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I've always been interested in going Nurgle Marines, and cause of the new announcement they put out I'm planning on starting to run them. But I've never seen them played, and don't really know what they do well other than not die.
Mainly I'm asking what units I should focus on using, what formations I should use if any, and just overall how I should be running them. I know that Nurgle bikes are a thing, but thats about the extent of my knowledge with them. And thoughts/advice would be greatly helpful!

They tend to be mechanized, to make up for the expense and short range of Plague Marines, but other than that a Death Guard army can be as flexible as any Chaos Marine army. You've got plenty of Nurgle-marked units that aren't Plague Marines to mess around with.

the death guard rules from the Traitor Legions book seem pretty cool. i aven't actually played CSM for years now so have no idea what you can take to be good, but anyone with VOTLW gets fearless and feel no pain, (but reduces initiative by 1) so you can have pretty much a plague marine everything army, like havocs and all sorts (right?) which to me seems like you could make a badass list out of everything that can take Mark of Nurgle.

I unfortunately sold all my death guard about a year ago, after not doing anything with the hobby for almost 2 years. Worst mistake of my life, but not really haha. But I played a MoN CSM army for almost a decade before switching to full blown Deathguard. I'm not sure how well my experience will transfer to the new models and rules, but here was my experience in any case.

Plague marines, are expensive as hell. At 1500 points I was running 3x 7 plague marines in a rhino with 2 plasma guns and a plasma pistol/power axe champion. It was well over 200pts per squad. Even at T5, footslogging was not an option. With such low numbers, I would just be shot to pieces before I could reach the enemy lines/objectives. I found using the rhinos to move for the first and some times the second turn was more beneficial, then disembark and the use the rhino as a mobile screen or to close up choke points.

Plasma, plasma, plasma. The lack of "heavy weapons" left the plague marines with few viable options for your Troops.

I also liked to run havocs 10 men strong, with 4 missile launchers equipped with Flakk. I didn't use any fliers, but had a few in my group to contend with. It was a pricey option, and most times it worked wonderfully (destroyed an imperial guard flying transport and the squad inside on the turn it arrived. Priceless!), but if you have more viable options, take them.

The forgefiend was a beast! One of my friends started amassing a few imperial knights, and this beastie was my staple for dealing with them. I also had some small measure of luck with a cheap chaos Lord with jump pack and melta bombs, as well as chaos terminators with powerfists.

Bottom line, with Plague Marines eating up so many points, you need to make sure your other units have a purpose, and execute it well. You won't have numbers on your side. At 1500pts, I was fielding 3 PM squads, termy Lord with 5 termies, havoks, forgefiend and helbrute. I was always outnumbered and out gunned in terms of number of units. Sometimes I would add in some raptors or predator.

[Edit1]: found my old 1500pt list!

Chaos lord w/power weapon, MoN
3x 7 plague marines w/ 2 plasma guns, rhino
Helbrute w/reaper autocannon, ML
Forgefiend
5 Havoks w/ 3 ML, Flakk, 1 Lascannon
Predator w/ autocannon, 2 Lascanons

I would play with load outs here and there, but the Lord, PMs, Helbrute and Havoks we're my staple, core army.

Play them right, and you'll feel invincible. Unfortunately this had the added effect of increasing my buddies focus on effective lists, so it definitely stepped up the competition within my gaming group.

[Edit2] I should also add that focusing your units in the shooting phase does wonders. Keep your lines tight, so that each unit can support the next. And dont send a unit out alone unless its used as a tarpit/area denial. Always, Always, ALWAYS use 2 or more units to take on a single target.

Havoks and bikes are two great options for a death guard list.