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quick question
besides other chaos gods/ legions what is the deathgaurds biggest rival?
I have read about Gulliman and Corax suspecting Mortarion of being too devoted to Horus, but other than that i found little to suggest anything else.
i would hardly consider the iron hands even if the deathgaurd played a roll in the dropsite massacre.
is there any ig, marine, eldar, tau army etc.. especially driven have a go with the death gaurd?
i am wanting to build a rival army for my death gaurd. so any help would be great.

I'll gladly cede this to anyone else with more information, but from what I can gather, there is no specific rival to the Death Guard. I've mentally gone through the list of Legions and other forces, and it seems like ANY force could be the rival of the Death Guard. Pre-Heresy, the reliance of the Death Guard on massed ranks of infantry to hold their ground in the face of enemy attack is unusual. Post-Heresy, you could say they have a nemesis in the Salamanders - nothing like a lot of fire to cleanse a plague.

Thank you.
Yeah i was thinking the salamanders would make an awesomely fun army to convert and play with. they were involved in the dropsite massacre, just on the other side of things. and im sure have had to quell a black crusade or six.

Ultramarines have this whole anti nid thing, and i would think they would be more inclined to bust Fulgrims emperors children csm in the head. although no doubt typhus vs. calgar would be quite the clash.

I would think a Cadian variant, equiped for anti bio warfare would also be proper. I would think Grandfather Nurgle would love nothing more than to blight a few more hive worlds.

I figured just about any space marine chapter would hate good old nurgle. just didnt know if they pulled a quick one on them. (necrons + SoB, imperial fists + iron warriors)

Thought about it some more.

For a true rival, I think it needs to be an army that is resilient to the Death Guard's strengths. I'm not one to talk about in-game ability (over a decade in the stupid hobby and still can't pull out a record over .500!), so I'll focus mainly on fluff.

Death Guard, post Heresy, being diseased Plague Marines, ideal rivals are those resistant to diseases. As cool as Cadians are, the Death Korps would probably be better for Guard. The Necrons, how would Nurgle affect them? Bloated, scabby skin over the Flayed Ones?

Never mind, don't want to imagine that in too much detail.

The Tyranids to an extent would be interesting too, inimical as they are to Chaos in general. Another gross thought, though, a Tyranid evolved from Plague Marine stock....

I could see the Tau, most Guard, even the Eldar being felled by the Plague Marines. For Loyal Marines, I still favour the Salamanders, though mechanized rapid strikes and heavy artillery siege formations (Raven Guard and Iron Warriors respectively)(Yes I know Iron Warriors aren't loyalists lol) would be anathema to the Death Guard's style. I truly prefer heavy artillery - in one of my favourite scenes from Straight Silver, "The leveling glories of field artillery, beneath which all things are rendered equal"

Necrons probably best for avoiding the diseases (they probably have a special hatred of Nurgle from the descriptions of them before becoming immortal!), Salamanders the best for imagery IMO.

I am LOVING the salamanders for this one.
i am so glad you mentioned them.
i love meltas, i love flamers, and i love thunder hammers.

And i can paint the terminators in their original colour scheme. (black and yellow)

Raven Guard is also super interesting. I love assault squads. and I think they might be an interesting army to build considering their fluff.

Yeah, I can't think of any specific major rivals in the fluff. The Thousand Sons, being Tzeentchian, would be the best fit, but they don't fit with the criteria in the OP.

yeah. i think im just going to read up on loyal space marine chapters and find a good fit. Maby i will make up a little side story or battle to go with the rivalry or enlist the aid of the forum to help me make a reasonable fluff rivalry story.
that might be really interesting.

Salamanders are great and you dont see them enough. It would mean more green though.

how about..... Grey Knights, now stay with me here, Flight of the Eisenstein sorta hints that they were founded by Garro who spent most of the book fighting Nurgle and its cronies and had been betrayed by the Death Guard.

So there ya go, former DG now fighting the good fight against their treacherous brothers???

i would do that in a heart beat if the models werent all 40$ chunks of metal. it would work so well too.
freakin metal models to me they are the things of nightmares.

the opposite to nurgle unfortunately is a CSM legion, the thousand sons because of who they follow. other than that there is no specific rival to the death guard. oh and the rivals to the ultramarines are the word bearers being exact opposites in all manner of warfare and following the codex (pre-heresy).

you could do a pre-heresy thousand sons legion and use the marine rules for em' that way you could paint some pretty cool guys and have two libbies running round making stuff go boom

and i see the wolves of fenris being bigger rivals to the thousand sons.
i dunno. i cant stand libbies so i cant see that being a fun army to me.

A Cadian army would make a good rival.
Typhus' role in the 13th Black Crusade was poisoning the water and food supplies of the cadian hives. I'm sure that would tick off the soldiers whose families lived there. It would also fit perfectly with the anti-biowarfare suggestion already made.

I like the Salamanders idea too, I think it fits the imagery. I was trying to think of a non-Marine alternative - and even then the best I can think of the Necrons :\

My problem with the Thousand Sons is that, while Tzeentch and Nurgle may be opposed to each other, I don't see the Marines as being rivals. The magic aspect just doesn't seem as relevant. I'm not forgetting that, in the IAG, they pretty much declare that the Death Guard ceased to exist when they became Plague Marines. What concerns me is that you can play a Plague Marine army already, so what would make a Death Guard army different? Well, it would be their reliance on basic infantry, not close combat oriented, not full of heavy weapons, not a lot heavy vehicles. And they bring diseases, to boot! Given the IAG, the way their armour and vehicles weren't the most aesthetically pleasing but they functioned flawlessly, the Blood Angels or original Emperor's Children could be illuminated in opposition.

Theoretically, tactically, I think the horde close combat armies (Orks, Nids) would probably suffer to the "Tide crashing against a wall" approach of the Death Guard. Mortarian would have looked over the battlefield, found the ideal spot, sat his troops down and anchored them. To counter that, I think you need heavy artillery - you need to make the Death Guard move from their positions.

I'm not going to discount the Cadians' desire for revenge, but does that make them ideal rivals? I'm still tempted to side with the Death Korps for Guard rivals.

I like the Grey Knights idea, but for the drawback you mentioned murderotica. Metal minis and I don't get along well :\

So I guess it's going to depend on which view of the Death Guard you end up taking.

The Death Guard fight the Death Korps on Vraks

I like the salamanders for it. they seem like a fun army to play and convert. The only reason i havent taken that option is that both of the armies are green, and i dont know how well of a battle scene that will make. It would be interesting to use the old scheme of yellow and black maby?

The other space marine army i love the colour scheme and wouldnt mind making some of my own fluff for them is the Mortifactors. IF anyone wants to help me making some appropiate fluff that would be awesome.

I really like the Death Korps and cadians for it too. They are perfect image wise. Plenty of personality opprotunities as well. only thing is. i have never played or painted guard, and im pretty sure my death gaurd of the terminus est would have little trouble with a fluff death korps army. (the army list is in the list help forum)

That and are guard getting a new codex anyways?

maybe convert your own GK? just order a load of halbard arms as GW still go a bitz bag of them (or make your own) and stormbolters.

I got a bunch of old skool GK termies off ebay cheap, maybe try that?