.

The old admech was already a very shooty army but its danger wasn't from its obsec troops. Old admech just to some token 5 man ranger squads that usually stayed back and called it a day. It was its other stuff that killed you.

But now. it has all that other stuff (many improved), plus it has deadly obsec ranger or vangaurd blobs that can take midboard objectives, teleport to the rear, and yet are lethal against almost any unit in the game due to the sheer number of shots it can do.

Just imagine Cultists prenerf. Ranger and vanguard are kind of like that right now. In min squads, no one cares. But in max man blobs, with some strategems, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Not saying we can't play them. And admech players need to get used to their new stuff. None of them ever had to play with ranger or vanguard blobs before. Plus maybe not all admech players have tons of vanguard and ranger models. But the skilled one who do have the models to play blobs are going to be very scary to face.

why guys try always to underestimate some units? rangers are broken...try to deny it is odd. As wh40K is now DG is a mid tier codex unless played by a very skilled player, AdMech and Drukari are meta codex and if you cant pull out a consistent chance of victories against them you will always fail if you go at any tournament. As Jidmah said here lot play competitive and are full aware now DG is not the best pick for a tournament
At you house i dont think you will never face 60 ranger super buffed so problem solved.

Mortarion1985 wrote:
Can you share the list that you played?

My list, roughly, was 3x 5 PM barebone squads, just to hop on objectives, 3x 20 poxwalkers just for the bodies, 2 PBC and 1x 2 MBH, a unit of Deathshroud, Malignant plague caster, flamer guy, tallyman, 2x Hellbrutes with MM/Fist and a DP with wings and the Suppurating plate + ignore ap -1/-2 and T7. Probably not the most optimized list but then, none of the lists here are Tournament level. If I had taken my regular list full of PM I probably would have lost, they are way too slow and expensive to reliably do anything against AdMech.

 blackmage wrote:
why guys try always to underestimate some units? rangers are broken...try to deny it is odd. As wh40K is now DG is a mid tier codex unless played by a very skilled player, AdMech and Drukari are meta codex and if you cant pull out a consistent chance of victories against them you will always fail if you go at any tournament. As Jidmah said here lot play competitive and are full aware now DG is not the best pick for a tournament
At you house i dont think you will never face 60 ranger super buffed so problem solved.

It's not so much underestimating some units, it's more trying to reign in the hyperbole that tends to get thrown around on Dakka. Remember when the Nightbringer was OP ridiculousness? Dark Angels' permanent transhuman was unplayable? Mortarion was unkillable? PBCs were complete trash because of the change to DR?

Even most of the Drukhari nonsense that was actually, genuinely broken? They fixed it.

It's good to be aware of other armies' power and to rightfully fear it's strongest combos but I'm not sure we all need to set fire to our Death Guard armies quite yet...

Abaddon303 wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
why guys try always to underestimate some units? rangers are broken...try to deny it is odd. As wh40K is now DG is a mid tier codex unless played by a very skilled player, AdMech and Drukari are meta codex and if you cant pull out a consistent chance of victories against them you will always fail if you go at any tournament. As Jidmah said here lot play competitive and are full aware now DG is not the best pick for a tournament
At you house i dont think you will never face 60 ranger super buffed so problem solved.

It's not so much underestimating some units, it's more trying to reign in the hyperbole that tends to get thrown around on Dakka. Remember when the Nightbringer was OP ridiculousness? Dark Angels' permanent transhuman was unplayable? Mortarion was unkillable? PBCs were complete trash because of the change to DR?

Even most of the Drukhari nonsense that was actually, genuinely broken? They fixed it.

It's good to be aware of other armies' power and to rightfully fear it's strongest combos but I'm not sure we all need to set fire to our Death Guard armies quite yet...

agree about that...what i meant is...i read some comments that seems like understimating what some units can do (example AdMech rangers), as i said above DG into capable hands is still a good army, but you need skills to pilot it in tournament and expect good results, it has nothing so broken or OP right now.

Abaddon303 wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
why guys try always to underestimate some units? rangers are broken...try to deny it is odd. As wh40K is now DG is a mid tier codex unless played by a very skilled player, AdMech and Drukari are meta codex and if you cant pull out a consistent chance of victories against them you will always fail if you go at any tournament. As Jidmah said here lot play competitive and are full aware now DG is not the best pick for a tournament
At you house i dont think you will never face 60 ranger super buffed so problem solved.

It's not so much underestimating some units, it's more trying to reign in the hyperbole that tends to get thrown around on Dakka. Remember when the Nightbringer was OP ridiculousness? Dark Angels' permanent transhuman was unplayable? Mortarion was unkillable? PBCs were complete trash because of the change to DR?

Even most of the Drukhari nonsense that was actually, genuinely broken? They fixed it.

It's good to be aware of other armies' power and to rightfully fear it's strongest combos but I'm not sure we all need to set fire to our Death Guard armies quite yet...

Well apparently we cant play with our Plague Marines or Rhino's anymore, by taking them we make it easier for Admech to kill us apparently, according to posters here on Dakka! I just sold mine on ebay, why take a unit or any models that makes it easier for the opponent to win? I certainly don't want to do that, and neither should anyone here! I highly recommend everyone who owns Death Guard that is a member of this forum to immediately sell there Plague Marines and Rhino's, after all this is a hardcore pro forum, you can bet the members who give advice in this forum know exactly what they are talking about! They are pro's and know exactly what they are doing!

 Black Knight wrote:

Abaddon303 wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
why guys try always to underestimate some units? rangers are broken...try to deny it is odd. As wh40K is now DG is a mid tier codex unless played by a very skilled player, AdMech and Drukari are meta codex and if you cant pull out a consistent chance of victories against them you will always fail if you go at any tournament. As Jidmah said here lot play competitive and are full aware now DG is not the best pick for a tournament
At you house i dont think you will never face 60 ranger super buffed so problem solved.

It's not so much underestimating some units, it's more trying to reign in the hyperbole that tends to get thrown around on Dakka. Remember when the Nightbringer was OP ridiculousness? Dark Angels' permanent transhuman was unplayable? Mortarion was unkillable? PBCs were complete trash because of the change to DR?

Even most of the Drukhari nonsense that was actually, genuinely broken? They fixed it.

It's good to be aware of other armies' power and to rightfully fear it's strongest combos but I'm not sure we all need to set fire to our Death Guard armies quite yet...

Well apparently we cant play with our Plague Marines or Rhino's anymore, by taking them we make it easier for Admech to kill us apparently, according to posters here on Dakka! I just sold mine on ebay, why take a unit or any models that makes it easier for the opponent to win? I certainly don't want to do that, and neither should anyone here! I highly recommend everyone who owns Death Guard that is a member of this forum to immediately sell there Plague Marines and Rhino's, after all this is a hardcore pro forum, you can bet the members who give advice in this forum know exactly what they are talking about! They are pro's and know exactly what they are doing!

That made me chuckle.

Nicolas Wenker piloted a pure DG list (without any Mortarion) to a 3rd place finish in the recent Utah Gamer's Alliance Open.

Lets see how it goes. Drukhari still seem very dominant but not all GTs have started to implement the faq nerfs yet to Drukhari. In any case, if we good enough against most armies, with the exception of Drukhari (which almost everyone has some problems with), then I think DG is still fine.

I think it speaks for the resilience of our codex that despite Dark Angels codex coming out with an even more tanky block of terminators than we have, DG still places well in tourneys. This shows that as an army, DG really synergies well. We are not just solely about being tanky and disgustingly resilient.

I wouldn't worry about Admech as much yet. Admech is a very new and relatively expensive army. Not a lot of players have a full admech army. With Drukhari still being so dominant, I think the meta chasing players will still go for Drukhari. If admech is a hard Drukhari counter, maybe some would switch. But in truth, Admech does not hard counter Drukhari at all. So, Admech players are still probably mostly played by true blue Admech fans. So we likely won't face a lot of Admech.

I play against DA quite a lot, and I think the reason why they aren't causing as much trouble for DG is that we actually are quite good at shredding them despite permanent transhuman. There are many options to deal mortal wound and/or 3 damage in our codex.

 Jidmah wrote:
I play against DA quite a lot, and I think the reason why they aren't causing as much trouble for DG is that we actually are quite good at shredding them despite permanent transhuman. There are many options to deal mortal wound and/or 3 damage in our codex.

Plus if they want to bring a huge block of deathwing plus support, its a massive point sink. Somehow, DG list synergies well enough that even if we do bring a big block of blightlord terminators plus some deathshroud, we still do fine. For Dark Angels, if they want an unkillable block of terminators, all the support characters and stuff plus that big block itself adds up to easily 800 points. Its like, if you want to invest in that many points to hold one objective, that's fine. I will just go and take every other objective and kill the rest of your army. Or like Jidmah said, we can use mortal wounds to whittle down even the unkillable terminator bloc too.

If you are not a tournament player please ignore this post.

Posted in the other thread, but I will repost here.
You know how Dhrukari were just a step above every other codex released so far? Well admech are even a step above them in my current opinion. Yes, you can discredit everything I have to say based on my experience of only one game vs the new admech, but jeesh I'm more disheartened about this then I was vs dhrukari the first time.

Played my optimized DG list (Morty, 10 Blightlords, death shrouds, poxwalkers and PBC) vs new admech (robots, 20 vanguard, 20 rangers,6 las chickens, etc)

I wanted to concede after turn one but stayed till I was nearly wiped by end of turn 2. We purposfully loaded the table with obscuring terrain to make it difficult for him to get good shooting lanes. It didn't matter. He went first, flew two planes over my terminators, rolled average and dealt 10 mortal wounds to them, shot chickens and vanguard with 60 autowounding shots at Mortarion and he died like he was made of wet paper. Planes and horses then shot up my troops, and by the end of turn one, with over 80% of my army hiding behind obscuring, I lost almost a thousand points of units. Turn two he killed almost everything else. If I had gone first my death would have been delayed a turn but nothing else would have changed. Death guard can't do enough damage turn one to make a difference.


The new admech has everything. Tons of d3+3 damage? Yep. BS 2+ army wide? Sure. 2+ armor save (or better) on practically any unit in their army? Yessir. Mobility around the board? Extremely. Veil of darkness effect? Yep. 2+ WS in combat? Uh huh. Basic troops with 60-80 shots? Of course. A fight last in combat strategum? Better believe it. An incredible amount of utility units? More than any army I've seen before (half movement, turn off auras, turn off rerolls, turn off forward deploy, ignore ap-1/-2, etc etc are all tools available in the codex).

GW decided to take an already high tier codex, buff almost every unit in the book, add more synergy and even crazier strategums than before, and somehow thought it was a good idea. The balance for everything before Dhrukari was actually impressive and gave me hope for 40ks future. Now I'm extremely apprensive for the future of competitive 40k.

If you disagree with the above you haven't played a competitent admech list yet. Or your not a competitive gamer, in which refer to first line of post.

Your post is a bit eh, abrasive, but I do agree new AdMech seems a bit insane. I tailored my list against them (still not a tourny list mind) and he took the same list he always takes for lack of models and he still nearly shot me off the table in the first 2 turns.
I feel we lack the speed and ranged output to really contest them. Against other dexes we can let our innate durability fill in those gaps but AdMech is just to deadly for that to work. I hoped that with the new codex they shifted their power a bit from shooting into melee/durability to both fit better into 9th edition as a whole and to make them less one-dimensional but it seems GW just doubled down on their shooting phase.
Now as has been pointed out in other threads, they get basically one super tanky and one super shooty turn after that they kinda fall off, but I'm personally afraid those 2 turns are enough to mulch most armies.

Yeah, I do feel like the new AdMech have our number. It's a tough book to play/manage, lots of moving parts, but that's obviously going to be less of an issue in a competitive environment where people know their stuff. Haven't had a game against them yet (although I've read the book) so can't speak from experience at this stage.

I expect that AdMech is always going to be a bad matchup for Death Guard. AdMech seems to have been designed to have very high damage - higher than any army, even Death Guard, can easily soak.

AdMech will likely struggle in the sorts of matchups where lots of cheap pieces can trade and engage with them, while restricting their lines of fire. DE, SoB, etc

That said, I'm hopeful they get a few of the more egregious stratagems toned down...

@ninjafiredragon. Yes, you may have loaded up the map with obscuring terrain, but then you went and played with Mortarion, who from the sounds of it, could not be hidden out of line of sight. So, the obscuring terrain couldn't help you in turn 1, since with just Mortarion alone, you gave your Admech opponent a perfect target to sink all of his shooting into.

This is why some of us kept on saying even here on this Thread. Mortarion is a skew unit. Against armies who cannot handle him, you will win more. Against one of the shootiest armies that Admech is ... Mortarion is a liability. He is literally gifting your opponent 500 points.

If you replaced Mortarion with 3 PBCs in the same exact matchup. Now 100% of your army is behind obscuring terrain. If he starts first, only his planes can do damage. This is list tailoring, but bring two units of blightlords instead of one big bloc against admech. A plane flying over a unit of 5 blightlords will just tickle it. And then after that, he just gifted you both of his planes because now they will be in your deployment zone ready to be shot out of the sky.

If you go first with 3 PBC instead of Mortarion in that matchup. Stay behind the obscuring, lob all your 3d6 mortars into his rangers or vanguard (which ever you think is more dangerous). Because mortar is blast. Your 3d6 mortar shots just transformed into a full 18 shots against the blob ranger unit. These units are far less scary once they are reduced to 10 man or below.

So now, he gifted you 2 planes for a few mortal wounds, plus one of his 20 man is now depleted. This will force him to come out and do something, because otherwise, he keeps getting 3d6 mortars in the face each turn and they keep transforming into 18 shots when you target his 20 man blobs. He will be forced to move out onto the midboard objectives, and then you can maybe charge him when he does that.

Have we tailored against admech? Maybe a bit. But 3 PBCs is a very common DG build. Nobody will say running 3 PBCs instead of Mortarion is list tailoring. 2 units of 5 blightlords instead of 1 unit of 10 is such slight list tailoring no one will accuse us of it.

And so now, it will be a very different game, because instead of playing down hundreds of points after turn 1, he is the one playing down 2 planes and half a squad or more of vanguard/rangers after turn 1 and his chickens have done nothing. You are still not guaranteed to win. But now you have a game. Consider, now turn 3, you are charging out your whole army and he is facing you with just his chickens, 2 depleted squads of rangers/vanguard, and no planes and the rest of his army. His scariest threat is now just his chickens. And his chickens alone cannot kill your whole still intact army.

This shows very clearly how Mortarion is a liability against certain lists, and Admech is one of them. You didn't even need the new admech. The old Admech with unlimited mortal wounds Wrath of Mars could have stacked tons of buffs on a 6 man chicken unit and blasted Mortarion off the board as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Castozor wrote:
Your post is a bit eh, abrasive, but I do agree new AdMech seems a bit insane. I tailored my list against them (still not a tourny list mind) and he took the same list he always takes for lack of models and he still nearly shot me off the table in the first 2 turns.
I feel we lack the speed and ranged output to really contest them. Against other dexes we can let our innate durability fill in those gaps but AdMech is just to deadly for that to work. I hoped that with the new codex they shifted their power a bit from shooting into melee/durability to both fit better into 9th edition as a whole and to make them less one-dimensional but it seems GW just doubled down on their shooting phase.
Now as has been pointed out in other threads, they get basically one super tanky and one super shooty turn after that they kinda fall off, but I'm personally afraid those 2 turns are enough to mulch most armies.

We may need to play the long game with Admech. Sacrifice the first two turns and stay hidden for having a better play on turn 3 to 5. It just doesn't make sense to rush out into the open and get shot off the board. One thing about the new Admech, they don't like their tanks anymore. They like their chicken walkers and rangers and vanguard and what not. This means they need line of sight to be able to shoot you. So spend the first 2 turns staying behind cover and shooting whatever we can with our PBCs and anything else that we can reach while still staying safe behind obscuring cover. Do it even if he will take the midboard. After his first two turns are over, when litkely he has used up his Shroudspalm and his best shooting canticle. Then we come out swinging with most of our army intact. I am not saying this will let us win for sure, because we will be playing catch up, but it will give us at least a more even match. Since Admech nowadays need line of sight, they cant do much damage if they can't see us. And if they throw out quick or flying units like their planes or their fast attack choices, then those units are exposed and can be easily picked off and killed.

They are very strong, but Admech cannot bring everything. If they bring so much shooting, plus fast attack plus planes, their melee will suck. Once we do get into charge range, they will fold like tissue. Another list who does have some decent melee will not have the points for planes, or maybe won't have as much shooting.

This is why Blood Angels are a good matchup against Admech. They can fly up the board and continue to hug behind obscuring cover. So, they can still play the midboard while pressuring Admech, and once they get into close combat, they will outfight Admech and kick their butts. Drukhari can play this game against Admech too. Because their transports can also deliver their lethal melee troops up the field while staying behind obscuring cover. Then turn 2, they burst out of the transport with their advance and charge, and its pretty much lights out for Admech after that. This is why I don't believe Admech will be meta. There are armies that they face a bad match up against, like blood angels and Drukhari.

Also, here is the weakness of Vanguard. They are absolutely terrible at fighting. And they are not vehicles, so they cannot shoot while engaged in combat. Charge something into them, ideally through obscuring terrain so that they cannot overwatch (and even if they do, hitting on 6s). Even a unit of chaos spawn will kick their butts or at least keep them engaged in close combat after you get the charge in. And then after that, they are a neutralised unit. They either keep on falling back (and get charged again). Or they stay in combat and slowly get whittled down. You can even do it with a Rhino, and that Rhino will keep them neutralised the whole game. And the same thing goes for Rangers too. Once these units get charged, their effectiveness is reduced to near zero. Its the getting into charge range that is the hard part. Again, this is then about overwhelming Admech. Once we have reduced their effectiveness and they have blown all their best canticles, then we advance on them with our entire freaking army on turn 3. Its threat overload. He can't kill everything in one turn, especially not when he has lost his ranger/vanguard blobs. Admech's weakness continue to be its melee. The few admech lists which have melee will only have one or two melee units. They can't handle multiple melee threats at once.

Agree with a lot of this, Ad Mech can be incredibly tough for a turn, or incredibly painful for a turn but a lot of their strongest combos rely on multiple stacked buffs that quickly lose their effectiveness as they get whittled away.

The key to playing Ad Mech is understanding what they are capable of and ensuring you have measures in place to mitigate the dangers and ride out the storm. Using units like BL Terms or Morty as a bullet sponge and being quite content to have them be shot at isn't going to work when Ad Mech have their buffs up.

I stand by what I said above as well, unfortunately we have an uphill battle as DG against Ad Mech because they do happen to counter our strengths well. Mortarian just exemplifies that to an extent where he's a complete liability.

Sometimes my posts can come off as abrasive, so sorry if that offends anyone. I like to be direct and straightforward with my opinions (and they really are just opinions), and I don't enjoy sugar coating things when the sugar will rot your teeth.



You make a lot of good points here. Honestly I do wish I had triple PBC, but I do not. Kinda sad that I finally got the 10 blightlords I was wanting, and now I'm not even sure they are good enough lol. On to buying more and more units to be able to try and compete. Here we are again lol.
Splitting the blightlords does help against the planes, but honestly the blightlords were the really only real damage output my list had (I dont really count Mortarion as my DPS), because with enough CP investment the blightlords supposedly could do some real damage. Splitting them mitigates the damage, but maybe that's still worth it.

As for your point regarding playing passively the first few turns and then coming out once the worst is over.... Dont admech get to choose turn by turn which army buffs to give? So if your not exposing enough of your army, they will save the 2+ BS canticle, meaning they can just wait you out? And if they are taking the objective advantage the first few turns... Im not sure we can catch up in points. Normally it feels our strength in the matchup is playing objectives better, but this seems to have changed.

Also the list I was facing wasnt even fully meta, but with his 9 horses, 2 planes, Vangaurd/Ranger blobs and 6 las chickens, he was still able to bring 4 close combat robots and viel of darkness them right next to me. And, they have a strategem to make opponent fight last. So, if you want to charge them you are facing twelve 2+ WS, strength 10, three damage attacks before you get a chance to fight. And, now the robots are T7 and 7 wounds, meaning they are more survivable against pretty much any of our units than they were before. So while much of admech is still squishy in combat, they absolutely still have beefy combat units that need an answer.


I think you do provide some interesting points and new things to try against admech, but yea still absolutely feels like we are climbing a mountain to stand a chance.

That's why I qualified that now we have a game at least even after such a long post previously. Victory is not assured against Admech at all. Like I said before, Admech is not a good matchup for us.

However, if he wants to get into close combat with us, that's a good thing. Most of our army is geared towards melee. We have far more melee capable assets usually in a list than Admech does. No matter how powerful a melee unit is, if he is facing a ton of our DG assets in close combat, my money is that we would come out ahead. Because he kills or injures one of our tough melee unit, we will have more.

On the subject of planes versus a 10 man terminator blob. I play a ten man blob too. Splitting the 10 man blob into two 5 man is not as bad as it sounds. Tallyman with tollkeeper still benefits both units. A Lord of Contagion still gives reroll 1s to both units. Yes, only 1 unit gets +1 to hit by Tallyman and not both. But that is not going to make or break anything. If you are playing the hide behind obscuring cover, your blightlords will not have anything to shoot at anyway. Unless its against his planes that fly over. btw, on the subject of planes, if you have enough poxwalkers, you can make it absolutely horrible for him to land his planes anywhere in your backfield because it is now screened by poxwalkers. Although, I wouldn't care. I WANT him to fly his planes over. That way, I can stay behind obscuring cover while still having good targets to shoot at and kill. If you are playing 3 PBCs. The minute he flies his two planes over to your side of the board, they are effectively dead. Between the 6 entropy cannons, and all the rest of you army shooting and flaming those planes to death. How much is the Admech bomber? 130 points? 160 points? He flies two planes over, does a few mortal wounds to a 5 man blightlord unit. And then gets both planes blown up and gives your whole army something to shoot at while remaining behind cover. To me, if he does this, its a win in my book. A very good trade. Would I trade a few mortal wounds for blowing up 2 flying assets from behind cover ? I totally would.

He sounds like a good player. In which case you have your work cut out for you. All I can say is good luck. An average power level faction in the hands of a good player can beat even top tier net lists. A high tier power level faction in the hands of a good player who has been playing that faction for a long time... well good luck.

Again though, 9th edition does highlight the skill levels between players. Just remember, its not about who kills more of the other army. Its about who gets the most victory points in the end.

If you want to play a more aggressive style DG against admech, or if you are forced to go first and absolutely want to make something happen. Then do this (which I offered as a strategy some posts back). Turn 1, lets say you go first, so you want to push forward. But you know Admech shooting is deadly. Well, we have this super expensive, but effective strategem called Cloud of flies. Push up two fast units on both flanks. Be it a chaos spawn or a greater blight drone or whatever. The key thing is you advance it forward on the sides ahead of your whole army and hide it behind obscuring cover. Now you can openly advance up your big terminator block and then spend 4cp to cloud of flies it. He now cannot shoot your big bloc with its characters and stuff behind because its not the closest. One turn of this is probably all you need (hopefully). But if its that important, you can always do it again on turn 2 as well. I would caution not to do this recklessly, you need to take into account where his vanguard are. They can advance into closest to your blightlords and then shoot you. Maybe wait a turn while your PBCs and 18 mortar shots reduce his vanguard to half strength before you do this. A half strength 30 shots with enriched rounds will only do 15 wounds. And you have terminator armor save. Its a lot more manageable. Wait that one turn and use it to shoot out his planes and stuff. (BTW, his planes may fine it tough to hide out of line of sight, because they do NOT benefit from obscuring cover just like titanic units.)

Again, this is not gonna guarantee a win. But at least now you have a game rather than just advance forward and get shot off the board.

DG has its famed toughness and resilience but there are some matchups where even that is not enough. And that's when you have to pull out all the skills you possibly have and play smart.Also, lets put it this way. say you stay behind cover, and just push out one sacrificial unit each turn to a midboard objective for VP. And he is so cutious he does the same thing (because he is so scared to come near you).Then play it out to turn 5, and it will be a close game right? Because your mortars will be wittling him down every turn, and both of you are just trading units while having most of your army intact.At the end of all that cautious play, both of you are not tabled, but it will still be a close game.

He cannot have his cake and eat it. If he wants to be aggressive and fly planes over, veil robots over, those assets WILL die. Because they get to do their thing, and then they get swamped by your entire army and die. (BTW, you also do have poxwalkers who can screen your backlines). 9th edition is like playing chess. You trade units for position and VP. Just don't make the mistake of trading your whole army. Each unit has its strengths and weaknesses. Same as each army. Admech is not a good match up for us because they have the firepower to get through even our famed resilience, but if you know and respect what Admech ranged firepower can do, its still game on!

I used to fear shooting armies a lot. Hated them. But as I gained more experience in 9th ed. And then I joined a local league game where they set up terrain well. I faced shooty armies that would have blown me up on paper. Like that imperium army with two full pay load manticores, two tank commanders and him having vengence of cadia. Or space marine army with double redemptor dreadnaughts and a full anti tank build contemptor dreadnaught and tons of shots. But after I still beat them. I started to realise that with the right strategy, the occasional use of cloud of flies, and making smart use of terrain. It can be played around. Even "bad" matchups. I faced a frozen stars harlequins army in the league match. It had 15 jetbikes with haywire. On paper, that is murder against my 3 PBCs. But I kept my PBCs hidden as best as I could and well backfield, and I boldly advanced up the rest of my army super aggressively. (Because haywire does nothing against terminators). In the end, he could only get some haywire shots into my PBCs. And in trying to get those haywire shots in, he put all of his 15 jetbikes in a position to get charged by me on turn 2. I lost 1 PBC and one damaged to haywire. But in return, I wiped out 11 jetbikes out of 15 by the end of turn 2 after charging them. Good trade, if you ask me. Again, like I said, 9th ed 40k is like Chess. Its about trading pieces/units and position.

Since we got the clarification regarding summoning not breaking Contagions, has anyone given it a go? Any good?

 Nazrak wrote:
Since we got the clarification regarding summoning not breaking Contagions, has anyone given it a go? Any good?

A few players have run Daemon Engines with summoned Epidemius to decent success.

The main thing I would want from Nurgle daemons would be either Epidermius and Nurglings for their forward scout deploy. But since you have to summon in Nurglings, you kind of lose the point of playing with Nurglings. Epidermius likely needs a killy type of DG list built around him.

There's an upcoming 1500 point tournament in my city, and I thought I might take out the Terminus Est for a whirl.

What are peoples thought's on Plague Companies? I've tried a few now and I'm thinking Mortarion's Anvil is the best. Simply for the warlord trait, which always seems to have a big impact on my games. The Ferryman strat is super useful and I want to try a Wretched list just for the fun of having a super psyker. But nothing can compare to the all purpose usefulness of Glooming Bloat and shutting down re-rolls.

 Fergie0044 wrote:
What are peoples thought's on Plague Companies? I've tried a few now and I'm thinking Mortarion's Anvil is the best. Simply for the warlord trait, which always seems to have a big impact on my games. The Ferryman strat is super useful and I want to try a Wretched list just for the fun of having a super psyker. But nothing can compare to the all purpose usefulness of Glooming Bloat and shutting down re-rolls.

For Mortarion, Glooming Bloat is almost an auto-take, for me at least.

However, the contagion that ups your AP value by one, might make it in my list so that I can heat flash another unit to give my 3x culverin contemptors a little more "oomph" against SM lists.

The warlord contangions don't really come up that often for me. Maybe its because I don't play super mobile fast attack units much, nor do I play Mortarion. So, I got no easy way to project contagions that far.

Usually, anything within 12 inches is within charge range too, in which case they don't usually survive very long against DG. The default gift of nurgle contagion that -1 to toughness is already great for me because it works really well in melee. Any of the other warlord contagions else has been situational for me.

I like Inexorable and Mortarion's Chosen. Inexorable because of the strategem that increases charge range by 2. That's great. And Mortarion's Chosen because that Vormitrx relic plague spewer is so good with 7 shots.

I've had a lot of fun with The Wretched, but they wouldn't be my pick in a competitive environment. That being said, the little bit of extra reliability is very nice and a MPC can pump out a lot of mortal wounds with the relic.

I’ve had some success spamming mortals with wretched and lots of pox walkers, playing a similar style to old Jim Vessel lists. Screening out a DP and two plague casters with each relic and dropping mortals with the MPCs extra mortals was pretty darn effective if the screen held up, which usually did. Lists that could bypass the screen or had the right weight of fire could mulch down those pox walkers, and I would have to change gears some. Luckily our characters and DPs are really beefy, so it wasn’t so bad. Again, I agree that my warlords contagion almost never comes up.

are plague marines worth running? i ask as i am trying to build a 1000pt list to start with for my reentry to 40k and then grow it from there. i know poxwalkers and terminators are the standard go tos but i was curious if a unit of plague marines is worth running as well or if they are points better spent towards something else. i would rather not purchase a unit just to shelve it when i expand my list. and yes, i know metas change and with new codexes things change, but i am asking in a general sense of list construction if plague marines are worth running.

Plague Marines are definitely worth running. I have great fun with mine, even in quite competitive tournies. That being said, if you're aiming to be super competitive then you may want to look elsewhere as they're not seen as meta. You'll win games with Plague Marines but you'll be a better player than me if you win tournies with them.

One last point, they're just freaking awesome. They're worth running for that point alone.

I'm super biased, as I love the Plague Marine models and try and fit them into my lists where ever I can, but I still really like 10 man Plague marines as a melee unit. Not as good as Deathshroud for sure, but still worth considering.

Pros;
- Ablative wounds. Their main power comes from the flails and cleavers, so they can take some wounds and not lose a lot of damage dealing ability.
- Lower CP cost than terminators for cloud of flies
- Can hit very hard and using the haze of corruption or blightening strats makes them very flexible
- 'only' plague marines so your opponent can underestimate them.

Cons;
- Very expensive, the 250ish points are better spent on terminators. Also will need support characters to get the most out of them.
- No invun save
- Vulnerable to blast weapons

I also like some bare bone 5 man squads for actions and objectives. Save 1CP to put one in reserves too for doing the scramblers secondary (or whatever its called now). Here they are competing with Poxwalkers, which you can get a 20 man blob for the same points. I use a mixture of both.

thanks for the recommendations. any suggestions towards their loadout and how many to run in the squad?

Depends on how you use them.

Big squads are better for strat efficiency, like cloud of flies or +1 wound or turning all their guns to plague weapons.

Smaller are better for taking/holding objectives, splitting enemy fire, performing actions.

Am I missing something or can I actually combine the Blightening with the Putrifiers Blight Racks?
18 hits / shots with -1 D2 sounds a lot better than "just" 18 S4 hits.
Kinda missed that one.


Also, has anyone tried to play the Noctolith Crown to buff your Plague Marines?
I run 30-40 PM regularly and the Malignifier was a disappointment so far.


@Peterhausenn: I play them a lot, mostly with Possessed & Terminators in infantry only lists.
My go-to are 10 PM with 2 BL, 3 Plasma and 10 PM with 2 Flails, 2 Double Knife and 2 axe/ mace + axe.
If I can spare the points every Squad of 10 has at least 1 Flail, they are just too good.
While I lack good long range dakka those 50+ models lists worked great so far in semi competitive games, especially with the 9th mission designs. Not facing hard-core lists like admech tough, I don't think I could hold up well against those.

But anything from fun - semi competitive I'd say they hold up pretty well in the right list and honestly it is so much fun and I love the models.
With Tallyman, Lord, Putrifier, Surgeon and Blightspawn you also have some good buff characters with varying usefulness to choose from.
It ain't much, but it's honest work.

 Peterhausenn wrote:
are plague marines worth running? i ask as i am trying to build a 1000pt list to start with for my reentry to 40k and then grow it from there. i know poxwalkers and terminators are the standard go tos but i was curious if a unit of plague marines is worth running as well or if they are points better spent towards something else. i would rather not purchase a unit just to shelve it when i expand my list. and yes, i know metas change and with new codexes things change, but i am asking in a general sense of list construction if plague marines are worth running.

For me, I have only ran one unit of 5 plague marines. And it was alongside a big blightlord unit and two other deathshroud units. Plus another two units of poxwalkers, a unit of Spawn running onto objectives turn 1, and PBCs in my backlines. So, with so many other stuff to worry about, that one unit of 5 plague marines are usually designated "will worry about it later". So that sort of works well to their advantage.

Have never tried running a big block of ten PMs. But I think cloud of flies will definitely be a good consideration if you do run ten since its only 2CP on PMs and a block of ten PMs is quite expensive. But you really need to get them into combat to get the best use out of them I think. Their shooting is not going decide the game for you no matter what you equip them with.

 Grotrebel wrote:
Am I missing something or can I actually combine the Blightening with the Putrifiers Blight Racks?
18 hits / shots with -1 D2 sounds a lot better than "just" 18 S4 hits.
Kinda missed that one.

You absolutely can! It's amazing to see in action.

I'd also add that you should consider adding great cleavers to your melee squad. I had 2 of them take out two dreads in my last game, rest of the squad didn't even have to roll. And against infantry you just pop the 'haze of corruption' strat and go to town!

How do people feel about Possessed these days? I used to run them rather unsuccessfully in my CSM army but looking at the latest Death Guard iteration they seem... good?

I was starting to gear up a unit of melee plague marines with knives at the end of 8th - now that's not possible I'm considering these guys.

An extra 4pt over basic Plague Marine nets 7" movement, S5 and a 5+ invuln. With Horrifying Mutations changed to a flat AP-2 D1 plague weapon and 4 attacks as standard I feel like they're a lot punchier than they used to be. Not to mention the fact they actually have T5 and Disgustingly Resilient now.

I'm not a tournament player or meta chaser, but my usual opponent (when I actually play!) is Imperial (SoB, GK, Guard, Custodes and a smattering of Primaris stuff) and someone I'd consider to be an upper-middle tourney player and has come in the top 3 in local tourneys in the past.

Possessed are too expensive and bulky for how fragile they are - if you could squeeze 10 into a Rhino there might be an argument for them, but as-is there's no way to get them into melee safely.

Terminus Est allows you to deep strike Possessed, but without any way to buff charges, it's a big gamble for marginal payoff.

I never noticed that restriction before now... seems arbitrary, weird and totally unnecessary. I'm not currently using any Rhinos so it doesn't really affect me that much but it does change my outlook.

For context my current list is:

HQ - Lord of Virulence, Warlord: Rotten Constitution, Virulent Fever
HQ - Malignant Plaguecaster

TR - Plague Marines x10: 3x Plasma (inc Champ), Sigil of Decay
TR - Poxwalkers x20
TR - Poxwalkers x20

EL - Possessed x10
EL - Helbrute: Multimelta, Helbrute Fist, Heavy Flamer
EL - Helbrute: Multimelta, Helbrute Fist
EL - Helbrute: Multimelta, Helbrute Fist

FA - Bloat Drone: Heavy Blight Launcher
FA - Bloat Drone: Heavy Blight Launcher
FA - Myphytic Blight Hauler x3

It's not cutthroat by any means but my 8th edition version of this (had Lord of Contagion, Chaos Lord, spitters on the drones and a third drone with fleshmower but no possessed) been a nice middle-of-the-road experience.

Your list could work... but probably more of in a casual play setting. In a tournament setting, I think it would struggle.

A previous possessed list I saw in the CSM thread used slanaash for its advance and charge. It also had slanaash sorcerors which could give it warp time and 5+ FNP.

DG possessed lose the advance and charge as well as the warp time. But resilience wise, between the old 5+ FNP and the new DR, its probably about the same. But losing the advance and charge and warp time is kind of big. The tournament winning CSM possessed list I saw would hide as much as the possessed blobs it could behind obscuring and would only "launch" one big blob of 20 across the board at one time (using advance and charge and warp time). (Unless it was confident it wouldn't get shot off the board).

DG possessed wouldn't have these tools to help it, and would get shot off the board. Even with the new DR, its not resilient enough against a shooty enough army out there.

If you really want to try it with DG, maybe just have one big bloc of 20 DG possessed and then use the strategem cloud of flies on it. This would work if you just had one big bloc of DG possessed instead of three squads, and you need other units to be nearer to your opponent's lines.

You're 100% right - this list (or at least my 8th edition version of it) did fairly reasonably in casual play and pickup games, but got annihilated by the meta lists of the time (granted terrain was fairly sparse). I didn't realise we lost Warp Time either, but now that I look at it obviously we can't cast it on possessed due to the HERETIC ASTARTES keyword being replaced.

One thing I really needed was to cram an extra CORE infantry unit in there so I can run the poxwalkers. I guess another unit of Plague Marines would be a better option (I don't own any terminators). How to people feel about gearing them up to the eyeballs with 3 plasma guns and 2 blight launchers? Too much?

Don't recommend it at all. Even with a Tallyman buffing a 10mn squad with all the plasma and blight launchers, I found Plague Marines ranged damage to be very lacklustre.

Instead take a 5 man squad with a single blight launcher or plasma gun (blight launcher is better) They can cap objectives or do actions and provide a small amount of chip damage. Don't expect anything else out of them.

If you want to do damage with Marines they need to be in melee with flails and cleavers. .

I have used a "super squad" of PM's a few times with a Tallyman to back them up and it's indeed rather so-so. Not bad but not amazing either. Since I love running loads of PM's I still do it half my games, but sadly quality ranged damage in DG still comes from our vehicles and not our infantry squads.
I'd still say give it a go yourself though, PM's aren't half bad and it's a fluffy way to play the army.

 Castozor wrote:
I have used a "super squad" of PM's a few times with a Tallyman to back them up and it's indeed rather so-so. Not bad but not amazing either. Since I love running loads of PM's I still do it half my games, but sadly quality ranged damage in DG still comes from our vehicles and not our infantry squads.
I'd still say give it a go yourself though, PM's aren't half bad and it's a fluffy way to play the army.

I can confirm this. The super squad is fun and all, but they just barely do as much shooting as such an investment should and they can easily find themselves out of range of any targets.

So we know the super squad doesn't pull it's weight but my budget is opening up again and I'm thinking of running a kind of "pre/early Heresy" style DG. So little to no Daemon Engines, mostly infantry with some Hellbrutes maybe. But this leaves me with lacking anti-tank, so what do you guys recommend to fill the gaps? I was considering Blightlords with Combi-Plas/Melta but I'm unsure as to how effective they would be.
Did any of you run Blightlords in 9th with Combi-weapons, and if so how did they fare? Am I better off with Hellbrutes and Blightspawn?

Honestly, if you want to play that way you should probably look towards FW dreads.

I did consider those, but I'm unsure which one I should get/how to arm them. Any help in that direction would also be appreciated.

Double Volkites Dreads with a Tallyman buffing them is the current best loadout. But make sure you magnetise the arms! FW are expensive and metas come and go.

Really good play by Beard in tabletop tactics. DG vs the current boogieman Admech and he came back from behind with a win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcxAGtPI6XM&ab_channel=TabletopTactics

And Stig did not play badly. I didn't spot any major tactical mistakes from Stig. His admech list was a good one. I dare you to say it had any deadweight in it. He had 2 units of 20 rangers and 1 unit and 20 vanguard, 3 squads of 2 chickens, and he was playing Lucious. Honestly, his list would have stomped a newbie several times over. He made great plays for VP and was ahead by a lot in VP.

But Beard showed great resilience playing his DG list and came back to win the game by turn 5. Absolutely massive. This doesn't mean that DG is good against admech. It isn't a good matchup for DG. But with enough line of sight blocking terrain, we can definitely have a good game, and with some good lucky dice rolls, might even win sometimes.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Really good play by Beard in tabletop tactics. DG vs the current boogieman Admech and he came back from behind with a win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcxAGtPI6XM&ab_channel=TabletopTactics

And Stig did not play badly. I didn't spot any major tactical mistakes from Stig. His admech list was a good one. I dare you to say it had any deadweight in it. He had 2 units of 20 rangers and 1 unit and 20 vanguard, 3 squads of 2 chickens, and he was playing Lucious. Honestly, his list would have stomped a newbie several times over. He made great plays for VP and was ahead by a lot in VP.

But Beard showed great resilience playing his DG list and came back to win the game by turn 5. Absolutely massive. This doesn't mean that DG is good against admech. It isn't a good matchup for DG. But with enough line of sight blocking terrain, we can definitely have a good game, and with some good lucky dice rolls, might even win sometimes.

Aside from the mistakes he made with how his units acted (I don’t play as-mech so I don’t know exactly what stig did wrong with his rules, but I know ad-mech do more than what he showed), stig was way too
Aggressive with his troops. There’s no reason at all those rangers should have been as
Close as they where to the DG, and those walkers also where too far foward. Basically stig spread out and was aggressive, when he needed to castle turn 1 at least then be aggressive starting turn 2. If he got 2 more turns of shooting out of his rangers, this game would have been much worse for Beard. (Not saying beards list or playing was bad mind you, but Stig for sure could have played better).

I've been through the thread with the search function and read up on what has been discussed about Blightlord Terminators.

I bought 10 and am about to assemble them, not really having them in any lists of any kind.

It seems based off the discussions that a few of you are really partial to the flail as it's got a +1 hit and 2 damage if I'm not mistaken.

From what I gather, upgrading them to shoot better or fight better is mostly a waste considering their main purpose currently seems to be holding objectives.

It seems that some of you also think that barebones combi weapons and swords essentially achieves the same thing.

I guess I'm trying to revive the discussion on Blightlords while seeking advice on how to build them with gaming in mind.

I found this video was a great analysis on blightlords:

I run a 10 man anvil with 2x Reapers, 2x Flails, axes/bolters on everybody except the champion who has a sword/bolter in case I decide to give him Plaguebringer, and they've done brilliantly for me. Would never bother giving them combi-weapons.

Generally you want to keep your blightlords cheap. Even with special weapons, they are not that shooty compared to what other factions can bring. Even within our codex and faction, a twin volkite contemptor is better at shooting than blightlords. And melee wise, Deathshroud are better. Blightlords are used like an Anvil. Your deathshrouds are your hammer.

So, combi bolters are good enough for blightlords to keep them cheap. I love reaper autocannons on them over blight launchers though. because those will get more chances of additional shots from the tollkeeper relic on a Tallyman.

Marshal Loss wrote:I run a 10 man anvil with 2x Reapers, 2x Flails, axes/bolters on everybody except the champion who has a sword/bolter in case I decide to give him Plaguebringer, and they've done brilliantly for me. Would never bother giving them combi-weapons.

Eldenfirefly wrote:Generally you want to keep your blightlords cheap. Even with special weapons, they are not that shooty compared to what other factions can bring. Even within our codex and faction, a twin volkite contemptor is better at shooting than blightlords. And melee wise, Deathshroud are better. Blightlords are used like an Anvil. Your deathshrouds are your hammer.

So, combi bolters are good enough for blightlords to keep them cheap. I love reaper autocannons on them over blight launchers though. because those will get more chances of additional shots from the tollkeeper relic on a Tallyman.

Thanks so much for your guidance, I was kind of leaning towards a bare bones approach. Ut's been years since I've played a full scale game, are compettive events pretty strict about the weapons on models? I doubt people would be as up in arms if I had a blight launcher model with a combi bolter weapon profile rather than visa versa.

Darkmatter wrote:
Ut's been years since I've played a full scale game, are compettive events pretty strict about the weapons on models? I doubt people would be as up in arms if I had a blight launcher model with a combi bolter weapon profile rather than visa versa.

It varies from tournament to tournament, so if you have any local TOs it might be worth contacting them for advice. Generally though the events I'm familiar with are reasonably strict on WYSIWYG and any proxies/conversions have to be cleared with the TO. It might be alright if you're counting an entire unit as having the same loadout but I wouldn't count on it.

If you're looking to preserve the look of heavy weapons etc on the Terminators for a rule-of-cool approach, might I suggest magnetising them? I didn't bother with mine personally but Blightlord models lend themselves quite well to it. Just file down and insert a magnet where the little triangular joint bit is on both the torso and the arm and it lines up really easily. Google will be of help here.

Is the great plague cleaver worth using? It seems to be a better power fist, though there is the 1/6 possibility of dealing less damage.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Is the great plague cleaver worth using? It seems to be a better power fist, though there is the 1/6 possibility of dealing less damage.

With melee weapon Plague Marines having 3A base, it's certainly much better than it used to be. In my experience the Flail is still significantly better, as it's more reliable.

It can be worth using with Haze of Corruption against certain armies - e.g. new T5 W1 Orks - if you're going all-in on melee plague marines. Wouldn't generally take it though.

Looks like soup is back on the menu boys! Those Tsons pyskers are looking mighty tasty. Too bad their army is too fragile to actually protect those characters in any competitive setting. Luckily DG do a much better job of keeping these flimsy sorcerers safe. I’m going to run a rubric brick, Arhiman, an exalted sorc, and a 5 man SOT unit with my morty list. Using The -D strat + weaver of fates/glamour I’ll keep the termies and rubrics safe, and use the bulk of the DG force to survive No fancy Kabal rituals, secondaries, or relics and warlord traits from the sons, but being fancy doesn’t win games. Having an army that’s durable, good in melee, and good at midrange does win.

Quick question for the masses..

I have a mix of DG units that I picked up for some narrative 'break quarantine" games last year, but I just picked up the codex and want to make them a cohesive force.

What I have currently..

Lord of Contagion x2 (the felthius guy plus generic)
Plaguecaster
14 plague marines (although it contains 3 champs currently, looking at loadouts)
20 poxwalkers
Blightbringer
Hellbrute
3 blightlord terminators (felthius group)
bloat drone
2 Oblits (which I realize is a mistake now, so I may just repaint some parts with Iron Warriors and lend them over)

From a quick breeze through the codex it looks like the blightbringer really doesn't bring anything, unless I'm missing something (shame, nice model).
Tallyman looks like a good pick up, and wondering if I could convert the blightbringer to one. Of the other elite characters, which ones stand out in game play?

I'm planning on getting some more terminators (need to) so will have 8 of those. Also thinking a box of plague marines to round out those to 2x10, or 3x7 or 4x5.
Don't really want more poxwalkers.
Looking at cost (money wise), the blighthaulers seem like a reasonable investment (maybe 2).

What other direction is recommended (but not FW as I'm not interested in going that way).

Cheers

14 Plague Marines is probably enough to be honest depending on what loadouts they have. If you can make a couple of 5 man units with a blightlauncher and flail in each you're probably in reasonable shape.

A box of blightlords to push them up to 8 would certainly not go amiss, maybe a box of deathshroud, you could put felthius with them and run him as a deathshroud champion as you don't really need 2 LOCs.
Blightbringer as you say I'd look to convert him to either a tallyman or biologus putrifier.

14 PMs, 8 Blightlords, 4 Deathshroud, Tallyman, Plaguecaster and LOC is a decent flexible base of infantry to start putting lists together I reckon.

A pair of blighthaulers gives you a bit of armour and antitank and is cheaper than a single PBC so again not a bad shout at all.

I'm guessing your bloat drone is the monopose spitter one? If you picked up a bloat drone kit you could quite easily magnetise them both and have options on HBL and mower and if you look online people have kitbashed mowers out of plasterboard screws or other random junk.

Deathguard are really great for being able to easily convert models with a little bit of skill, they're very forgiving if things are a bit scruffy!

Is there any synergy in souping DG with Tsons? Have a patrol with a big bloc of blightlords with Typhus and a Foul Blightspawn and maybe one squad of poxwalkers.

Then another patrol of Tsons. Trying to footslog deathshroud across the board is not easy. Tsons can just yeet a bloc of Occult Terminators forward to wherever they want with that crystal artifact.

Is giving up cabal points and gift of nurgle worth it?

You could live without gift of nurgle, as long as your list and game plan accounts for it. Cabal points seem really useful, but Tsons seem to lack staying power so the trade for some DG units could be worth it.

The real question is can you live with yourself for mixing nurgle and tzeentch in such an unfluffy way??? :p

So who is still competing with Death Guard?

The meta has felt particularly rough for us up to the new big three were introduced (Ork, GK, Tsons), but three new codexs can go a long way in shaking up the meta.

Any new builds feeling solid?

I just got off the waitlist to go to the US open in Austin and while it is a couple of months out I am trying to already plan what I want to bring.

Deathguard are what I have the most models and experience for, so trying to make them work is the goal. Just playing around with different lists though Im not seeing anything really jump out at me. We have got some new soup options relatively recently, so maybe there is something to go off of there.

Belakor in Slaanesh daemons (act as a mortarion replacement. A bit faster, a sidegrade in durability as utilizing obscuring goes a long way), and fiends trapping units in combat seems solid in the meta.

Tsons offer a potential cover for midrange strong firepower that DG lack. Also lots of mortals.
Current list has 3 Tsons psycher baddies and 6 five man unit of rubric marines with warpflamers for midboard control and pressure, with a Death Guard detachment of triple PBCs and some death shrouds.

Anyone else have any ideas on how to build a list to compete in an event like the US open?

A mono-DG just took 2nd place at a GT in my neck of the woods.

No morty, but took 3 volkite contemptor and the usual smatterings of shrouds, poxwalkers and 3x PBC.

I plan on switching gears from my Chaos Knights plan at the Michigan GT in October to running mono Death Guard. In practice my Knights just were too swinging, either completely demolishing my opponents or completely getting demolished by a fine tuned list.

I think DG in the hands of a competent general can win more often than it loses and competes against every army out there. I think the reason a lot of the big events have DG in 2nd - 10th is because we can win a lot of close games and lose the event on low battle points over all. Going 5-0 but winning each game 80-70 means you’re gonna lose to a guy going 5-0 playing ad Mech or dark eldar winning his games 95-50.

I’m far from a try-hard, but I sure like winning. I think the Dg book in general allows for a shot in every game.

As far as lists go, the top lists seem to have a few things in common: Deathshroud, PBCs, foul blight spawn with the relic, Tallyman, Pox Walkers, contemptors, Blightlords.Things that aren’t in the winning lists? Cultists, uhhh, plague marines, possessed?

You can’t even really draw a line on the best Plague companies, Inexorable seems to be most popular but after that, it seems to be really a crap shoot.

Stuff that could be good depending on build? Haulers and Drones, spawn, Princes?

So after playing the new DG codex for a long time now I feel that I have enough information to give an honest assessment of what needs to change going forward. I have developed a list of some small tweaks I would love to see in the next FAQ to help balance out the codex more and ensure it remains competitive. Overall, it isn’t in a bad place but with ever new codex the power creep is already beginning to leave the DG Behind.

Points adjustments
-Plague Marines go to 20 points per model w/ all weapon upgrades are only 5pt upgrades. (these guys just are not seeing play and need a small boost)
-Myphitic Blight Haulers go to 120 points per model. (At 140pts they are absurdly overpointed and are not really competitive in any sense)
-Foetid bloat-drone go to 130 points per model and the flesh mower costs 10pts (this just makes the flamer/heavy blight launcher variants cheaper)
-Deathshrouds chimes and champion’s extra gauntlet go to 0pt as upgrades.
-Possessed go to 22pts each (no one uses them and they lack all flexibility, they likely need to go lower)
-Chaos Spawn go to 25pts each and increase in points (23pts is just silly)
-Plague Surgeon goes to 65pts (not competitive and lacks the ability to bring back models)
-Reduce Demon Prince’s wings cost to 25pts each (35pts for 2” of movement and fly keyword is a tad silly)
-Biologus purifier goes to 60pts (no one takes PMs to make this guy really worth it since they are the only ones to take grenades and make them useable)
-ALL Deadly pathogens go to 10 or 15pts. (These abilites could make heroes interesting but they costed them out of playable)

Rules changes:
-Inexorable Advance apples to every DG unit so long as the entire army is DG (silly this isn't a rule like it is for all SM chapters)
-Infernal jealously changed so that you can’t have 2 lord with the same name in the same detachment (random nerf, this opens up some options such as having a lord of contagion and lord of virulence in the same detachment)
-Noxious Blightbringer needs either a new relic or new data sheet. No points drop is going to make him worth it. Maybe he can reduce enemy charges or allow rerolls of charges for friendly DG Core units
-Bring back the ability to give units disgustingly resilient like at the end of 8th. (Defilers, rhinos, land raiders)

Strategem changes (not sure why our strategems cost so much compared to other new codexes)
-Cloud of flies only costs 2 CP on terminators unless they have more than 5 models (insane it costs 4)
-Haze of corruption goes to 1CP (Very few units can actually take advantage of this. Keep it 2 for Deathshroud everyone else 1CP
-Sickly corrosion goes to 1CP never seen this used at 2CP since most weapons are already plague weapons

Thoughts. Small changes and would allow some less played stuff to see some action.

My plague Marines are seeing plenty of play, nothing wrong with them and they are a bargain at 21 points. Intercessors are 20 and they have less toughness, no -1 dmg, and are not as good in cc. I think they are balanced, people are just too tempted to run poxwalkers with Blightlords/Deathshroud because they are so strong.

Plague marines still just.... die.
No defence to mortals, no invul, still just 3+ armor means any sort of efficient marine killer (high volume ap -1/-2/ mortal wounds) will work against Plaguemarines, even with the +1 toughness.

They are OK. Just not really good enough to make me want to bring them.

MBH are great and absolutely competitive at 140pts. If you drop them to 120 you'll have at least 6 in every list.

NBB is not useless. An extra inch moment every turn adds up to an extra moment phase per game in an edition where ability to get around the board is one of the most important things.

Plague marines are fine at 21pts. Intercessors are 20pts and while they do contribute a bit more with their guns they still don't really do anything either. PMs are tougher and better in melee and should be a point more than an int. PMs only don't see more play because we have other great options for infantry

Plague Marines are not fine at 21 points imo. They are decent in more casual play, but even there they feel like a unnecessary weight that the rest of my list has to compensate for. Poxwalkers and Terminators are just way better at whatever PM try to do. Yes they are decent in melee, but have no real means to get there other than hope the enemy walks into them and their ranged output for their points is beyond abysmal.
They are by no means garbage and I love running them but let's not delude ourselves into thinking they are fine as is. They need a 1 or 2 point drop and preferably their weapons get costed like their Terminator counterparts. That way we might see them in their intended function: the real backbone of any DG army rather than being outshone by every other real infantry selection in our codex.

While I agree the weapons options could be reduced in points cost, Plague Marine shooting is not Abysmal. Take a regular 210 point barebones squad, 10 Plague Marines, Have a Lord of Virulence move up with them towards an objective with a Tallyman. 2+ to hit re roll ones, -1 ap for inexorable ( use flash outbreak, Foul Effluents, or just get a Lord of Contagion or FTB in contagion range of your target ) Tollkeeper relic for 6's generate more hits, and 6's to wound will be -2 ap. All of a sudden firepower comparable to intercessors with Captain support, except we also get -1 toughness, so we wound admech infantry on a 2+, and Marines on 3+. Also lets not forget they always count as stationary so move em forward and they have a 29" range, can make it up to 35" with Overwhelming Generosity, Virulent Rounds for re roll wounds of 1 for more chances at ap -2. Not bad at all. And still got Trench Fighters for melee, and if you really wanna go crazy 2 CP for +1 to wound from eternal hatred.

Abysmal? 5 toughness -1 damage for 1 more point from an Intercessor? I think not. If anything Plague Marines are superior Troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also never forget about the Blightening strat, so powerful. If you have 3 plague marines left you get 18 grenade attacks, can get buffed by the Lord of Virulence/Tallyman/Inexorable/Biologus Putrifier, and take out some infantry like no ones business for 1 cp.

Yeah I agree on the Plague Marines! They aren’t bad, just their role is filled better by different models in our book. There might be a play style where min/max rhino based Plague Marines is the core of the list but I feel like when you start adding support pieces, it’s almost better to just go back to Blightlords for a shooting block and Deathshroud for deep striking and/or counter charging. Those units are more durable and WAY more deadly for not that much more of a points investment.

If our book didn’t have Blightlords or Deathshroud, I believe there would still be pretty good results out of the codex with Plague Marines being the stars.

 Brymm wrote:
Yeah I agree on the Plague Marines! They aren’t bad, just their role is filled better by different models in our book. There might be a play style where min/max rhino based Plague Marines is the core of the list but I feel like when you start adding support pieces, it’s almost better to just go back to Blightlords for a shooting block and Deathshroud for deep striking and/or counter charging. Those units are more durable and WAY more deadly for not that much more of a points investment.

If our book didn’t have Blightlords or Deathshroud, I believe there would still be pretty good results out of the codex with Plague Marines being the stars.

2000 points list Shouldent have too much trouble fitting all 3 in a list. Heck just having 1 squad of 10 plague marines is very easy to add in a patrol, 210 points for toughness 5 -1 dmg 40 wounds is not a bad thing, even if you just use them as an objective cannon fodder unit. If you have 20 points to spend after you build the list throw the blight launchers on the squad.

A big bloc of 10 Plague Marines is a massive threat in combat, a pain to kill off on the table, and have obsec, which our termies don't. They also get to use cool strategems like The Blightening. And Cloud of Flies only cost 2CP on this big bloc compared to 4 on our termies.

Bringing a big block of 10 plague marines plus a big block of Blightlords means that your opponent has two extremely hard to kill units on the table. One he can't shoot because of cloud of flies, and another that is one of the toughest units in the game to kill.

If your taking 10 PM in a list then it isn’t a competitive list. Sorry big units of infantry, especially PMs are not going make it into a top tier list, but rather casual play. They need a drop in points and cheaper weapon options.

For the person who said MBH are good at 140pts I’m not sure if you are trolling. There is no way it is worth that and again no serious tournament player would use them. You take either hellbrutes and even at 120pts no one takes them, contemptors, fleshmowers, or a PBC. All are better values

Shame both PMs and MBH are cool and wish they could find their way into my lists, but alas there are far better options across the board.

Plague marines are fine at 21pts each, but their wargear needs to drop to 2pt or 5pt upgrades. I like to use them as much as possible in my lists but I'll happily admit that terminators do the same job better.

MBHs are too expensive for sure, compare them to plagueburst crawlers! 130 feels like a fair price for them.

broxus wrote:
If your taking 10 PM in a list then it isn’t a competitive list. Sorry big units of infantry, especially PMs are not going make it into a top tier list, but rather casual play. They need a drop in points and cheaper weapon options.

For the person who said MBH are good at 140pts I’m not sure if you are trolling. There is no way it is worth that and again no serious tournament player would use them. You take either hellbrutes and even at 120pts no one takes them, contemptors, fleshmowers, or a PBC. All are better values

Shame both PMs and MBH are cool and wish they could find their way into my lists, but alas there are far better options across the board.

Death Guard had a GT win last weekend with a block of 10 PMs in the list. There was a list that won a GT a couple of weeks ago with 5 MBHs in. Don Hooson I think is running like 6 MBHs in his list.

Plague Marines and MBHs are fine in competitive environments, we have a very strong codex already, only overshadowed currently by the big flavours of the month.

Dropping PMs and MBHs by 10% or more would just be ridiculous...

broxus wrote:
If your taking 10 PM in a list then it isn’t a competitive list.

Sorry man, but that is just your opinion. Just because YOU decided not to take Plague Marines in your competitive list does not mean they are not competitive. Anyone can take Plague Marines and be competitive at a tournament. What a bunch of nonsense. Are you going to tell Space Marine players that Intercessors are not competitive either? LOL

It gets a little tiresome when taking about unit viability when a counter point view is just waved away as garagehammer or whatever with absolutely no basis.

I accept perhaps the points for upgrading weapons in PMs could be reduced as most are not a worthwhile spend, but reducing their base cost by two points would just be completely broken. 95pt MSUs of Plague Marines would just be everywhere they'd just be so crazy efficient at actions, holding objectives, screening, board control.

PMs aren't being seen as much in competitive lists because the terminators are so strong and poxwalkers cheaply fill the troop slot and fit a particular game plan. That doesn't mean PMs aren't good.

Again MBHs at 120pts would be crazy. They put out very good shooting, are tough enough to not be too concerned about getting in close melta range, -1 to hit in combat and the strat to reduce incoming shots makes them a massive road block. Most anti tank flying around these days is Multi-meltas which suddenly for a CP you have a unit that is twice as resilient to.

A pair of MBH put out 6 big D6 damage shots means you're odds on to land (hopefully) a melta in the face of anything that wants to charge you. They can do a little bit in combat and are also quite happy sitting tying stuff up being hard to kill and then putting out more Multi-melta and missiles in your opponents face.

They're also daemons so can easily be buffed anywhere on the board by a summoned epidemius.

Honestly, I'd be inclined to go so far as to say MBHs are undercosted.

Haven't ran my MBH since 9th dropped. I'm convinced. Next game I'll be trying them.

I agree MBH are very good, the strat support reducing incoming shots at them really drives it home. Yeah PBC are amazing... but a squadron of MBH with a 4+ invuln save from ironclot furnace is something to be feared on the board honestly. Heck, it might be OP.

broxus wrote:
If your taking 10 PM in a list then it isn’t a competitive list.

Somebody literally just won a GT with a 10 man Plague Marine unit in their list, taking out numerous Dark Eldar lists on their way to first place. It's clear that they struggle for relevance at times when compared to our terminator options, but let's not throw out inaccurate blanket statements like that.

 Black Knight wrote:
I agree MBH are very good, the strat support reducing incoming shots at them really drives it home. Yeah PBC are amazing... but a squadron of MBH with a 4+ invuln save from ironclot furnace is something to be feared on the board honestly. Heck, it might be OP.

I actually am of the opinion that the poxmonger plague company is the best plague company to soup with the new Tsons codex because of this combo. Deathguard brings the board presence and in particular, the 4++ poxmonger trio of MBH is not only a hefty board presence, it is also a good anti tank source of damage. Tsons then brings the psykers, which are still +1 to cast and great even without the cabal rituals.

We do lose the DG and Tsons secondaries, but in return, such a soup list can easily do secondaries like

1. To the Last (Yeah, trying to kill that big termie block or/and a trio of MBH is really tough).
2. Warp Ritual (Tsons makes this quite trivial to achieve, especially if paired with DG's board presence)
3. Engage on all fronts or even Behind Enemy Lines (Cult of duplicity can yeet a unit into enemy deployment zone every turn).


Like take for example something like this:

BG patrol

Daemon Prince with ironclot furnance.

Trio of MBH

Squad of Deathshroud
Foulblightspawn with stenchvats
Tallyman

1 squad of poxwalkers.

1 PBC

TSons batallion (cult of Duplicity)

Ahriman on Disc
Infernal Master
Enlightened Shaman with seeker after shadows warlord trait

4 squads of 5 Rubrics (mostly warpflamers).

One midfield objective will always be dominated by the MBH backed up by the Ironclot DP. If they came and fight you on that point, they are providing themselves lots of targets for you to smite and cast withfire on.

Every turn for 4 turns, you can yeet a unit of rubrics using the cult spell Sorcerour facade into their backfield to get engage on all fronts and to attack their rear objectives. A unit of warpflamer rubrics can cast Doombolt, etc and then flame a unit to death easily. You can use the infernal master's pact glimpse of eternity to have reroll one dice for the Sorcerous Facade cast, or just use 1 cp to reroll both.

The Deathshroud unit will just find a place near enough to the center ( just 6 inches, doesn't need to be on it), thats behind obscuring cover and sit there the whole game protecting all your characters. Nobody is going to charge a squad of deathshroud backed by a Foulblightspawn with stenchvats. Even if they survive, they will get obliterated by the smites and the golitha relic you will lob at them next turn or you can give the champion reaper of glorious entropy if you think you have enough MW from smites anyway. Plus Tallyman will give them +1 to hit every turn so they can do their big cleave on a WS2+. This deathball unit is surprisingly mobile because you can move advance each turn without care. The Foulblightspawn flamer is assault weapon, and you can cast your smites and witchfires even if you advanced. Plus Ahriman and the Shaman flies 12 inches so will have no problems keeping up with the Deathshroud deathball.

The enlightened Shaman will then do warp rituals 6 inches from the center for 3 turns while being protected by the Deathshroud unit. With his warlord trait, he is rolling 3d6+1 pick the 2 highest die for his warp ritual. Good luck trying to deny that. You can even jump forward, do the warp ritual and then have Ahriman temporal surge the Shaman back into safety behind your Deathshroud. Once he has finish warp ritual, he can help out with smite, or you can yeet him on turn 5 onto an objective (because you only have 4 rubric squads to yeet).

Your home objective has a unit of poxwalkers and the PBC on it. You can even add on the 4 rubric squads for additional protection. As they get yeeted one unit per turn, they will only slowly reduce from four to none on turn 4 or 5. Let's just say nobody will be trying to casually take your home objective with one fast or teleporting unit.

For to To the Last secondary.

You have the unit of MBH, the Deathshroud unit, and Ahriman. Two super hard to kill, and one is a character. If they can't crack your deathshroud unit hiding behind obscuring, they will never kill Ahriman either. And we all know that the unit of MBH with a 4++ is an absolute pain to kill.

Who says we need any Tsons and DG specific secondaries to play the game!

I just thought of something else. You can trick your opponent too. If they have zero psykers, they are likely to take abhor the witch. Then you switch up your strategy. Don't yeet the rubrics up each turn. Stay well back with your rubrics and play them defensively. The rest of your psykers are all either protected by the MBH squad or the deathshroud squad behind obscuring cover. Its perfectly possible your opponent will then end up getting 0 points for Adhor the witch.

Something to note: if you’re mixing factions, even in separate detachments, in order to use Gift of Decay or Plaguechosen, your Warlord needs to have the Death Guard key word. This is actually a much bigger single faction drawback compared to the -1T aura.

So I guess if you’re ever mixing DG and T Sons, if you want any of our relics or warlord traits, our warlord needs to be in the DG detachment. I’m not familiar with Tsons, but I imagine they have a similar restriction.

 Brymm wrote:
Something to note: if you’re mixing factions, even in separate detachments, in order to use Gift of Decay or Plaguechosen, your Warlord needs to have the Death Guard key word. This is actually a much bigger single faction drawback compared to the -1T aura.

So I guess if you’re ever mixing DG and T Sons, if you want any of our relics or warlord traits, our warlord needs to be in the DG detachment. I’m not familiar with Tsons, but I imagine they have a similar restriction.

Hmmm, you are right. Well, Ahriman is a great psyker and can go into an TS detachment without breaking cult keyword or requiring any relic or warlord trait. Its a pity to drop the seeker after shadows warlord trait as it ensures that any psychic action is extremely difficult to deny. But Tsons still retains their +1 to cast. And we have the glimpse of eternity pact for a reroll. Warp Ritual only needs 3 success to go off. I think its still a very valid secondary to take even without having access to the Seeker after shadows warlord trait. The warlord is a DG warlord. Because all the important relics and warlord traits are taken from the DG detachment.

Am I blind? I'm not seeing that restriction in my TS codex that in order to get TS relics/traits I must have a TS warlord....

Is that a rule in the core book?

 whembly wrote:
Am I blind? I'm not seeing that restriction in my TS codex that in order to get TS relics/traits I must have a TS warlord....

Is that a rule in the core book?

You can only use the extra Warlord Trait and extra Relic stratagems if your warlord has the Thousand Sons keyword.

It's not a restriction, it's a lack of permission.

I don’t own the Tsons book. In the DG book, the stratagem itself (Gift of Decay and Plague Chosen) both say in their text “…if your Warlord has the Death Guard keyword…”

I speculated that whatever those strats are in the Tsons book also have that wording, the extra relics and extra WL traits strats.

Thanks guys, I see it now. I was blind.

Alright dudes, I’m about a week out from the Michigan GT and want to win games. I’ve been tinkering with my Poxmongers list for the past few months trying to get up to speed with some practice. I’ve designed it to routinely score high on While We Stand (or whatever it is now) and Spread the Sickness with the third secondary being a flex of whatever works for the game at hand.

My big question is do I take Tallyman with TollKeeper or FBS with the Vats?



I hide the selected WWSWF Crawler as best as possible, the blight lords play cagey but provide the brick with the Haulers, the Haulers get 4+ from the furnace, and I spend for the Fumes. In my last game I even spent the 4cp to Flies the Blightlords to preserve the full 15 on turn 5.

Now I haven’t had a game vs Dark Eldar with this list, bringing the question: is the Vats worth it over CP generation and marginally better shooting on the Blightlords?

 Brymm wrote:
Alright dudes, I’m about a week out from the Michigan GT and want to win games. I’ve been tinkering with my Poxmongers list for the past few months trying to get up to speed with some practice. I’ve designed it to routinely score high on While We Stand (or whatever it is now) and Spread the Sickness with the third secondary being a flex of whatever works for the game at hand.

My big question is do I take Tallyman with TollKeeper or FBS with the Vats?

Spoiler:

Battalion Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Death Guard)
Configuration
Battle Size
Selections: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)
Detachment Command Cost
Plague Company
Selections: The Poxmongers
Stratagems
Gifts of Decay
Selections: 2x Additional Relics
HQ
Lord of Contagion
Selections: 3. Hulking Physique, Ironclot Furnace, Plaguereaper, Warlord
Malignant Plaguecaster
Selections: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 4. Putrescent Vitality, 5. Curse of the Leper, Putrid Periapt
Troops
Plague Marines
Plague Champion
Selections: Boltgun, Plague knife
Plague Marine w/ blight launcher
Selections: Blight launcher
3x Plague Marine w/ boltgun
Selections: 3x Blight grenades, 3x Boltgun, 3x Krak grenades, 3x Plague knife
Poxwalkers
14x Poxwalker
Selections: 14x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers
12x Poxwalker
Selections: 12x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers
14x Poxwalker
Selections: 14x Improvised weapon
Elites
Blightlord Terminators
Blightlord Champion
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Champion of Disease, Combi-bolter, Plague Skull of Glothila
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Blight launcher, Bubotic Axe
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Deathshroud Terminators
Deathshroud Champion
Selections: Champion of Disease, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet, Reaper of Glorious Entropy
2x Deathshroud Terminator
Selections: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Foul Blightspawn
Selections: Revolting Stench-vats, Viscous Death
Fast Attack
Myphitic Blight-haulers
Selections: Myphitic Blight-hauler, Myphitic Blight-hauler, Myphitic Blight-hauler
Heavy Support
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun

Created with BattleScribe

I hide the selected WWSWF Crawler as best as possible, the blight lords play cagey but provide the brick with the Haulers, the Haulers get 4+ from the furnace, and I spend for the Fumes. In my last game I even spent the 4cp to Flies the Blightlords to preserve the full 15 on turn 5.

Now I haven’t had a game vs Dark Eldar with this list, bringing the question: is the Vats worth it over CP generation and marginally better shooting on the Blightlords?

I would try and take both if I could. But if you can only choose one, I would say the FBS with vats over the Tallyman with Tollkeeper. There are some lists that your FBS with vats will directly counter and make DG a really hard tough matchup against to win. Tallyman with Tollkeeper is just cp generation and that +1 to hit. Its nice, but it won't counter certain matchups the way a FBS with vats would. a FBS with vats is what makes the deathguard melee so deadly because that big termie bloc is unchargeable. CP generation is great, but you can be thrifty about using CP. Just need to not use CP rerolls and strategems for every small advantage.

That helps a lot, thanks for that.

I also think that if I was running Contemptors, I might consider the Tallyman a little more valuable. But I am not, so that makes that a lot easier .

I’ll let you all know how it turns out!

 Brymm wrote:
That helps a lot, thanks for that.

I also think that if I was running Contemptors, I might consider the Tallyman a little more valuable. But I am not, so that makes that a lot easier .

I’ll let you all know how it turns out!

Yeah, if you don't have massed volkite contempors and it's between Tallyman and the Vat, always take the Vat.

I play Drukhari too, and a brick of blightlords backed up by FBS with the Vats really forces me to just shoot at them because any CC unit I throw at them isn't going to last long if going last... and that includes a big wych squad.

Volkite contemptor is super awesome in DG, with the buff from tallyman.

If you own the model or could proxy some, play it as many as possible. If you haven't buy it, don't buy it now. The nerf is coming and inevietable.

 tokugawa wrote:
Volkite contemptor is super awesome in DG, with the buff from tallyman.

If you own the model or could proxy some, play it as many as possible. If you haven't buy it, don't buy it now. The nerf is coming and inevietable.

Yes. Wait for the nerf incoming, I agree it deserves to be nerfed. But then again, it is single handedly propping up certain builds right now as well... and its also one of the only ways to deal with Drukhari raiders effectively... so.... shrugs. Who knows.

If Volkite Contemptors are nerfed and further the gap between every other army and Admech/Dhrukari I'm going to be unbelievably salty. If the volkite nerfs come along with more substantial dhrukari/admech nerfs then it'll make sense.

Frankly I think there are MANY units wanting point changes, most being point drops, but the fact everyone seems to be looking towards VC dreads worry me. They are NOT the biggest thing needing a nerf right now.

Point drops are dumb. They need to raise points of offenders. Cheaper units means more stuff on the table, which makes games longer. They do this every edition, and while things look improved at the beginning, they always get worse by the end.

i am building a kit of blightlord terminators and im wondering which is the better weapon option, the sword or the axe? is there a consensus on the choice? is one better than the other? what do you usually choose? thanks for the help.

 Peterhausenn wrote:
i am building a kit of blightlord terminators and im wondering which is the better weapon option, the sword or the axe? is there a consensus on the choice? is one better than the other? what do you usually choose? thanks for the help.

I think it's fair to say that the overwhelming majority of players choose the axe, but there's little mathematical difference between the two. Axes are better against a wider range of targets (and against e.g. something with a 2+/4++ the extra AP of a sword means nothing) but swords are more effective against high armour saves provided you need more than 2AP to trigger the invul. I put a sword on my Blightlord Champion so I could upgrade it to Plaguebringer from time to time, but gave the rest axes, and haven't regretted my decision.

Both are good. Swords are good against T3 models and lower because gift of nurgle makes it T2, so you wound on 2s anyway, and swords give you AP3.

Axes are good against anything T4, T6, T7 because you would better against them compared to swords. Gift of Nurgle reduces T4 to T3, so you wound on 2s. reduces T6 to T5, so you wound on 3s, and reduces T7 to T6, so you wound on 4s.

Swords are better on T5 and T8 because reducing it to T4 makes no difference between sword and axe because both are wounding on 3s. And so the better AP3 of swords win again. Same for T8 being reduced to T7. Both are wounding on 5s anyway, so again the Ap3 wins out.

So, Swords are better against T2, T3, T5 and T8. While axes are better against T4, T6 and T7. Pick your choice.

Sword on champ is the only thing important for the relic.
Otherwise as Eldenfirefly said, I think there is not much difference.
Personally I prefer Champ Blade, 2 Flails and the rest axes, as S6 makes a difference against T4, T6 and T7, which I think is slightly better than the extra AP.
I my experience against units where the extra AP actually does anything dies against BL anyway.

thank you for the responses. very understandable with the provided explanations. im looking at the options that came in the kit and it appears that i only have 3 axes so i guess it will be a 3/2 split then. also looking at some lists ive seen posted online ive noticed most players just simply use the combi bolters and an autocannon upgrade for one terminator. is there any particular reason why the other weapons arent used?

edit: as a follow up question, the data sheet says each model in the squad is equipped with a combi bolter but there are only 4 combi bolters included in the kit of 5 models. how is that supposed to work?

Quick question: Is there a reason no one is running spawn? With the 1CP strat pregame, you can have 3 spawn for 69pts that are T6 4W and with DR. Attacks wise they are decent, depending on the mutation roll I guess, plus a decent speed unit to advance up the board and expand contagion range.
Just seems like a decent statline for 23pts

 bullyboy wrote:
Quick question: Is there a reason no one is running spawn? With the 1CP strat pregame, you can have 3 spawn for 69pts that are T6 4W and with DR. Attacks wise they are decent, depending on the mutation roll I guess, plus a decent speed unit to advance up the board and expand contagion range.
Just seems like a decent statline for 23pts

I play them in my DG list, but I don't use that strategem on spawns. Just not worth in imo.

Maybe for a max squad of 5.

I chew through CPs in my DG list, especially when I bring multiple detachment (Vanguard + Outriders) with multiple FW models like the Volkite contemptors.

...and that's even with Tallyman in my list.

I'm finding I'm liking three 2x spawn units. Just enough distraction and can hold objectives reasonably well.

Yeah, my list doesn't lose too many CP out the gate (battalion with maybe one extra relic or WT) so the 1CP for the buff to 2 or 3 is decent.

I thought everyone was running spawn! Such a useful and cheap wee unit. Either in groups of 3+ with the strat or as single model units for objectives/screening.

My current list has a 3 man squad with the strat to push up easy game for engage points and to generally get in the enemy's face. Meanwhile a single spawn hangs back with the plagueburst crawler to protect it from deepstrikes, or if there are none, to sit on an objective behind LOS terrain.

I have absolutely began to include at least one spawn in every list. So much objective utility for so little investment

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
I have absolutely began to include at least one spawn in every list. So much objective utility for so little investment

Me too. Unless you have other fast attack units which are mobile that you are willing to throw onto a midboard objective turn 1, otherwise, chaos spawn are the go to for opening move in a DG army. They are super cheap and throwaway and with an advance, they are usually fast enough to get onto a midboard objective turn 1, which is all you need. like in a 5 objective game with both players taking stranglehold, and both players want the middle. Chaos spawn are the perfect trading pieces. Cheap, fast and good.

What are y'all's thoughts on Deathguard in the tournament meta right now? After dhrukari dropped, my hopes went down, and especially after admech, and while I still saw a DG tourney placing pop up here and there, it looked like those were mostly events were those 2 aforementioned boogie men were absent/light.

BUT, with Orks coming into the meta with a bang, both Dhrukari and Admech are a little hurting. Orks have a good matchup into Drukari and a fine one into admech. So, people have been more reluctant to take them to tournaments, reducing their overall meta impact.

What I have noticed be back on the rise in the meta is Space Marines. They deal with Orks well and have mostly good matchups all around.

So enter deathguard. I think we actually generally have a good matchup into space Marines, and into Orks (anyone played enough games vs new Orks to have an idea how we do? So far it's just my guess but I think we have a good matchup into em). So I think the tournament scene might be slightly more friendly to Death guard.

Anyone else have an opinion/thought to share on this?

I don't really play tournament. But my impression is that shooty lists are now fewer. Terrain has a big impact. The big square blocks of GW terrain reduced the power of shooting lists. So even Admech lists don't spam the kind of shooting they could. Similarly, Drukhari lists these days don't spam dark lances the way they can. So this allows DG lists now to stand a chance even if they run into a Drukhari or Admech matchup. And DG is generally good against the rest of the field.

I can't speak from any of my own experience, but at the London GT this weekend (second largest GT in the world with 600 players) we had 2 DG players in the top 16, I.e. undefeated, and 6 DG when considering the top 50.
Outside of Ad Mech and DE, that's the joint best showing for any single faction, so clearly we still have legs on the tourney scene.

EDIT - here's the breakdown if you're curious;

Top 16 – 5/5 wins

Admech – 5
Drukhari – 4
Deathguard – 2
SM – 2
CSM – 1 (DG/IW + LoS)
Aeldari – 1
Sisters – 1

Top 50

Admech – 11
Drukhari – 10
Deathguard – 6
GK – 6
SM – 5
Sisters – 3
Deathwatch – 2
Orks – 2
Dark Angels – 2
CSM – 1 (DG/IW + LOS)
Aeldari – 1
Knights – 1

Are you able to post the lists used by those two DG players? Curious what they ran.

Also interested in the DG/IW + LOS list. Any list that goes 5-0 playing one single LOS has my respect.

Unfortunately not, all I know is David Thorn came 3rd or 4th with a Terminus Est list, so I'm expecting a flood of poxwalkers. BCP is supposed to have the lists but crashes every time I try and check. I guess I'll just wait for the Goonhammer write up on Wed.

Found the Terminus Est list:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Also interested in the DG/IW + LOS list. Any list that goes 5-0 playing one single LOS has my respect.

3x3 DS
60 pox
2 decimators
LOS
Discordant
MOP
10 cultist.

In LVO, the best list was;

Best DG list in LVO;

Morty
LoC
4 Deathshroud
2x10 cultist
5 PM
2 defilers
3 cralwers
Greater blightdrone

580 total points. 6-0.

WTF.

Hey all,
Played some more practice games, planning on the Michigan GT next weekend with pure DG, had practiced with Chaos Knights, Knights/DG and versions of pure DG. I thought I was settled on a Poxmongers list almost exactly like the one Bridger almost won what TTT event recently but have found I really miss mobility and especially mobile close combat threats.

I’m practicing a Mortarions Anvil list using a beat stick Prince, flesh mower drones, terminators and PBCs with some good board coverage with Poxwalkers. I’m built for Spread the Sickness, To the Last, and Stranglehold, probably with To the Last being dropped for whatever special secondary per the mission if it looks spicy.

HQ
Death Guard Daemon Prince
Selections: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, Foetid Wings, Gloaming Bloat, Hellforged sword, Plaguechosen, Warp Insect Hive
Malignant Plaguecaster
Selections: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 3. Hulking Physique, 5. Curse of the Leper, Warlord
Troops
Poxwalkers
19x Poxwalker
Selections: 19x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers
12x Poxwalker
Selections: 12x Improvised weapon
Poxwalkers
19x Poxwalker
Selections: 19x Improvised weapon
Elites
Blightlord Terminators
Blightlord Champion
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Champion of Disease, Combi-bolter, Plague Skull of Glothila
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Flail of corruption
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminators
Blightlord Champion
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Blight launcher, Bubotic Axe
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Blightlord Terminator
Selections: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter
Deathshroud Terminators
Deathshroud Champion
Selections: Champion of Disease, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet, Reaper of Glorious Entropy
2x Deathshroud Terminator
Selections: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet
Foul Blightspawn
Selections: Revolting Stench-vats, Viscous Death
Fast Attack
Chaos Spawn
Selections: Chaos Spawn
Foetid Bloat-drone
Selections: Fleshmower
Foetid Bloat-drone
Selections: Fleshmower
Heavy Support
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun
Plagueburst Crawler
Selections: 2x Entropy cannon, Rothail volley gun

I like the Blightlords as small 5 mans, they can shoot and fight and offer just a few more wounds than Deathshroud, even though I still am using one squad of them.
We don’t have the missions for the event yet but when I have them in hand, I’ll adjust accordingly .

On the subject on souping in Chaos knights with DG. Have you tried souping in just 4 war dogs in a superheavy detachment ? Seems like the autocannon version wardogs would be extra good at killing Drukhari raiders and still decent against Orc vehicles. And the meltagun melee war dogs would be good against generically everything else. The war dogs are also fast enough such that you can easily move one onto a midpoint objective on turn 1 so the list can skip running chaos spawns if you want to save on points. And 4 war dogs are sufficiently cheap such that you can easily still run pox walkers and 3 units of death shrouds for a core DG list. So like maybe 1 meltagun wardog, 3 autocannon war dogs ? Or 1 meltagun, 2 autocannon and 1 moirex ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, on another note. A DG Terminus Est list got 3rd at the London GT which had over 500 participants. Mad props to the player David Horn! So Terminus Est is definitely competitive enough and its not a meme list!

On another note. https://euhan1.wixsite.com/threetwo/post/lord-of-skulls-at-lgt-2021-best-in-faction

Link above to a blog by Euan Bedford who ran a very successful DG Lord of Skulls list that went undefeated 5-0 in the London GT. Who says a single Lord Of Skulls can't be competitive!

Has anyone had any luck with running a Daemon Prince? I have 1 kit to build, but I'm on the fence as to if I want to build it with wings/sword and have it charge up field slinging mortal wounds powers flabked by mower drones, OR have it slog across the board with the spewer and cast buff spells in a blob of Possessed.

I think that for the current version the sword is the best choice (it changes every edition).

For me the wings are two expensive, fly is very useful but only 2" extra movement is just not enough.

Sword is the best weapon, by a long shot. Magnetise him if you can to make it future proof.

Wings is more subjective. In previous editors they were a mandatory upgrade, but the current DG one is more balanced. It really depends on how you want to use him. Although since DP's are full of warp magic, he doesn't need physical wings to fly, so these don't need to be modelled.

So since it looks like they are going to update the meta every 3 months what are the top 3 changes you hope for DG if they put any in? I know we are a baseline codex. I dont want to see buffs only addtional viable builds.

My top 3 changes:
-Plague Marines weapon options all go to 5pts similar to Blight Lords and the models go to 20 points per model. (these guys just are not seeing play and need a small boost these minor tweaks may tip the balance)

-Myphitic Blight Haulers go to 125-130 points per model. (At 140pts they are absurdly over-pointed IMHO). They took a significant nerf from 8th and had a 40% price hike.

-ALL Deadly Pathogens go to 5 to 15pts. (These abilities could make heroes interesting but for some reason they are pointed to ensure no one uses them) They are not nearly as good as the SM equivalents, yet are very high costed. Even at these points they will still likely rarely see play. Honestly, I would like to see the first being free like a warlord trait or relic and paying points for any additonal ones.

-I would also like to see ever unit in our codex (espeically rhinos, defilers, and land raiders) get DR and Inexorible Advance.

broxus wrote:
So since it looks like they are going to update the meta every 3 months what are the top 3 changes you hope for DG if they put any in? I know we are a baseline codex. I dont want to see buffs only addtional viable builds.

My top 3 changes:
-Plague Marines weapon options all go to 5pts similar to Blight Lords and the models go to 20 points per model. (these guys just are not seeing play and need a small boost these minor tweaks may tip the balance)

-Myphitic Blight Haulers go to 125-130 points per model. (At 140pts they are absurdly over-pointed IMHO). They took a significant nerf from 8th and had a 40% price hike.

-ALL Deadly Pathogens go to 5 to 15pts. (These abilities could make heroes interesting but for some reason they are pointed to ensure no one uses them) They are not nearly as good as the SM equivalents, yet are very high costed. Even at these points they will still likely rarely see play. Honestly, I would like to see the first being free like a warlord trait or relic and paying points for any additonal ones.

-I would also like to see ever unit in our codex (espeically rhinos, defilers, and land raiders) get DR and Inexorible Advance.

Given that the Time of the O̶r̶c̶ Grey Knights is coming, and we have such an abysmal match-up into them (and Thousand Sons) - the Disgustingly Resilient change leaving us helpless against mortal wounds - I'd like to see the Plague Surgeon get a slight shift: Lose the 6+++ general FNP buble in exchange for a 5+++ FNP bubble, but specifically against mortal wounds. It would take a unit that practically cannot ever make its points back into a strong meta choice.

It would also be nice if our new DR worked on MWs also. This would reduce all MW damage by -1. That would go a long ways towards helping out. Our old DR worked against MW not sure why they changed it.

broxus wrote:
It would also be nice if our new DR worked on MWs also. This would reduce all MW damage by -1. That would go a long ways towards helping out. Our old DR worked against MW not sure why they changed it.

you can't have damage reduction on MW because of the way how MW work. They are always applied one by one. So a lot of D1 wounds. And there is to my knowledge no ability without the reduce to minimum 1 part,

Hopefully we'll see some small points drops for units like the Blight Hauler, Drone with spewers and possessed in the next CA.
But now that GW have shown they can make changes to the actual datasheet mid-codex, my wish list is;

- Add DR to rhinos, preds and land raider. Is TS can share their army wide bonus to vehicles, why not us?
- Bring the plague marine wargear restrictions back to what they were in 8th edition. Being able to take 2 of the same special weapon in 5 man squads (and up to 4 in 10 man squads) might actual given plague marines a purpose, as right now there is little they can do that other units don't do better.
- Scrap all the blightbringer abilities and instead make him something else. I'd recommend a reverse Chaplin, with him knowing a couple of different songs which if successful create a 14" wide de-buff aura. -1A, -1S, -1AP, -2 to charge rolls. Stuff like that.

 Chaphazar wrote:

broxus wrote:
It would also be nice if our new DR worked on MWs also. This would reduce all MW damage by -1. That would go a long ways towards helping out. Our old DR worked against MW not sure why they changed it.

you can't have damage reduction on MW because of the way how MW work. They are always applied one by one. So a lot of D1 wounds. And there is to my knowledge no ability without the reduce to minimum 1 part,

You would have to change the DR rule to allow it to work. It would be an easy fix.

broxus wrote:

 Chaphazar wrote:

broxus wrote:
It would also be nice if our new DR worked on MWs also. This would reduce all MW damage by -1. That would go a long ways towards helping out. Our old DR worked against MW not sure why they changed it.

you can't have damage reduction on MW because of the way how MW work. They are always applied one by one. So a lot of D1 wounds. And there is to my knowledge no ability without the reduce to minimum 1 part,

You would have to change the DR rule to allow it to work. It would be an easy fix.

That's not the issue. The issue is that the core rules for how the Mortal Wounds work always applies them one by one, so even multiples of them wouldn't be reduced. For example, smashing a 6 MW Smite out is really 1+1+1+1+1+1 mortals, rendering any blanket reduction rule inefficient.

Then again, you could write DR to include something like "whenever an enemy unit is chosen to attack this unit, until the end of their activation, ignore the first Mortal Wound this unit would suffer". The problem is that it gets weirdly specific fast and will still have edge cases. Just adding "this unit has 5+++ against Mortal Wounds" to DR would be more elegant and go a long way, but still be insufficient in general.

 Sherrypie wrote:

broxus wrote:

 Chaphazar wrote:

broxus wrote:
It would also be nice if our new DR worked on MWs also. This would reduce all MW damage by -1. That would go a long ways towards helping out. Our old DR worked against MW not sure why they changed it.

you can't have damage reduction on MW because of the way how MW work. They are always applied one by one. So a lot of D1 wounds. And there is to my knowledge no ability without the reduce to minimum 1 part,

You would have to change the DR rule to allow it to work. It would be an easy fix.

That's not the issue. The issue is that the core rules for how the Mortal Wounds work always applies them one by one, so even multiples of them wouldn't be reduced. For example, smashing a 6 MW Smite out is really 1+1+1+1+1+1 mortals, rendering any blanket reduction rule inefficient.

Then again, you could write DR to include something like "whenever an enemy unit is chosen to attack this unit, until the end of their activation, ignore the first Mortal Wound this unit would suffer". The problem is that it gets weirdly specific fast and will still have edge cases. Just adding "this unit has 5+++ against Mortal Wounds" to DR would be more elegant and go a long way, but still be insufficient in general.

I’m sure they cam figure out a way to make it work or just allow DG to ignore the core rules for MW. Again not rocket science. The biggest issue is that DG simply not resilient enough to survive the 9th Ed meta. I was hopin when SM got the second would units would all become more defensive. Regretfully, they ruined the defensive gains by making every weapon in new codexes much more deadly bringing the game back to square one. The DG codex and units was designed to survive and outlast 8th edition codexes, not 9th ones.

Just give DG the old disgusting resilience for mortal wounds (5+ might be too much, but arguably 6+).

Given how anemic Inexorable Advance is ("Plague Marines can always rapid fire boltguns, and Blightlord Terminators don't suffer -1 to hit with Reaper Autocannons when they move"...) I'd love to see a 5+ vs Mortal Wounds chucked in.

A 5+++ vs mortals would be far too much on top of what we already have, imo.

 l0k1 wrote:
Has anyone had any luck with running a Daemon Prince? I have 1 kit to build, but I'm on the fence as to if I want to build it with wings/sword and have it charge up field slinging mortal wounds powers flabked by mower drones, OR have it slog across the board with the spewer and cast buff spells in a blob of Possessed.

I usually run a DP with Warp Insect Hive/RR and it does really well for me. Tried running him without wings a few times and while he's not bad per se, fly + the extra movement feels too useful to me.

 MinMax wrote:
Given how anemic Inexorable Advance is ("Plague Marines can always rapid fire boltguns, and Blightlord Terminators don't suffer -1 to hit with Reaper Autocannons when they move"...) I'd love to see a 5+ vs Mortal Wounds chucked in.

Agreed IA is the saddest and worst chapter trait in any codex.

One other thing I would love to see them change is out inability to take 2 lords in the same detachment. It seems silly they gave us some random restriction no one else has. I hate that if I want to take a battalion that I’m forced to take a faster. I would love to take a LoC and LoV in the same detachment.

broxus wrote:
One other thing I would love to see them change is out inability to take 2 lords in the same detachment. It seems silly they gave us some random restriction no one else has. I hate that if I want to take a battalion that I’m forced to take a faster. I would love to take a LoC and LoV in the same detachment.

No one else has? Space marines of all flavors, GK, orks, nids and tau all have similar rules.

 Jidmah wrote:

broxus wrote:
One other thing I would love to see them change is out inability to take 2 lords in the same detachment. It seems silly they gave us some random restriction no one else has. I hate that if I want to take a battalion that I’m forced to take a faster. I would love to take a LoC and LoV in the same detachment.

No one else has? Space marines of all flavors, GK, orks, nids and tau all have similar rules.

I do apologize then, but they also have numerous options to choose from. For example Space Marines have captains, lieutenants, librarians, chaplains, techmarines, etc to choose from. Death Guard don’t have any HQ options, so this literally makes no sense. It would be nice if we could take some of our elite options and make them HQ options to allow us to diversify. Another option would be to reclassify some of our ‘Lords’ to some other category, especially the LoV and instead make him something else.

Space Marines can take two captains in one detachment by making one a chapter master.

Tau have a sept that can take two Commanders per detachment.

It would be less of an issue if Abhor the Witch and Wrath of Magnus were better made (and whatever that GK secondary is that just gives you 15 for showing up and wishing your opponent a good game). If Wrath of Magnus was only selectable vs armies with no psykers and was 2 VP per non psyker unit killed and 3 VP per non psyker character killed so directly opposing Abhor then this wouldn't matter.

You could just run multiple patrols, like orks have to do because all their non-warboss options suck. Many armies also have soft-limits on their HQs because they are only worth bringing in combination with specific relics and/or warlord traits, effectively making them 0-1 choices.

It's not like I enjoy this limitation in any way, but it isn't something that only DG suffer from, and there are ways to get around it.

I think it does add some flavor to our lists. So I don't mind it.

It's a bit odd that the famously anti-psyker Primarch's legion can only take 1 non-psyker HQ per detachment!

That anti-psyker primarch is both a psyker and established in the a lore as a massive hypocrite.

Don't be silly Jidmah, that's numerology which is clearly different to having psyker powers. He even asked Russ, who gave it the thumbs up, so it must be legit.

Have you guys looked at the new way primaries work and some of the new tweaked secondaries? Warpcraft may look quite interesting for us now, with the new interrogate secondary now no longer requiring line of sight. DG lists tend to run at least one psyker anyway, if not more.

This adds to the potential secondaries DG can take. I think the new tweaks are a positive for DG in general.

Where did you see the list of new secondary and primary objectives?

Its here.

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-grand-tournament-2022-secondary-objectives/

A lot of changes. And I would say overall, definitely a plus for DG. I think although DG is slower relatively, but when we get to an objective, it tends to be really hard to get us off it. And we are not that big on retrieve data and engage on all fronts anyway. We are also interestingly enough, quite killy once we get into range. So, we benefit from the buff to the kill secondaries as well. Plus the buff to the warp secondary interrogate too.

Most of our lists involve having to bring at least one Malignant plague castor, so the buff to Interrogate benefits us because warpcraft becomes a stronger pick now as a secondary.

Less points for the primary is bad news for us IMO, sitting on objectives is what we do best. But overall I think it will good to see the more overused secondaries tooled down a bit and some other options (like the aforementioned interrogate). I did like to use single model spawn for engage thought, so that's out the window...

 Fergie0044 wrote:
Less points for the primary is bad news for us IMO, sitting on objectives is what we do best. But overall I think it will good to see the more overused secondaries tooled down a bit and some other options (like the aforementioned interrogate). I did like to use single model spawn for engage thought, so that's out the window...

Hmm, I think it depends. Last time, people could sit on 2 objectives and get a comfortable 10 for 4 turns, and on turn 5, or one of the turns, they try and go for that 15 VP. Now you can't do that, because you will only get 8 for the 3 turns and 12 on one turn. DG likely has it easier to try and aim for a 12VP on more turns because we tend to try and dominate our objectives.

This is just based on the hold objectives part. For the "bonus" VP. Like I said, DG can be pretty killy once we get into range. So, its quite possible for DG to kill 3 units in one round, etc. Meanwhile, with DG being so tanky, it might be quite challenging for our opponent to kill 3 of our units in one round.

So previously, our opponents can choose to sit on two back objectives and get a comfortable 40 VP. And there was very little we can do to that because DG armies tends to be too slow for us to get all the way to our opponent's deployment zone to fight them. But now, that same strategy will only get you 32 points in four turns. Meanwhile, if we do what DG likes to do and dominate the center, we could score quite a lot more over 4 turns.

Hence why I think its overall a benefit to DG, all these new mission changes.

broxus wrote:
One other thing I would love to see them change is out inability to take 2 lords in the same detachment. It seems silly they gave us some random restriction no one else has. I hate that if I want to take a battalion that I’m forced to take a faster. I would love to take a LoC and LoV in the same detachment.

Like marines can't take 2 captains in same detachment? SOB can't take two canoness?

Yeah just randomly just to death guard. No-one else has it...wait except they have.

tneva82 wrote:

broxus wrote:
One other thing I would love to see them change is out inability to take 2 lords in the same detachment. It seems silly they gave us some random restriction no one else has. I hate that if I want to take a battalion that I’m forced to take a faster. I would love to take a LoC and LoV in the same detachment.

Like marines can't take 2 captains in same detachment? SOB can't take two canoness?

Yeah just randomly just to death guard. No-one else has it...wait except they have.

I already acknowledged that in a previous post, but other facts one again have way more options to choose from than the DG. The lack of DG HQs options makes it especially brutal and unnecessary for the Death Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So are the DG winning or even placing at any events any longer? They seem to have fallen off a cliff recently. All I am seeing is Drukari, Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, Orcs, Ad Mech, and a very light sprinkling of some SM chapters winning.

They were a no-show last week, but the weeks before there always were a few of them found in the lower top ranks.

To me this looks like there are some hard-counters to DG in the meta right now and if I had to guess I'd say it's GK and TS.

To that point - I've been brewing lists that can run Abhor the Witch, in order to stand a plausible chance vs Grey Knights and in particular Thousand Sons.

I'd love to see more HQs in future, as the inability to run Abhor without jumping through hoops is certainly a pain point for competitive DG.

 Jidmah wrote:
They were a no-show last week, but the weeks before there always were a few of them found in the lower top ranks.

To me this looks like there are some hard-counters to DG in the meta right now and if I had to guess I'd say it's GK and TS.

What about GKs hurts DG? Seems if you can screen with poxwalkers that all the GK 2 damage weapons doesn’t help them much. I know many factions struggle against the dreadknights, hopefully the get a points increase. It seems our terminators march up against GK, at least in paper.

broxus wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
They were a no-show last week, but the weeks before there always were a few of them found in the lower top ranks.

To me this looks like there are some hard-counters to DG in the meta right now and if I had to guess I'd say it's GK and TS.

What about GKs hurts DG? Seems if you can screen with poxwalkers that all the GK 2 damage weapons doesn’t help them much. I know many factions struggle against the dreadknights, hopefully the get a points increase. It seems our terminators march up against GK, at least in paper.

The mortal wounds go straight through all our DG defenses. It ignores all our high toughness, terminators saves and disgustingly resilient. I guess you could screen with poxwalkers. But the GK bolters will likely thin out or remove the poxwalker screens within one round. GK has a lot of bolters.

Yep, that is pretty much my experience. GK have good tools to remove poxwalkers and can pretty much kill terminators at will with MW.

same happen with TS, if not worst, they remove easily screens with bolters and warpflamers then massacre you with mortal wound spam, last but not least they can easily threathen anything anywhere with the mobility they get.

A Daemon Prince is The CSM/DG equivalent of a Chapter Master... sort of.

But I agree, different names for the Lords should make for different units.

My friend play death guard. He has something that ignores auras. Where can I find it in the codex?

 Niiai wrote:
My friend play death guard. He has something that ignores auras. Where can I find it in the codex?

The warlod trait Living Plague turns off non-psychic auras within 3"!

Any rumours of the upcoming (I assume?) CA changes? What do we expect for points changes to DG?
I'd like to see points drops for Plague Marines, Blighthaulers and a small drop for possessed. I don't think we need any point increases right now, we're not exactly lighting the world on fire compared to the other 9th edition codexs.

So Plagueburst crawler going down in points in next chapter approved.
Personally I think it is fine points wise. Would much prefer a 15 to 20 pts drop on MBHs and bloat drones.

Increase for foul blightspawn won't really make a difference imo. Still well worth it. Would be nice to see some of the other elite characters that aren't used and possessed to get a cut in points.

It seems the Contemptor's Volkite Culverin is going up 10 points each - as long as it retains CORE I think there will still be a place for it, especially as The Inexorable have so much support for it.

With the new change to deploying faction terrain, is the Miasmic Malignifier an option now? The new change only effects deploying in your deployment zone, so the deep strike ability is still probably not usable. But using it in your deployment zone to make objectives hard to take is interesting. As is deploying towards the edge of your deployment zone to block line of sight. Probably still not worth the points but could give Tau railguns something to waste a shot on 1st turn.

Welp we got more nerfs than buffs
Blightspawn up 15
Death shroud up 5pts
Blightlords up 2
Poxwalkers up by 1
Only thing that got decrease are pbc going down 15pts and blight haulers going down 10pts
What a joke

Yep I’m done. I just have no idea why they nerfed the army that isn’t doing great. However they did nothing for the broke armies. So pissed off about this. Leaving 40K I’ll check back in 6 month.

Wow, they hit DG hard with the points increases. I thought the reduction in PBC was not needed, but the increases in everything else??? They increased points in every single unit that is a staple that every single DG army uses...

Like is this GW trying to force us into using Plague Marines? lol

Was DG winning so many GTs they had to be hit so hard with the nerf bat?

The changes are indeed disheartening. I do hope they do a U-turn on this in the February FAQ, otherwise I'll be shelving my Death Guard for the time being.

Here to add my salt to the mix. GW is incompetent with balance and it's never been so obvious. DG nerfs with Dhurkari buffs... just epic

I've not really been playing 40k since 9th dropped but as far as I'm aware, these rises seem a little... uncalled for. Hey ho, back to Sigmar it is.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Wow, they hit DG hard with the points increases. I thought the reduction in PBC was not needed, but the increases in everything else??? They increased points in every single unit that is a staple that every single DG army uses...

Like is this GW trying to force us into using Plague Marines? lol

Was DG winning so many GTs they had to be hit so hard with the nerf bat?

Likely dropped they cost more so it can't be used for to the last secondary since cheaper than other options now

Eeeesh, these are rough. Nice of GW to kick us when we're down!

Hits my list very hard. Think I'll just sit and wait for the CSM book.

I feel that we really need to look seriously at plague marines now and not spam as many terminators. I don't like it, but if we don't want to play with less point, we may need to do this. Because from what I understand, troops are even more important going forward due to the Nachmund missions, so we can't play with barebone troops.

So, we may need to start to look at cultists as well for a source of cheap troops which can do actions.

Actually, if we play with 3 PBCs, we have 45 points savings to play around with. The blightlords went up 2 points each. And the Foul blightspawn went up 15. So, these two would reduce the 45 points saved to 20 points saved.

The blight lords also unlock cultists. Bring just one more plague marine squad would help us unlock two cultist squads. And we can also now bring two squads of poxwalkers for 10 points more. So, if we just bring one plague marine squad, we are kind of even in points.

This means we can't bring anymore deathshroud terminators though unless we want to now have a smaller army than what we would normally bring. Honestly, Deathshroud terminators are the key bummer here. At 55 points, they are honestly just too expensive. I mean, they are good, but they are not THAT good to be worth 55 points each. I hate this because I have quite a few of them and they are such cool models. Plus not taking them means that we can still use PBCs as our "To the last" along with one big block of blightlords.

The only way to get more savings would be to bring Blighthaulers, which went down 10 points each. So a squad of 3 saves you 30 points, and you can then take 2 squads of 3 Deathshroud terminators in exchange for a net zero gain or loss in points. Also, by bringing a squadron of 3 blighthaulers, you now have another big points unit along with your Blightlords bloc for "to the last". If you then bring Typhus or a flying daemon prince, you can then choose that over a 3 man Deathshroud squad for "To the Last" because Typhus and a Deathshroud unit are now both 165 points. So, it doesn't wreck the "to the last Secondary". But a squad of 3 blighthaulers is a massive amount of points, I am not sure if we can even fit all that into a list. Maybe take two.

Of course, the other way would be to bite the bullet and just take a smaller army, which is a feels bad.

Like I said, I honestly think we need to seriously look at making plague marines work now.

I feel also that if we really want to bring Deathshroud, maybe we need to think about going big and bring 6 in one squad. So that they are more worth it as a "to the last" unit. Its a huge sledgehammer, but its an alternative.

The problem I see is that I don't think Plague Marines are survivable enough. I feel you can build a 10 man unit that can do some damage, but I feel that same unit can get swept off the table fairly easily. Having a Plague Surgeon chasing them around would help.

 l0k1 wrote:
The problem I see is that I don't think Plague Marines are survivable enough. I feel you can build a 10 man unit that can do some damage, but I feel that same unit can get swept off the table fairly easily. Having a Plague Surgeon chasing them around would help.

Maybe just bring one squad. I brought a list last time to a local league tournament that had just one squad in it and the list did pretty well. When you have terminators, PBCs, and lots of other stuff to worry about, one 5 man plague marine squad is usually not a top priority to your opponent.

Just one squad of Plague Marines and One blightlord squads unlocks 2 squads of chaos cultists and 2 squads of poxwalkers, which means we are playing with 5 troops units. That's a decent number of troops to work with.

Or bring a squad of them in a Rhino along with a Biologus Putrifier. That would be a pretty nasty blight grenade bombardment if you spend the CP when they pile out of that Rhino with that Biologus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There is... another alternative, but its sort of unfluffy one. Bring chaos soup and have a DG detachment plus a Tsons detachment.

Tsons have great troops, and at 40 points a model, their Occult terminators are better than our Blightlords. So, bring a Vangaurd detachment with 3 PBCs, use the 60 points saved to get more Tsons units in the Tsons detachment. Plus the PBCs are arguably some of the best tanks in the game now and Tsons are lacking in their Anti Tank department. Tsons has the mobility that DG lacks because they have the Yeet relic, yeet psychic if you take Cult of Duplicity, and Temporal surge (warp time).

Give up Gifts of Nurgle and give up cabal points, and give up Tsons or DG secondaries. Its a fair trade.

I love plague marines but every time they are put on the table they get swept off the table as if they were nothing.

I think I'll just start putting some lol-lists on the table. The current one I am entertaining is:

Malignast Plaguecaster

Plaguedrone with Mower
Plaguedrone with Mower
Plaguedrone with Mower
3xMBH
3xMBH
3xMBH
Plagueburst Crawler
Plagueburst Crawler

Not a competitive list, but at least it will be entertaining, or so I hope.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
The only way to get more savings would be to bring Blighthaulers, which went down 10 points each. So a squad of 3 saves you 30 points, and you can then take 2 squads of 3 Deathshroud terminators in exchange for a net zero gain or loss in points. Also, by bringing a squadron of 3 blighthaulers, you now have another big points unit along with your Blightlords bloc for "to the last". If you then bring Typhus or a flying daemon prince, you can then choose that over a 3 man Deathshroud squad for "To the Last" because Typhus and a Deathshroud unit are now both 165 points. So, it doesn't wreck the "to the last Secondary". But a squad of 3 blighthaulers is a massive amount of points, I am not sure if we can even fit all that into a list. Maybe take two.

Always take 2 blighthaulers in a unit, never 3. It means their super useful shoot reducing stratagem is only 1CP.

l0k1 wrote:The problem I see is that I don't think Plague Marines are survivable enough. I feel you can build a 10 man unit that can do some damage, but I feel that same unit can get swept off the table fairly easily. Having a Plague Surgeon chasing them around would help.

I already like a 10 man squad of Plague Marines with 2 flails and 2 cleavers. They pack quite the melee punch and are a good target for the blight grenade stratagem. However, cloud of flies is a MUST for them, otherwise they'll never get close enough. I generally find that the points cost of a Surgeon is better spent on simplify more bodies. Once they get stuck in, they're usually tough enough to hold their own, as must anti-marine melee weapons are only 2 damage.

I wonder if a list with two Rhinos with plague marines in them might work. I mean, sure our rhinos are easily popped. But we can also have 3 PBCs on the field. So, is our opponent going to dedicate his anti tank to pop one rhino at -1 to hit and expose himself to all our PBCs?

Besides, once our Rhinos have move advanced up the field once, they are probably far up enough up the board that even if they blow up, our plague marines can now pile out 3 inches and be within a move+charge range of something important.

The new mission set requires more troops. And honestly, I think having plague marines in a rhino up the field doing some of these new missions is more versatile and better than trying to move 20 poxwalkers at 4 inch move each turn or using elite terminators to do the job.

So how are people feeling? Anybody tried any lists with the new point changes?

Personally I am not a fan of the rhino due to how already expensive Death Guard are. Points spent on rhino are usually better spent elsewhere and if you are taking 10 man PM squad with rhino you are probably better off just taking Blightlords in regards to effectiveness for points.

Basically Plague Marines really needed a point cut in the new CA or just a new datasheet.

So just played a game against the new Custodes. It was technically a team crusade game, though it was really me vs the custodes. The mission was a 40PL per player kill mission and made us keep half our army in reserve. It was bad. Like want to shelve the army bad. They have so many buffs/debuffs and they're so resilient

 l0k1 wrote:
So just played a game against the new Custodes. It was technically a team crusade game, though it was really me vs the custodes. The mission was a 40PL per player kill mission and made us keep half our army in reserve. It was bad. Like want to shelve the army bad. They have so many buffs/debuffs and they're so resilient

Its ok. Custodes feel a bit overtuned right now. They didn't need the points drop in the latest chapter approved. Maybe upcoming quaterly faq changes will tweak them again.

Since we're using PL for our crusade points changes wouldn't help my group much. His -1 attack aura hurts and the fact we don't have a way to ignore invuln saves makes the game rough. I'm sure they'll get the nerf bat in a month or so.

 l0k1 wrote:
Since we're using PL for our crusade points changes wouldn't help my group much. His -1 attack aura hurts and the fact we don't have a way to ignore invuln saves makes the game rough. I'm sure they'll get the nerf bat in a month or so.

The problem with any nerfs is that they'll probably not change anything in Crusade as the PLs are quite fixed at the moment.

Death Guard is very much suffering from "early codex" syndrome at this point.

Considering that only one Death Guard list made the top 50 (36th), and two made the top 100 lists at LVO (sadly that is using pre-points nerf) I think we can officially say DG is dead as a competitive faction. Sure play it if you enjoy the fluff, but you are not going to win any events with it. After the points nerfs I can’t imagine how badly DG will perform. They needed a points cut, instead GW raised those points.


That all said I’ve moved other to playing a Nurgle in Age of Sigmar. It is a much more balanced game system. New codexes are strong, but not broken like 40K. 9th edition started out great and balanced and since Drukari released it has been a dumpster fire.

broxus wrote:
Considering that only one Death Guard list made the top 50 (36th), and two made the top 100 lists at LVO (sadly that is using pre-points nerf) I think we can officially say DG is dead as a competitive faction. Sure play it if you enjoy the fluff, but you are not going to win any events with it. After the points nerfs I can’t imagine how badly DG will perform. They needed a points cut, instead GW raised those points.

With players going more and more into Daemon Engines and Epidemius I get the feeling Death Guard is becoming a pseudo 8th codex with people foregoing core units and instead mixing and matching just to make up for the weakness of the codex. We have at least 5-12 months of that until the next point update.

Fun times...

 Eldarsif wrote:

broxus wrote:
Considering that only one Death Guard list made the top 50 (36th), and two made the top 100 lists at LVO (sadly that is using pre-points nerf) I think we can officially say DG is dead as a competitive faction. Sure play it if you enjoy the fluff, but you are not going to win any events with it. After the points nerfs I can’t imagine how badly DG will perform. They needed a points cut, instead GW raised those points.

With players going more and more into Daemon Engines and Epidemius I get the feeling Death Guard is becoming a pseudo 8th codex with people foregoing core units and instead mixing and matching just to make up for the weakness of the codex. We have at least 5-12 months of that until the next point update.

Fun times...

Even worse they are going to enjoy facing the new Tau meta. Vehicles are not going to be smart choices.

If we're lucky the Feb balance update may correct the terrible mistakes of CA2022, but I'm not holding my breath....

I'm back to my 8th edition policy of "casual games only" with the DG. I'm lucky enough to be in club where that's possible, but still sad to see my 2022 plans of attending some competitions won't be happening.

What would be the preferred unit for taking on the new Custodes? Bloat drones with flesh mowers or Myphitic Blighthaulers? I already run Terminators of both flavors and Poxwalkers to big them down for a turn.

Data slate is out. No points changes or changes for DG. Guess we keep sucking!!

Guess we wait another 3 months. Or more likely, another 6 till the second CA

Also for those entertaining putting Plague Marines in Rhinos. The new dataslate has changed it so that Plague Marines coming out of a Rhino do not get Inexorable Advance.

I am just wondering why GW thought DG were such an OP army.

Plague Marines were already unappealing with that ghastly unit entry, so it almost borders on silly to even make the change.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Plague Marines were already unappealing with that ghastly unit entry, so it almost borders on silly to even make the change.

I feel that they were clarifying a specific rule in the rulebook, but then as usual they forgot to change the Inexorable Advance entry.

https://www.goonhammer.com/warzone-nachmund-faction-focus-death-guard/

A more optimistic take on the current state of Death Guard, than we're seeing aroud these parts. Thoughts?

 MinMax wrote:
https://www.goonhammer.com/warzone-nachmund-faction-focus-death-guard/

A more optimistic take on the current state of Death Guard, than we're seeing aroud these parts. Thoughts?

The lists are interesting, but apparently one of the article's authors is going heavy into Daemon Engines and his list was more or less theoretical. I think we have to wait and see how it works out.

I am not sure how good it will be to lean into 10 man walls like this, but it might be difficult to remove them when they get going. I am tempted to do so even if it means I have to paint 10 more Plague Marines.

I am personally aiming for this list to try out:

Sorcerer in Terminator Armor
Malignant Plaguecaster
3x5 man squads of Plague Marines
2x10 man Poxwalkers
5 man Blightlord Terminator squad(I feel like the deepstrike is helpful in them and they only went up 2 points each).
Foetid Bloat-drone with Mower
2x2 MBH
3xPBC

I am kind of hoping to use the vehicles as sort of Distraction Carnifexes that can potentially take stuff out while the infantry do actions. With the point drop on MBH I am really warming up to using them as they are now cheaper than the Drones. Also, with their weapon loadout they do offer versatility and have stratagems that can minimize attacks on them, as well as -1 to hit in close combat. If I didn't want to test the FBD first I would probably have gone 3x2 on MBH.

The Poxwalkers, even if they are slightly more expensive, still serve as useful chaff and screening.

If you’re using 5 man PMs for actions, save 60 points and just use 10 man cultists. You could for similar points do another 10 man block of PMs to make 3x10 and 2x10 cultists. Probably better than using those three 5 mans to just be 100+ pointed action monkeys!


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Wretched:

LOC
Malignant Plaguecaster 7-fold and Demons favor
Malignant Plaguecaster putrid peripet

10x PMs with 2 Blight Launchers
10x PMs with 2 Blight Launchers
10x PMs with 2 Blight Launchers
10x cultists
10x cultists
10x cultists

5x Blightlords with launcher
Tallyman with tollkeeper and arch contaminator
Plague Surgeon

PBC
PBC
PBC

Good screening if needed, 30 crazy bricks, a deep strike threat, lots of mortals.

For the Defiler, which would you recommend; the autocannon or the twin lascannons? Also, I'm up in the air if the it's better to equip the power scourges or the twin heavy flamer.

What do you want it to do?
That’ll probably answer your question.

I’m not exactly sure what I would want defilers to do if I was using them in my DG, as I think there are better options for anti tank in PBCs with entropy and Haulers, better options for counter assault in death shroud. Maybe as a fast forward pressure unit? Even then, it’s large and hard to use with lots of terrain, where bloat drones are probably better in being smaller and have FLY.

So where the defiler comes in is maybe in some sort of demon engine spam? Even then, with PBCs filling out heavy slots, I’m not sure where he fits.

My suggestion? Keep them with the cheapest options.

I have had some success souping DG with CSM. CSM is an 8th ed codex, so it doesn't lose anything souping. DG lose the gift of Nurgle contagion. But its fine, because most of the time, I actually think it doesn't come into play that much. Whatever DG get into melee with against our Blightlord terminator bloc is probably losing to us anyway, regardless of whether we have a -1 toughness or not.

Souping bring us the benefit of more utility to play missions with. Like souping CSM in lets me field cheap units of jump pack Raptors, cheap 60 points CSM troops which are obsec. And if you take Emperor's children, then you get cheap terminators that can deep strike in and get a close to guaranteed charge in with their Honor the Prince strategem.

So, you can still have the benefits of DG mostly (run a big tough to kill Blightlord bloc, tallyman for cp, Foul blightspawn for fights last, and the best tanks in the game (PBC). Plus now by souping in CSM, we get additional utility to play missions like Retrieve Nachmund data, engage on all fronts, etc because CSM can give us fast, reliable jump pack or teleport units. I find that with that added utility, I don't miss losing the DG secondaries at all, because being able to score high in Engage or RND reliably is even better than any of the DG secondaries.

Consider this: You have the big Blightlord terminator bloc supported by FBS, Miasma of pestilence advancing up the board to contest and take the center. So strangle hold is definitely a thing you can play for. Meanwhile, you have 2 PBCs holding your backfield with cheap obsec CSM troops or cultists (Your choice). Meanwhile, you can strategic reserve 2 cheap CSM obsec units for just 1CP, and then put 2 raptor squads and 2 terminator squads into deep strike.

Now your opponent is facing a beta strike of 6 units coming in on turn 2 and 3. And with so many units coming in turns 2 and 3, taking RND and engage on all fronts is definitely a strong choice. Plus now your opponent has hard choices. Is he going to have to try and spread out to screen his entire half of the board against your units coming in from reserve and deep strike? But can he do that while still being able to handle the big brick of Blightlord terminator bloc with characters marching straight up the middle? And even if we lose all 6 of our units coming in, they would have done their job and gotten us secondary points.

The way I see it, if we soup in CSM, for the cost of giving up gift of nurgle, we are gaining a lot of what DG currently lacks - speed and mobility, which increases our ability to play the mission and that's ultimately what wins games, not killing the opponent.

I agree with the reasons for souping CSM.

If we could get something like Raptors or even if our cultists were ob sec we’d be in a better spot.

Kenny Boucher just won a game on Dice Check using Rhinos and cheaper versions of the PBCs to just take space, along with 6 man plague marines squads with a flail to have some close combat punch. I know that’s not the highest end of completion but for most of us dummies out here, that list and play style can be emulated and more gameS could be won.

I think there’s some play to the older style of rhino based plague marine lists. You could play for RND or engage or lots of other options because you can reliably be in different parts of the board with guys that are reasonably hard to shift, plus they are infantry and ob sec .

 Brymm wrote:
I agree with the reasons for souping CSM.

If we could get something like Raptors or even if our cultists were ob sec we’d be in a better spot.

Kenny Boucher just won a game on Dice Check using Rhinos and cheaper versions of the PBCs to just take space, along with 6 man plague marines squads with a flail to have some close combat punch. I know that’s not the highest end of completion but for most of us dummies out here, that list and play style can be emulated and more gameS could be won.

I think there’s some play to the older style of rhino based plague marine lists. You could play for RND or engage or lots of other options because you can reliably be in different parts of the board with guys that are reasonably hard to shift, plus they are infantry and ob sec .

Plus more importantly, what I mentioned about souping has some play into the current two big meta armies. Tau and Custodes. Emperor's children being able to get off an almost guaranteed charge out of deep strike will create some problems for Tau. And if we have many units coming out of deep strike or strategic reserve doing secondaries. This creates a problem for Custodes too because they want to clump together into one big deathball. Custodes don't have the number of bodies to spread out over the whole map trying to stop engage on all fronts and/or RND. Especially not if they need to worry about our Blightlord deathball in the middle too.

If we insist on staying pure DG, against custodes, they will just hang back and shoot us with 10 salvo missiles every turn. And same for Tau who will just hang back and shoot us with their entire army as we lumber up the field slowly.

Sooooooo the Lord Of Virulence......
Dead on arrival or something that someone managed to exploit? Most I've gotten out of him is Blightlords using the Virulent Rounds Strat and Deathshroud. He just seems to have limited applications for his additional aura...

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Sooooooo the Lord Of Virulence......
Dead on arrival or something that someone managed to exploit? Most I've gotten out of him is Blightlords using the Virulent Rounds Strat and Deathshroud. He just seems to have limited applications for his additional aura...

Giving him Arch-Contaminator in a Mortarion's Chosen Sons list might work well.

The wording on the Strat to turn the Plague Spewer into a 2D weapon doesn’t specifically list “twin plague spewer,” get a ruling for the TO or your friends before trying to use it with him. IMO it works on him just fine as a twin plague spewer surely is a plague spewer, but I digress.

His Arch Contaminator aura doesn’t affect himself either, so dropping in win Deathshroud is probably the way to use him, with the Viscous Death upgrade on the spewer.

I’m a huge fan of spitters, spayers, spewers etc vs all variants of space elves and tau.

Hey guys, playing in a 2V2 event with my son in May, I’m responsible for a 1000 point list to pair up with his 1k of Salamanders. What does 1k of Deathguard look like? I can take a single detachment for free.

 Brymm wrote:
Hey guys, playing in a 2V2 event with my son in May, I’m responsible for a 1000 point list to pair up with his 1k of Salamanders. What does 1k of Deathguard look like? I can take a single detachment for free.

Well for a tournament like that you'd want to compliment his force. What does his composition look like?

My boy is using an all Primaris force of the Salamanders named dude Agrax, most likely double Redemptor dreads, two min squads of assault intercessors, and two squads of eradicators.

He has some plays to move things around, and has access to outriders, flamestorm aggressors, repulsor, blade guard and various command characters.

One variant is basically doing a repulsor rush of putting Agrax, blade guard AND aggressors in a repulsor and just driving/advancing as far forward as possible turn 1. Either way, he’s got an aggressive force.