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Whoops sorry guys totally spaced on the Battalion needing two HQ's. Didn't know Plague Marines can take two special weps regardless, will definitely be using two blight launchers.

I planned to have my Plague Marines be static, just chilling on objectives all game, but would they be better off in a Rhino and with more weapons? I'll have to cut down on toys from the Knight or zombies to give them more weapons/transport, is it really worth it?


Also another question, do you take Disgustingly Resilient saves for the unsaved wound (roll 1 save regardless of damage) or a save for each damage done, (1 shot does 4 damage, i make 4 DR rolls)

Each damage done. So 4 damage = 4 DR rolls

Please to hear that power fists are going down to 12 points

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Please to hear that power fists are going down to 12 points

This makes my terminators very happy.

Also, PM Sgt with Power Fist

So if my plans go through and I get a second DI starter, the core of my army I think will be this:

Lord of Contagion (idc that typhus is better)
Malignant Plaguecaster
Blightbringer (idk why people say he's bad, he speeds Nurgle up?)
20x Poxwalkers (as a screen)
7 Plague Marines w/2x Blight Launchers (using default champion model from DI; adding a plasma gun here seems wrong?)
7 Plague Marines w/2x Plasma Guns (using Champion w/Plasma Gun)
2 Bloat Drones

That seems like a solid core, then hopefully when the new stuff comes I can add a unit of terminators, one and hopefully two Plague Crawlers, maybe a Rhino for one of the PM squads, and maybe Mortarion himself.

Wayniac wrote:

Blightbringer (idk why people say he's bad, he speeds Nurgle up?)

I thought he'd be an autopick but having played two games with him and three without I haven't missed him at all when he isn't there.

Wayniac wrote:
So if my plans go through and I get a second DI starter, the core of my army I think will be this:

Lord of Contagion (idc that typhus is better)
Malignant Plaguecaster
Blightbringer (idk why people say he's bad, he speeds Nurgle up?)

may be wise to swap out blightbringer with a basic lord and let your PM rerol to hit - they need fire power more than speed... just keep the lord cheap ))

Plaguecasters are *really* good for supporting your PM's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W069dPLTXg0

Just read the plague marine entry for the new chaos codex. Plague Marines have more options now then any space marine unit in the game now, takes up the entire page with war gear. Death Guard players are in for a real treat when the codex comes out. Try not to freak out when you read the flail of corruption, and the fact you can take 2 in each squad.

 Crusaderobr wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W069dPLTXg0

Just read the plague marine entry for the new chaos codex. Plague Marines have more options now then any space marine unit in the game now, takes up the entire page with war gear. Death Guard players are in for a real treat when the codex comes out. Try not to freak out when you read the flail of corruption, and the fact you can take 2 in each squad.

Lots of new melee and special weapons. Gunna have to set them up as 5 man special unit squads. Plus prices going DOWN.... good day for papa nurgle.

I played my first true game of 8th last night. A tag team between my DG and Nids vs, SM and Eldar. Part of the Konor thing. We lost but I learned somethings. Typhus plus Malignant plaguecaster plus pox walker is a mix that will destroy anyone's frontline. Typhus buffing the pox, dealing mortal wounds for proximity both the pykers pumping out mortal wounds. It doesn't immediately kill everything, but because its resilient if you multicharge pox walkers it's a system that can jump from unit to unit if you're wise about your placement of typhus and the plaguecaster.

Very excited after this game. Think I'm gunna go into most matches with a core of 2x20 pox supported by typhus, plaguecaster and blightbringer. Everything else will depend on who I'm playing and the mission.

Hmm, any thoughts on the best way to use plague marines in the eventual DG codex? Speculative as we can't even use the current plague marine entry atm.

Acting as our objective hugging unit with the inevitable obj secured is what I see them doing best. A couple blight launchers to put out some ranged damage as they sit in cover, a couple flails if something gets in their face, plus a couple ablative wounds and the sarge. Might even run the sarge as an ablative wound if his options stay limited, rather have blight launchers and flails over plasma or power fists personally.

I'm not sure if I trust them as dedicated melee, they are basically melee chosen but a bit tougher and slightly better wargear. Depends on how our terminators and poxwalkers end up I suppose.

So I'm just wondering what the general consensus is from Death Guard players as to the best ways to play this army? I am trying to help a friend build an army to be feared and it seems like to me the best way to run these guys is as a Horde Army.

It struck me watching a few games with these guys that you won't ever win a shooting fight against a shooty army. It's tempting to want to bring a long ranged component but I think it's a trap. You will be giving your opponent free points in many instances. Where the bulk of this army generally wants to be in combat and pushing forward AWAY from static units like defilers etc.

What did occur to me was if you forced your opponent to only be able to shoot at an insane amount of guys it could buy some time and create a scenario where your demon princes/Typhus/Terminators get a chance to strike pretty hard. You could almost do fantasy style hammer and anvil type army where you lock things up with all the crap guys that aren't meant to win fights while your big hitters get in there and do some work. I see alot of people flying demon princes or other forward units ahead of their slow ass army only to be surprised when they go up in flames. It seems that is counter to how this army should be played... with as cheap as poxwalkers and plaguebearers are you could easily field 60-70 of these guys in a 2000 point list.

What are your thoughts? Are you findings similar?

I have started testing my Death Guards (played "normal" CSM in the past and had some Plague Marines and Nurgle Daemons) and got the impression that they are really fun if you mix them with Nurgle Daemons. Otherwise I think your performance will highly depend on the mission and the table setup. If you have close objectives and need to sit on them you will generally be favored. If you need to be fast and get some dynamic Tactical Objective that popped up only this very round then you might have problems.

Widied wrote:
What are your thoughts? Are you findings similar?

Well, my big issue is our tool box is still missing parts. The biggest one is deepstriking, and demons don't do a great job filling that in. The second issue is that most of the unique units in our army are overpriced. Even with the point decrease for plague marines they are still on the upper edge of acceptable pricing, and everything else seems even worse.

So bottom line, trying to build DG right now just doesn't work. The best units we have are almost entirely ones shared by CSM, with no strong incentive to take them in DG beyond plague marines for obj secured thanks to that article. Still, I'll think about what at least isn't outright bad.

So I could see running a battalion of DG consisting primarily of PM, a couple HQs to buff them, and the bell ringer guys to run them all up the field as part of a mixed CSM army. Or too add some obj secured and shooting to a nurgle demon list given they apparently get neither.

As a standalone list right now? Running poxwalkers screening predators along with the above plague marines would work. This is about on par with anything normal CSM can do, given how pricey fearless is and the lack of CT on tanks. Chaos spawn also have no advantage to being taken by a normal legion, so that's an option.

A poxwalkers heavy list doesn't work really well now though, the more poxwalkers you take the more that 2 ppm more over a cultist hurts you. At a certain point, running cultist blobs with some of the various morale immunity HQs just becomes more effective points wise. Now, if they drop to 5 or even 4 ppm, worth considering. Currently... take in moderation for screening and nothing else.

Honestly though, wait for the codex and the rest of our models before thinking about it too much, as it stands there aren't any good choices, no DG army is actually good, at best we are a decent complement to a stronger overall army.

Toying around with the idea to get a starting box nurgle daemons. I got the Death Guard Models from the new boxset twice and converted one LoC to Typhus and one Plaguecaster to Necrosius. My question is if the Daemon Box would make a good addition to my DG models. I know with the upcoming model releases this is hard to answer but Id like to know if the box is in general a good buy going into DG.

I hope our terminators get quite good shooting options and are competitively priced. CSM terminators with combi plasma and mark of slaanesh are quite good, so it will be hard to compete with that. I hope they will be able to do that, because plague marine prices are making me scratch them from my lists (that and I don't need them for anti horde, and they can't take AT).

Even though we are missing our Codex at the moment, I have really fallen in love with how the new DG models look so far. To that end I have been looking to run a combined DG/ CSM list in the mean time. I have played a few games of pure DG using the Index, and I am just positively salivating over the new wargear options for Plague Marines. That being said, I am looking for a good way to kit them out as objective holders, using them as Elite choices in a CSM detachment (likely Alpha Legion for that -1 at 12"). I was thinking use Plague Spewers or Belchers for that overwatch goodness, but I am torn on if I should kit them out as more melee or ranged oriented. Any suggestions?

Iago40k wrote:
Toying around with the idea to get a starting box nurgle daemons. I got the Death Guard Models from the new boxset twice and converted one LoC to Typhus and one Plaguecaster to Necrosius. My question is if the Daemon Box would make a good addition to my DG models. I know with the upcoming model releases this is hard to answer but Id like to know if the box is in general a good buy going into DG.

The Herald is a solid caster and buffs all [Nurgle] units, Nurglings have a useful deployment option to tie up enemy units early in the game, and Plague Drones provide a (relatively) fast flying unit. Plague Bearers are kind of redundant in a DG army, but you get another solid objective camp unit. I would say that the Nurgle SC box is a good addition to any Nurgle themed army.

BUT...

I would also advise against buying anything for the time being. The new DG codex is merely weeks away, and Nurgle Daemons will get new models too. Have some patience and wait. For a "pure" DG army there are many other things coming, and I guess they will be more helpful than Daemons. If not: you could still get the SC box after the DG release has settled down.

TL;DR: Wait for the Codex: DG release.

Havent played any DG yet, I have been busy converting and waiting for the codex, but I have been theorycrafting some possible PM squad loadouts. These are all pretty obvious, but I would really like to see which one people think will be the most effective.

As a general purpose unit, I'm thinking 7 PM with 2 blight launchers, 2 flails, and PF and plaguesword on the champ.

A cheapish, yet durable screening unit to protect your line from charges could be 5 PM with just 2 plague flamers (cant remember there name).

And finally, I'm think 5 PM with 3 plasma guns could bring some solid firepower that is much needed in this army. 2 of these squads in a rhino can dish out some decent dakka.

Personally, I'm thinking of using 2 of the blight launcher squads and 1 of each of the others, all on foot with a blightwalker to steadily move up the board. I cant see dedicated cc PM being effective, but I could be wrong. Thoughts or different loadouts?

Anyone have any predictions on what the Death Guard chapter trait will be? I will be absolutely crushed if it, "disgustingly resilient" which is a rule we already pay for and have on PM and most daemon models. You would then have to ask yourself what is the diffrence between plague marines and Death Guard plague marines.

I am curious if it will be rerolling 1s for your disgustingly resilient rolls.

broxus wrote:
Anyone have any predictions on what the Death Guard chapter trait will be? I will be absolutely crushed if it, "disgustingly resilient" which is a rule we already pay for and have on PM and most daemon models. You would then have to ask yourself what is the diffrence between plague marines and Death Guard plague marines.

I am curious if it will be rerolling 1s for your disgustingly resilient rolls.

Hmmm, well looking at traitor legions, we have reroll 1s on dr which seems a bit weak comparatively, cloud of flies which would be better, or relentless which doesn't really translate well. Possibly just a flat increase to DR could work, 4+ instead of 5+

There was also a rumor going around we'd get a few to choose from, with different war ands being part of DG. This is still tenuous though, but it'd be interesting if we did get a few options for CT, even if they were just copy paste from the other codices.

I would think Cloud of Flies, and reroll ones for DR being stratagems (or powers/auras) over being the Legion Trait.

Its gonna be DR, and that fine.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I would think Cloud of Flies, and reroll ones for DR being stratagems (or powers/auras) over being the Legion Trait.

Its gonna be DR, and that fine.

It could be, but if it is it'll stack with normal DR. Which would effectively mean reroll all failed DR for units that have it, and units that don't have it normally also get it. Otherwise they'd have to take away DR from plague marines, which means death guard plague marines don't have DR except when in a legion detachment which is silly, or just write the rule such that units already having DR gain nothing from legion tactics, which is also utterly nonsensical.

Honestly though, I think this is fairly unlikely, just from the way the last three codices were handled. It will likely be something totally new.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I would think Cloud of Flies, and reroll ones for DR being stratagems (or powers/auras) over being the Legion Trait.

Its gonna be DR, and that fine.

Well lets hope your wrong on that (you probably are not wrong). If they did that, what would be the point of playing a Death Guard army vs a chapter from the codex which gives chapter trait bonuses for free? That it would be like making the World Eaters legion trait, Khorne Bezerkers can pile in and attack twice



GW has a long history of shafting Nurgle in every one of their game systems. Even in Age of Sigmar (GH 1 & 2) they have shafted them with making them far to expensive to be competitive. GW tends to over value survivability, even if Nurgle units are generally very slow and generally lack offensive abilities. Just compare Nurgle Plague Marines to Khorne Bezerkers or Noise Marines and you will quickly see what I am talking about. If you review the current DG game results they are bottom tier and not giving them some price cuts, a solid chapter trait, more unit choices, and powerful strategums they will ensure they continue to lose and likely not sell well.

I would take cloud of flies or the buff to DR would work for me and likely make me want to collect them. I do think that a 4+ DR save may be overpowered and rerolling 1s may be more balanced. However, the -1 to hit from cloud of flies is already in the SM chapter traits.

Yeah but rerolling ones would be weak. It'd be less of a boost than even the flat 6+ iron hands get. So that'd be a bit lackluster. Hopefully they will find a good balance.

With the new CSm codex dropped I still cant find the best spot for Plague Marines. I think their range shooting is subpar and I tend to go the 2 Flails 2 Heavy Flamer route for infantry killing. But they are very slow so they need a Rhino to get into places where they need to be. That point investment is way to huge imo. So what do you guys think will be the role for PM since I am pretty sure that they will stay the same as in the CSM codex.

Iago40k wrote:
With the new CSm codex dropped I still cant find the best spot for Plague Marines. I think their range shooting is subpar and I tend to go the 2 Flails 2 Heavy Flamer route for infantry killing. But they are very slow so they need a Rhino to get into places where they need to be. That point investment is way to huge imo. So what do you guys think will be the role for PM since I am pretty sure that they will stay the same as in the CSM codex.

This is the problem with Nurgle in both 40k and AoS. They are resilient but extremely slow which should offset that. I think PMs need another 2-3 point decrease to truly be viable. They are still 2pts more expensive than lets say the Blood Angels Death Company.

broxus wrote:

Iago40k wrote:
With the new CSm codex dropped I still cant find the best spot for Plague Marines. I think their range shooting is subpar and I tend to go the 2 Flails 2 Heavy Flamer route for infantry killing. But they are very slow so they need a Rhino to get into places where they need to be. That point investment is way to huge imo. So what do you guys think will be the role for PM since I am pretty sure that they will stay the same as in the CSM codex.

This is the problem with Nurgle in both 40k and AoS. They are resilient but extremely slow which should offset that. I think PMs need another 2-3 point decrease to truly be viable. They are still 2pts more expensive than lets say the Blood Angels Death Company.

Well, you are right no doubt. Points aside, what are they supposed to do? What is their battlefield role?

Iago40k wrote:

broxus wrote:

Iago40k wrote:
With the new CSm codex dropped I still cant find the best spot for Plague Marines. I think their range shooting is subpar and I tend to go the 2 Flails 2 Heavy Flamer route for infantry killing. But they are very slow so they need a Rhino to get into places where they need to be. That point investment is way to huge imo. So what do you guys think will be the role for PM since I am pretty sure that they will stay the same as in the CSM codex.

This is the problem with Nurgle in both 40k and AoS. They are resilient but extremely slow which should offset that. I think PMs need another 2-3 point decrease to truly be viable. They are still 2pts more expensive than lets say the Blood Angels Death Company.

Well, you are right no doubt. Points aside, what are they supposed to do? What is their battlefield role?

To be honest I find their role simple: I try to model and paint PM to look as scary as possible in order to draw as much attention as possible away from my Khorne Bezerkers moving in for the kill. It's all about the number of spikes and skulls you can crowd on them.

Truly curious to see what major changes occur. I have read over the new CSM page for Plague Marines and I am surprised at the plethora of options. End of the day though - that flail and those Blightlaunchers seem to be the more obvious go-to choices, right? At least currently, without the context of the new DG 'dex.

I hope we get a multipose, multipart kit that gives us loads of options, but it is GW so I expect I will be buying a lot of weapons off eBay.