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I have not played chaos for many editions. I plan to rebuild my Nurgle army as death guard. Here is my question: I know Cultists are in the chaos book. Where do the traitor Imperial Guardsmen come in? Is that a separate codex/index thing? Do units receive the Mark of Nurgle (or any) so therefore benefit from possible auras etc? I saw there is a strategy or something that allows you to add a mark to a unit (with no other benefits besides they have it). My Deathguard is in the mail so I do not have it as reference. If it is made obvious in it, my apologies.
In more general terms, what is the exact buying method for adding units of traitor guardsmen to a Nurgle army? Do I buy them from the IG index and just say they are chaos? (I do not see any key words for chaos there) Do I just buy cultists and say they used to be guardsmen?


(I did search for answers to this, but the search function here failed to find what I wanted.)

Currently Traitor Guard do not exist as a codex; most people when they do this is usually count as or (more likely) using a list called Renegades and Heretics, which is available from Forge World (their index are a must from Forge World, although you can probably convert cheaper models than the FW ones).

Renegades and Heretics must be taken in it's own detachment or you will forfeit your Death Guard's "Legion Tactic", as even though they count as chaos, they don't have the "DEATH GUARD" keyword and thus don't count as Death Guard proper. If you do not wish to get the legion tactics, simply build your army as if the two are one list. If you wish to keep the legion tactics, you need to fulfill one detachment for the Deathguard and the Renegades and Heretics separately (which means a minimum of 2 HQs, one from each faction).

As for the Mark of Nurgle, it is just a keyword now. In the broadest sense, a lot of Strategems, Psychic Powers, and special abilities will depend on this, but there is no immediate benefit (unlike last edition's +1 Toughness). If you look on the datasheet (profile) of any chaos unit, you'll see a <MARK OF CHAOS> entry. This one is to be replaced by a mark of your choice from a list of four and has to be done during the army selection stage if you want to mark them (so no changing marks during the game). Some units, like Plague Marines and all of the entries found in the DG codex, are locked to "Mark of Nurgle" already (for obvious reasons). I haven't seen the Renegades and Heretics yet but I assume they instead have <MARK OF CHAOS>.

MechaEmperor: Thanks. Very clear answers. I appreciate it.

Renegades actually have <Chaos Covenant> instead, and they don't get access to icons or the CSM stuff. They instead get a specific extra rule, depending on which god they worship.

However, in order to get the bonus, the warlord needs to be from the Renegade & Heretic codex, which limits your options as most of the units are pretty awful. Malefic lords are the best, but they're pretty cheap and fragile, they're only good for smite spam really.

Which leads on to the rest of the codex. Pretty much universally thought of as terrible. I've tried a few times lately to figure out a good way to use them in my CSM list, but they just don't do anything worthwhile for their points.

You're better off running an imperial guard army, and just converting the models to look renegadey.

Note that if you use the Imperial Guard / Astra Militarium army to represent your Traitor Guard, you won't be able to use them alongside Chaos Space Marines/Death Guards, as they don't share a keyword (and the GW specifically FAQ'd away the "make your <REGIMENT> match your <CHAOS LEGION> thing). This is sort of the only incentive to use Renegades and Heretics, as they are otherwise apparently inferior to their Guard counterpart in every way.

Probably the easiest way is to just use Cultists.