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The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

Went from one of the worst units in the game to downright OP in some combos, you can pump mortal wounds in double digits with them under certain circumstances, no one is safe from Plague marines after codex

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

The codex seems strong enough, but Plague Marines as a unit are one of the weaker parts of the codex. Not bad, but pretty meh.

 Dovis wrote:

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

Went from one of the worst units in the game to downright OP in some combos, you can pump mortal wounds in double digits with them under certain circumstances, no one is safe from Plague marines after codex

Not to doubt you, but how do you pour out that many mortal wounds? Is it involving heavy use of special character auras, stratagems and such? Like, the Biologis Putrifiers Hyper-Blight Grenades and the all-grenade overwatch strategem? I plan to run my Death Guard as mechanized infantry with loads of vehicles and fun things, and minimal use of poxwalkers/ cultists.

I know that's not the best route, so I may as well find out how to make the best of Plague Marines

 Thadin wrote:

 Dovis wrote:

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

Went from one of the worst units in the game to downright OP in some combos, you can pump mortal wounds in double digits with them under certain circumstances, no one is safe from Plague marines after codex

Not to doubt you, but how do you pour out that many mortal wounds? Is it involving heavy use of special character auras, stratagems and such? Like, the Biologis Putrifiers Hyper-Blight Grenades and the all-grenade overwatch strategem? I plan to run my Death Guard as mechanized infantry with loads of vehicles and fun things, and minimal use of poxwalkers/ cultists.

I know that's not the best route, so I may as well find out how to make the best of Plague Marines

Yes, I imagine that's what he meant - minimum of 5D6 grenade hits each potentially causing a mortal wound on a 6+. Can also use a Foul Blightspawn with a Biologis Purifier to get a 2D6 hyper-blight grenade. Feel like Blight Launchers are a great choice - though it's worth noting that since the champion can get a plasma gun, you can have three plasma guns in a min-sized squad of five.

Death Guard are a very, very good army. Have played against them as Black Legion and had a hard time keeping it close. Mortarion is a beast and the right buffs mean he can easily kill squads of Terminators each round.

I would like to see them in action against Grey Knights and Ynarri before really making up my mind. But I can see them winning some tournaments.

Ive had some diffculty grey knights. what ive found are the strongest units for Chaos are daemons. DG has Morty, DPs and plaguedrones (and a CSM detachment of MoS Oblits too) are very good but the GKs spam 3 mortal wounds per smite and every unit even landraiders can cast it. Daemons drop like flys

GK Land Raiders can cast smite? How does that work?

Crap did i get duped? Buddy said all his units were psykers even the landraider. He read some special rule that sounded legit at the time. Was he wrong?

Land raiders are not psykers.

Most everything else is, but I believe the only VEHICULAR psyker are the dreads.

Sorry to hijack the thread, I agree that DG are in a pretty solid place right now...

But it's pretty hilarious this guy's mate convinced him that land raiders were psykers. Metal Bawks going super saiyan and zapping daemons is just too good. No disrespect to either of you

 JNAProductions wrote:
Land raiders are not psykers.

Most everything else is, but I believe the only VEHICULAR psyker are the dreads.

Indeed. Have the codex in front of me and the only non infantry units that are psykers are Dreadnoughts (incl. Venerable) and Dreadknight (guess technically not a vehicle)

On topic, Plague Marines got a huge bump in the DG codex. They won't carry the game for you though but as fulfilling the role as troops they do well. Camping objectives in cover with some psychic support they can be extremely hard to remove with a 2+ and 5+++ (love me some plague surgeon to reroll 1's as I somehow always go from a bunch of 1's to a bunch of 5's )

Had a game last night where I loaded up 2, 5 man units in a rhino (both units had 2 meltas and champ with combi-melta) rhino sped around and they would disembark near enemy heavy armour, advance and still fire hitting on 3+ makes for some surprisingly quick anti-armour, once the enemy land raiders were wrecks they jumped back in the rhinos and sped around to grab late game objectives! That rhino pimp wagon basically won me the game, only lost a few marines from those units too. Obviously this won't work every game but just goes to show that they are excellent troop units that support the rest of the army elite that does the heavy lifting. Inclusion of a few key stratagems and powers really boosts their effectiveness

 NurglesR0T wrote:
On topic, Plague Marines got a huge bump in the DG codex. They won't carry the game for you though but as fulfilling the role as troops they do well.

They are the absolute worst troop choice out of the five presented in the codex, you can maybe justify a unit for the grenade stratagem but that's literally it. They are overcosted for objective campers, don't even do it that well, lack firepower, aren't even the most durable troop choice, and are all round just not good. The assault loadout is okayish with the grenade stratagem as well, so that's the only reason I'd ever run them if I were trying to win.

I have no idea why people are voting good. I assume still getting used to the army.

Your opinion.

Pox Walkers and Cultists fall over to a stiff breeze, to say that Plague Marines are less durable is laughable.

You might not think they are good, but they compliment the rest of my list and I haven't had a game yet since the DG codex was released where I thought to myself "I wish I had no plague marines"

They are most certainly not a unit that on their own will carry the game for you, but any unit that is the definition of balance issues.

 NurglesR0T wrote:
Your opinion.

Pox Walkers and Cultists fall over to a stiff breeze, to say that Plague Marines are less durable is laughable

Do you want an actual breakdown of common weapons, with the different units? For example, PM are less durable for points against heavy bolters and assault cannons than normal cultists. In cover, they do about the same versus said weapons. PM are also obviously less durable to plasma and similar weapons. The do better against AP 0 generally, though against str 5 AP 0 it's fairly close as you might gather from the above heavy bolter in cover comparison, but they really excel when they have cover vs AP-0.

So yeah, they are roughly on par with cultists durability wise, ppm. For a barebones squad. You start sinking points into weapon upgrades and well... those PM are no longer very efficient at holding objectives.

Also note... this was a comparison to cultists. We start talking about actual durable infantry like plaguebearers and it gets kinda sad.

This isn't just my opinion, this is basically what everyone discussing PM pretty much ended up concluding. We've discussed it to death over in the tactics section.

I'm not experienced enough to state anything other than 'meh' I find that I'm more Tic-tac Genie than Tactical Genius but DR is solid. I kinda wish I wasn't made to feel like I should have Typhus whenever I plop down some poxwalkers though.

Beside that my only gripe is the pace of the release and price of the plague marines

 SpinCycleDreadnought wrote:
I'm not experienced enough to state anything other than 'meh' I find that I'm more Tic-tac Genie than Tactical Genius but DR is solid. I kinda wish I wasn't made to feel like I should have Typhus whenever I plop down some poxwalkers though.

Beside that my only gripe is the pace of the release and price of the plague marines

Oh trust me, you shouldn't feel the need to use typhus with poxwalkers, poxwalkers and typhus is an absolute trap. It forces one or both units to do something they really aren't meant to do, wasting their potential and hurting your army far more than his buff could ever help it. A lot of options like that in the codex tbh. The plague apothecary and blight haulers both fall into the category of synergy that doesn't actually synergies and just wastes points.

SilverAlien wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
Your opinion.

Pox Walkers and Cultists fall over to a stiff breeze, to say that Plague Marines are less durable is laughable

Do you want an actual breakdown of common weapons, with the different units? For example, PM are less durable for points against heavy bolters and assault cannons than normal cultists. In cover, they do about the same versus said weapons. PM are also obviously less durable to plasma and similar weapons. The do better against AP 0 generally, though against str 5 AP 0 it's fairly close as you might gather from the above heavy bolter in cover comparison, but they really excel when they have cover vs AP-0.

So yeah, they are roughly on par with cultists durability wise, ppm. For a barebones squad. You start sinking points into weapon upgrades and well... those PM are no longer very efficient at holding objectives.

Also note... this was a comparison to cultists. We start talking about actual durable infantry like plaguebearers and it gets kinda sad.

This isn't just my opinion, this is basically what everyone discussing PM pretty much ended up concluding. We've discussed it to death over in the tactics section.

HOLD THE PHONE! You're telling me that a bare-bones screening unit that is spammed has more survivability then an elite level troop? Wow, just wow; I have never seen that to be the case in 40k... Back to seriousland, how about we do this comparison with every elite troop option and see how much water your argument holds. Now if your point was "GW overestimates the added survivability of T5 and DR due to the new wound table and the plethora of multi-wound weapons, therefore plague marines deserve a slight point reduction," I'd be open to the concept but to flat out say never pick plague marines because cultists exists...... is a joke..... right? right??????

I have played 10 games (give or take), messing around with the various troops in the codex, and not once have the plague marines let me down because *SPOILER ALERT* I don't expect them to do the same thing as a blob screen / back-of-the-table objective camper nor have I ever run them that way. If your entire basis for running a unit or not is solely dependent on it being top tier in one of 3 categories, sorry to say, but that's your opinion. They synergize with everything in the army and fill a utilitarian role perfectly. I honestly never thought I'd see the day where a 5 man unit with 3 plasma's was considered "lacking firepower." Now I agree that for camping objectives Plaguebearers do it better but the scope of this thread is wider and I wish your view of plague marines were too so we don't have to see you post the same thing every time they are mentioned.

I digress, I would rate plague marines between good and meh (read "ok") right now. The point reduction did help and their loadout options are certainly cool but the biggest thing holding plague marines back is that DG is a very "elite" army with 3 (maybe 4) very cheap screening / blob units and Plague Marines are not among them. If you treat them this way you should have solid results with them. I've been running 2 squads of 5 with plasma guns at 2k and liked what I've seen from them but I have a hard time fitting more in. Can't speak to the melee variants because that is absolutely unappealing to me.

 Raphael the Raven wrote:
I have played 10 games (give or take), messing around with the various troops in the codex, and not once have the plague marines let me down because *SPOILER ALERT* I don't expect them to do the same thing as a blob screen / back-of-the-table objective camper nor have I ever run them that way. If your entire basis for running a unit or not is solely dependent on it being top tier in one of 3 categories, sorry to say, but that's your opinion. They synergize with everything in the army and fill a utilitarian role perfectly. I honestly never thought I'd see the day where a 5 man unit with 3 plasma's was considered "lacking firepower." Now I agree that for camping objectives Plaguebearers do it better but the scope of this thread is wider and I wish your view of plague marines were too so we don't have to see you post the same thing every time they are mentioned.

I digress, I would rate plague marines between good and meh (read "ok") right now. The point reduction did help and their loadout options are certainly cool but the biggest thing holding plague marines back is that DG is a very "elite" army with 3 (maybe 4) very cheap screening / blob units and Plague Marines are not among them. If you treat them this way you should have solid results with them. I've been running 2 squads of 5 with plasma guns at 2k and liked what I've seen from them but I have a hard time fitting more in. Can't speak to the melee variants because that is absolutely unappealing to me.

Well... cultists actually have compareable firepower to PM with plasma for cost, but are more durable. And have compareable durability to barebones plague marines, but more firepower. PM are still pretty overcosted it is sad to say.

To give an example, 34 cultists cost about the same as a 5 man squad with 3 plasma guns. The cultists put about the same damage vs even terminators and rhinos unless the PM overcharge and always put out more damage vs MEQ or weaker even if the PM overcharge. Hilariously they actually aren't that far behind overcharged plasma PM vs even a landraider.

So again, a kitted out PM squad has compareable firepower to barebones cultists, worse against MEQ or better, better versus TEQ and vehicles if they overcharge, about the same everywhere else. They are also much more fragile. A barebones plague marine squad, as discussed above has compareable durability, but their firepower isn't even a fourth of the cultists'.

For pure durability, go plaguebearers. For durability and anti infantry, go cultists. if you want anti tank, look to other slots than troops, in a fan of the new crawler for example. PM just don't really have much of a role in our army though.

Did you factor in cover and morale while calculating cultist's durability?

GhostRecon wrote:

 Thadin wrote:

 Dovis wrote:

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
The codex has been out for a couple weeks and im curious about how they are performing.

Went from one of the worst units in the game to downright OP in some combos, you can pump mortal wounds in double digits with them under certain circumstances, no one is safe from Plague marines after codex

Not to doubt you, but how do you pour out that many mortal wounds? Is it involving heavy use of special character auras, stratagems and such? Like, the Biologis Putrifiers Hyper-Blight Grenades and the all-grenade overwatch strategem? I plan to run my Death Guard as mechanized infantry with loads of vehicles and fun things, and minimal use of poxwalkers/ cultists.

I know that's not the best route, so I may as well find out how to make the best of Plague Marines

Yes, I imagine that's what he meant - minimum of 5D6 grenade hits each potentially causing a mortal wound on a 6+. Can also use a Foul Blightspawn with a Biologis Purifier to get a 2D6 hyper-blight grenade. Feel like Blight Launchers are a great choice - though it's worth noting that since the champion can get a plasma gun, you can have three plasma guns in a min-sized squad of five.

Thats pretty much exactly it

To add:

You should also always use the veterans of the long war stratagem, to get those mortal wouds of on 5+, with plague weapon rerolls wtihs would result in 40% of your wound rols turning into mortal wounds in addition to normal damage

Is there some rule that allows to throw more than 1 grenade per squad?

 koooaei wrote:
Is there some rule that allows to throw more than 1 grenade per squad?

Blight Bombardment Stratagem. Everybody in the unit with a grenade gets to toss one instead of just the single model.

But can you use another strategem - VoTLW - if you've allready used Blight bombardment? I thought there's something like 1 strategem per phase.

You can't use the same strategem more then once per phase, nothing to stop you using 2 seperate strategems in the same phase.

Oh, got it. Than you'll be statistically dealing around 4 mortal wounds per 5 marines for 2 cp. Also, a bunch of regular wounds too. Might really want to try 10-man squads specifically for this combo. But it won't be easy to get into position when the opponent realises what's going on.

Played my DG yesterday against a GK army.bad match up I'd say. Tried my fluffy DG list with Plague Marines, pox walkers, spawn, and Rhinos. Opponent brought 2 Ravens, dread knights, and lots of strike squads and heavy weapons squads.

Overall the Plagues were durable but even with 3 plasma guns didn't have the damage output necessary.

My take away from the game was: min unit of 5, take 3 plasma guns. Powerfists only in a bigger unit of 7+.

Also, my melta guns have never worked out for my PM, rhino or not, they never get close enough. I will probably be sticking with cheap cultists and pox walkers as troop and just allying in Oblits etc for heavy weapons.

SilverAlien wrote:

Well... cultists actually have compareable firepower to PM with plasma for cost, but are more durable. And have compareable durability to barebones plague marines, but more firepower. PM are still pretty overcosted it is sad to say.

To give an example, 34 cultists cost about the same as a 5 man squad with 3 plasma guns. The cultists put about the same damage vs even terminators and rhinos unless the PM overcharge and always put out more damage vs MEQ or weaker even if the PM overcharge. Hilariously they actually aren't that far behind overcharged plasma PM vs even a landraider.

So again, a kitted out PM squad has compareable firepower to barebones cultists, worse against MEQ or better, better versus TEQ and vehicles if they overcharge, about the same everywhere else. They are also much more fragile. A barebones plague marine squad, as discussed above has compareable durability, but their firepower isn't even a fourth of the cultists'.

For pure durability, go plaguebearers. For durability and anti infantry, go cultists. if you want anti tank, look to other slots than troops, in a fan of the new crawler for example. PM just don't really have much of a role in our army though.

Plague marines fighting cultists is the worst matchup for them and even still they kill off 8 cultists vs plague marines losing 2 models depending on who goes first. So plague marines kill off 32 points of models if they go first and cultists killing off 38 points of models. This assumes double tap range for both, the morale roll is a 4, and everything else is averages. So no your exaggerated survivability math doesn't hold up even against the worst matchup for plague marines. I'll gladly take both and appreciate the synergy from stratagems, characters, and psychic powers that plague marines bring to the table any day. I'm not sure why you feel the need to keep saying BAREBONES cultists. That's how they come, with a heavy stubber and the comparison is point for point efficiency not whether we took upgrades or not. You're using semantics and exaggerations to make a case that is much more gray and not nearly as obvious as you would have everyone believe.

You completely ignored the first paragraph which was the entire point and exaggerated their lack of survivability while never addressing the point of synergy. We can agree to disagree but saying that everyone that voted differently then you about the viability of plague marines falls into "I assume still getting used to the army" category is not only wrong but it's condescending.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Played my DG yesterday against a GK army.bad match up I'd say. Tried my fluffy DG list with Plague Marines, pox walkers, spawn, and Rhinos. Opponent brought 2 Ravens, dread knights, and lots of strike squads and heavy weapons squads.

Overall the Plagues were durable but even with 3 plasma guns didn't have the damage output necessary.

My take away from the game was: min unit of 5, take 3 plasma guns. Powerfists only in a bigger unit of 7+.

Also, my melta guns have never worked out for my PM, rhino or not, they never get close enough. I will probably be sticking with cheap cultists and pox walkers as troop and just allying in Oblits etc for heavy weapons.

Yeah that def is a bad matchup. I wouldn't judge them too harshly based on the list you fought. I've had better luck taking a single Rhino and 7 plague marines with 3 plasmas and either a blightspawn or putrifier to cause havoc among enemy lines. Not a fan of meltas because, as far as dedicated anti tank goes, there's much more in our book that can do it better.

SilverAlien wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
Your opinion.

Pox Walkers and Cultists fall over to a stiff breeze, to say that Plague Marines are less durable is laughable

Do you want an actual breakdown of common weapons, with the different units? For example, PM are less durable for points against heavy bolters and assault cannons than normal cultists. In cover, they do about the same versus said weapons. PM are also obviously less durable to plasma and similar weapons. The do better against AP 0 generally, though against str 5 AP 0 it's fairly close as you might gather from the above heavy bolter in cover comparison, but they really excel when they have cover vs AP-0.

So yeah, they are roughly on par with cultists durability wise, ppm. For a barebones squad. You start sinking points into weapon upgrades and well... those PM are no longer very efficient at holding objectives.

Also note... this was a comparison to cultists. We start talking about actual durable infantry like plaguebearers and it gets kinda sad.

This isn't just my opinion, this is basically what everyone discussing PM pretty much ended up concluding. We've discussed it to death over in the tactics section.

So.. in cover against a heavy bolter the PM get a 3+ save and 5+DR, whilst cultists... get nothing?? Yeah, I can totally see how they are much more survivable

Plaguebearers are great units. I usually field a unit of 20-30 to screen units. But they have no way of dealing with vehicles and suited for a different purpose that Plague Marines are used for.

PM's are tougher, have the option for specialised weapons for any situation barring long range anti-tank which the army theme as a whole suffers from. Cultists have nothing but S3 autoguns and maybe a flamer or two that you might get to shoot as long as the enemy ignores them.

If you had included my full quote you would have seen that I openly said PM will not carry the game for you on their own. They synergise with the rest of the army and provide much needed support to the rest of the heavy hitters that will do most of the work.

Maybe you've never had luck with Plague Marines. Maybe you prefer a certain army theme or playstyle that relies on culitists. Maybe you should realise that other people out there don't share your hatred for them and can find ways to make them work.

SilverAlien wrote:
Well... cultists actually have compareable firepower to PM with plasma for cost, but are more durable. And have compareable durability to barebones plague marines, but more firepower. PM are still pretty overcosted it is sad to say.

To give an example, 34 cultists cost about the same as a 5 man squad with 3 plasma guns. The cultists put about the same damage vs even terminators and rhinos unless the PM overcharge and always put out more damage vs MEQ or weaker even if the PM overcharge. Hilariously they actually aren't that far behind overcharged plasma PM vs even a landraider.

so assuming all 34 are in the forever vacuum range (always funny how units never have LOS or range issues in these examples huh?) that's 68 shots, 34 hits, 11ish wounds, 2 failed saves - yep, I agree with you that's comparable to firing 3 plasma guns. However, mathhammer aside the Plague Marines in a real game situation will stand a much better chance of surviving the counterblow from those remaining terminators, the cultists will have no chance at all.

It's easy to spit out numbers to support hypothetical dice rolling, but when you look at the rest of the army rules, stratagems and supporting units and the actual setup of a game board with terrain and tactics there is much more to consider.

The more I look at plague marines the more flexible they seem. While they won't be a shooting unit to reckon with, they can be armed to the teeth for CC, and have a good amount of special weapons for a bit of ranged support.

On paper they look good as MSU, and as a blob with character support. In my previous games they have done well. The flails are pretty awesome anti infantry. I don't think PM will be gamebreaking or anything, but I do really like the flexibility they have for how they preform on the table.