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Hey guys I'm making a list and I have enough points to add either an

Alpha Legion Predator - Full Lascannon
or
A Plagueburst Crawler - mortar, dual entropy, can't remember last weapon loadout

There are definitely benefits to both in my eyes but I can't choose.

The Predator- (positive) - would have -1 to hit if they are 12" away, Full lascannon setup is nice, great range - (negative) - the damage is random

Plagueburst - (positive) - lots of weapon options for long range and shorter range damage, invun save, FNP, can shoot mortar without line of sight, I would save enough points with this option to throw in a 10 man squad of cultists. - (negative) - amount of shots and damage is random for the mortar, mortar cannot shoot at units that are close then 12"

FYI I'm already running one Alpha Legion Predator so this will be the second armor for my list on the battlefield.

Alpha Legion traits only apply to infantry, helbrutes and bikers. So no -1 to hit.

PC is way more durable and I wouldn't be surprised to see it get a point increase in the future. The PC damage output might be slightly lower primarily due to BS4.

Melta 3+ EQ

Pred - 1 * .5 * .666 * 3.5 = 1.2 PC - 1 * .666 * .5 * .666 * 3.5 * .666 = 0.5

LC 3+ EQ

Pred - 1 * .5 * .666 * 3.5 = 1.2 PC - 1 * .666 * .666 * .666 * 3.5 * .666 = 0.7

if you're not running the 3 predator stratagem then this isn't even a competition, plagueburst is better in almost every way. As long as your have fodder to keep your enemies at greater than 12" away then you just destroy them, it's t8 instead of 7 and has more wounds, AND is cheaper. At the end of the day it depends on your meta though, do you have a lot of anti armor coming at you? Or do you face a lot of assault armies? Or does the opposition have a lot of armor, al factors to the answer of this question, but in general I know I'd choose the crawler if you're going death guard.

Crawler is so much better it's not even funny

I have always been very much anti tank, preferring Infantry, but I too have been debating this very question.

I would say PBC for the invul and even better Disgustingly Resilient which are invaluable to survivability. Remember, being a fire magnet is just as viable as killing tanks outright. I play a list with double daemon princes, bloat drones, plague drones, and Obliterators, all prime targets for high damage weapons. Anything to divert fire is a godsend.

My inky antitank in my DG list is a Land Raider, which I can take 2 PBC for the same cost!

My plan is to park it near an obj to camp and lob shells. For the actual $, two is about the same cost as Mortarion or a GUO.

Now the real debate becomes.... Entropy or spitters. I might do one and one.

WOOOOW you guys are awesome. Thanks so much for your help! I have tons of fodder to keep alpha strike or anything else away from the tanks. Thanks for mentioning the Alpha legion trait doesn't work again armor.

Looks like I will be running double Plaguecrawlers and save a bunch of points

You guys rock!

Also whats your opinions on Obliterators? I think they are a nice Alpha strike backline unit, but its it work giving up a Plaguecrawler and the extra points? In my opinion no but again I'm on the fence.

Also i will post my experimental list when I done. I will be playing UM with possibly GK mixed, Bobby G will be there and possibly a Knight. Also possibilities are 1 or 2 NDK's.

Plagueburst crawler are much, much, much better. They are so good that you can expect a 30 points (or more) increase in the next balance adjustment. And the flamers are better than the entropy cannons, I think.

The alpha legion trait does not work on vehicles.

BS4 on the PBC kills it for me. Others wear by them.

Take a chaos lord with a fungaris helm and make him your warlord. Give him the arch-contaminator trait and you can re-roll all wound rolls w/plague weapons within 10". Took my DG to LVO and it was wicked sick combo! The mortar is plague so definitely helps push out the damage, not to mention that cheap 75pt lord allows reroll of 1.

Also the only time you should be running PBC with plague spitters is if you're spamming PBC with poxbringers/DP backing them up. If you want to play offensively it is much better to take foetid-bloat drone and pay the extra 10~ pts to get the fly ability. This will deny anyone from charging you and tar pitting you. Melee PBC will get tarpitted easily with all the deep-striking, and redeployment shenanigans that is going on.

TLDR

Chaos LORD w/ funaris helm w/ arch contaminator trait
2-3 PBC run Entropy Cannonx2
5+ PBC run plague spitter

 Crastok wrote:
Take a chaos lord with a fungaris helm and make him your warlord. Give him the arch-contaminator trait and you can re-roll all wound rolls w/plague weapons within 10". Took my DG to LVO and it was wicked sick combo! The mortar is plague so definitely helps push out the damage, not to mention that cheap 75pt lord allows reroll of 1.

Also the only time you should be running PBC with plague spitters is if you're spamming PBC with poxbringers/DP backing them up. If you want to play offensively it is much better to take foetid-bloat drone and pay the extra 10~ pts to get the fly ability. This will deny anyone from charging you and tar pitting you. Melee PBC will get tarpitted easily with all the deep-striking, and redeployment shenanigans that is going on.

You can use slimux to put down gnarlmaws for that +2 to saves, and then your spitter-crawlers can fall back and shoot.

 Crastok wrote:
Take a chaos lord with a fungaris helm and make him your warlord. Give him the arch-contaminator trait and you can re-roll all wound rolls w/plague weapons within 10". Took my DG to LVO and it was wicked sick combo! The mortar is plague so definitely helps push out the damage, not to mention that cheap 75pt lord allows reroll of 1.

Also the only time you should be running PBC with plague spitters is if you're spamming PBC with poxbringers/DP backing them up. If you want to play offensively it is much better to take foetid-bloat drone and pay the extra 10~ pts to get the fly ability. This will deny anyone from charging you and tar pitting you. Melee PBC will get tarpitted easily with all the deep-striking, and redeployment shenanigans that is going on.

TLDR

Chaos LORD w/ funaris helm w/ arch contaminator trait
2-3 PBC run Entropy Cannonx2
5+ PBC run plague spitter

Very interesting. I'm going to run 2 PBC's. I will research the Lord more when I'm home and post my list

The Predator is a better choice in a narrow edge case where you're fighting central/important T8-T9 targets. If you don't face Knight armies or Marine superheavies with some regularity take the Plagueburst Crawler.

pismakron wrote:

 Crastok wrote:
Take a chaos lord with a fungaris helm and make him your warlord. Give him the arch-contaminator trait and you can re-roll all wound rolls w/plague weapons within 10". Took my DG to LVO and it was wicked sick combo! The mortar is plague so definitely helps push out the damage, not to mention that cheap 75pt lord allows reroll of 1.

Also the only time you should be running PBC with plague spitters is if you're spamming PBC with poxbringers/DP backing them up. If you want to play offensively it is much better to take foetid-bloat drone and pay the extra 10~ pts to get the fly ability. This will deny anyone from charging you and tar pitting you. Melee PBC will get tarpitted easily with all the deep-striking, and redeployment shenanigans that is going on.

You can use slimux to put down gnarlmaws for that +2 to saves, and then your spitter-crawlers can fall back and shoot.

The cover bonus doesn't apply to Vehicles or Monsters. You do get the buff for fall back and shoot / advance and shoot though.

I usually put Gnarlmaws on top of objectives and put the PBC near them. Enemy takes mortal wounds for trying to claim the objective and buffs the tanks

Here's my list, running against a friend. Means to be a fun and competitive grenade spam list. I have't sorted the psychic powers out just yet.
Death Guard Battalion Detachment:
Typhus – 175 (Miasma of Pestilence & Putrescent Vitality)
Daemon Prince with Wings – 2x Malefic Talons, Suppurating Plate – 180 (Miasma of Pestilence)
Malignant Plaguecaster - 110

20x Poxwalkers – 120
20x Poxwalkers – 120
17 Plague Marines – 11 Boltguns, 3 Bubonic Axes, 1 Flail of Corruption, 2 Blight Launchers – 336

Tallyman - 62 - Plasma Pistol
Biologus Putrifier - 74
Noxious Blightbringer - 65

PBC - 2x Entropy Cannon, Heavy Slugger - 156
PBC - 2x Entropy Cannon, Heavy Slugger - 156

Chaos Space Marine Battalion Detachment:
Alpha Legion
Sorcerer – 102 (Force Sword,Prescience and Warptime) <Mark of Nurgle>
Daemon Prince with Wings – 2x Malefic Talons – 180 (Warptime?) <Mark of Nurgle>

20x Cultists – Brutal Assault – 80 <Mark of Nurgle>
11x Cultists – Guns – 44 <Mark of Nurgle>
10x Cultists – Guns – 40 <Mark of Nurgle>

Total: 2000 - 9 CP’s

pismakron wrote:
You can use slimux to put down gnarlmaws for that +2 to saves, and then your spitter-crawlers can fall back and shoot.

The only death guard unit that can benefit from +2 cover are possessed.

If you're running obliterators then gnarlmaws make them quite amazingly difficult to shift without charging and the bonus to fallback here makes it an evil combo

Wooo I won the battle! We had a weird but I thought fun, Maestrom mission. We played mission 3 out of Chapter Approved, where you basically gamble how many objective points you would get a turn.

Unfortunately I didn't get first turn, but having DR on basically everything but Cultists helps a ton.

One of the keys to victory was keeping my giant squad of Plague Marines a live. I knew they would take a ton of shots each round. I played the stratagem, where you cannot shoot at the unit unless they were the closest. This helped a ton as I kept trying to surround them with cultists. Another stratagem that helped was returning a unit of Cultists to the bf fully replenished.

One of the highlights of the game... a Stormraven flew right towards my Marines. It unloaded Its missiles and hurricane bolters into my marines, who did have a -1 to hit buff.... it didn't take out even one! hahha

I struck back by activating all of my marines to throw blight grenades, and also +1 on wound rolls.. 45 grenades later the plane went down! lol

If I were to change anything.. I would drop a few P Marines and bump up a 10 man cultist squad to a 20 man. I would also probably drop Noxious Blightbringer for a Plague Surgeon. (if points allow)

Tallyman surprising brought 3 of my stratagems back.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Wooo I won the battle! We had a weird but I thought fun, Maestrom mission. We played mission 3 out of Chapter Approved, where you basically gamble how many objective points you would get a turn.

Unfortunately I didn't get first turn, but having DR on basically everything but Cultists helps a ton.

One of the keys to victory was keeping my giant squad of Plague Marines a live. I knew they would take a ton of shots each round. I played the stratagem, where you cannot shoot at the unit unless they were the closest. This helped a ton as I kept trying to surround them with cultists. Another stratagem that helped was returning a unit of Cultists to the bf fully replenished.

One of the highlights of the game... a Stormraven flew right towards my Marines. It unloaded Its missiles and hurricane bolters into my marines, who did have a -1 to hit buff.... it didn't take out even one! hahha

I struck back by activating all of my marines to throw blight grenades, and also +1 on wound rolls.. 45 grenades later the plane went down! lol

If I were to change anything.. I would drop a few P Marines and bump up a 10 man cultist squad to a 20 man. I would also probably drop Noxious Blightbringer for a Plague Surgeon. (if points allow)

Tallyman surprising brought 3 of my stratagems back.

Seems like a fun battle! Question, why would you drop a Nox (one of the better choices in the codex) for one of the worst (plague surgeon)? Perhaps you have found a use for the surgeon, I cant say I have,

Table wrote:

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Wooo I won the battle! We had a weird but I thought fun, Maestrom mission. We played mission 3 out of Chapter Approved, where you basically gamble how many objective points you would get a turn.

Unfortunately I didn't get first turn, but having DR on basically everything but Cultists helps a ton.

One of the keys to victory was keeping my giant squad of Plague Marines a live. I knew they would take a ton of shots each round. I played the stratagem, where you cannot shoot at the unit unless they were the closest. This helped a ton as I kept trying to surround them with cultists. Another stratagem that helped was returning a unit of Cultists to the bf fully replenished.

One of the highlights of the game... a Stormraven flew right towards my Marines. It unloaded Its missiles and hurricane bolters into my marines, who did have a -1 to hit buff.... it didn't take out even one! hahha

I struck back by activating all of my marines to throw blight grenades, and also +1 on wound rolls.. 45 grenades later the plane went down! lol

If I were to change anything.. I would drop a few P Marines and bump up a 10 man cultist squad to a 20 man. I would also probably drop Noxious Blightbringer for a Plague Surgeon. (if points allow)

Tallyman surprising brought 3 of my stratagems back.

Seems like a fun battle! Question, why would you drop a Nox (one of the better choices in the codex) for one of the worst (plague surgeon)? Perhaps you have found a use for the surgeon, I cant say I have,

I probably wouldn't do the trade if I played someone else... but if i play the same person I would make the switch and see if I like it more. I advanced once that whole game, but I was making a TON of DR rolls. He concentrated a ton of shots into the squad because its so big. I think rerolls of 1 for DR would help.

In terms of math, re-rolling ones for a 5+ roll is a 5.55% (chance to roll a 1 times chance for 5+) increased to succeed your roll.

You would need to make 72 DR rolls on plague marines to get your point investment back.

 Jidmah wrote:
In terms of math, re-rolling ones for a 5+ roll is a 5.55% (chance to roll a 1 times chance for 5+) increased to succeed your roll.

You would need to make 72 DR rolls on plague marines to get your point investment back.

Not sure how you did or found the math.. honestly don't care as much either. I read somewhere else the chance of converting 1's to 5's is about 13%.. Once again i don't care much about this number either. All I know is.. my PM's took a ton of shots and in that game a Surgeon would have helped more then a Noxious Blightbringer.. in the next game... who knows! I also have used Necrosis in the past to give the Pox walkers the same ability and then it seemed to work great. Lucky rolls maybe? Not sure.

I think it really all depends on what map we play next.

DR: 33% save rate
DR+Plague Surgeon: 38%

(1/6)*(1/3)= .05555556

1/6 is the chance of a 1. 1/3 is the change of DR. multiply the two to get the chance of a 1 into a 5+, add that to the original 1/3 from DR. Really not a good choice.

Blightbringer is great for helping poxwalkers up the board and I guess plague marines if you have blight launchers on them and need to get them moving, but that's it. Problem with the plague marines is that then the other 3 can't fire (in this imaginary 5-man squad) their rapid fire, which in a DG detachment increases their effective range by the same amount as a full 6" advance roll would

 Commissar_Rex wrote:
DR: 33% save rate
DR+Plague Surgeon: 38%

(1/6)*(1/3)= .05555556

1/6 is the chance of a 1. 1/3 is the change of DR. multiply the two to get the chance of a 1 into a 5+, add that to the original 1/3 from DR. Really not a good choice.

Blightbringer is great for helping poxwalkers up the board and I guess plague marines if you have blight launchers on them and need to get them moving, but that's it. Problem with the plague marines is that then the other 3 can't fire (in this imaginary 5-man squad) their rapid fire, which in a DG detachment increases their effective range by the same amount as a full 6" advance roll would

The way I ran in this game was pox walkers back line holding objectives and keeping units from deep striking to close. I used the Noxious Blightbringer to run the DG up the board faster, however, I only used him ability once that game. I understand that will not be the case for every game. The whole point was for me trying to get the DG as close to the enemy as quick as possible to start throwing grenades... luckily my opponent met me half way haha.

Thanks for sharing the math, but in that game a Surgeon would have helped me more. Like i said it will not be that way every game and I know that. In that game the Blightbringer didn't do a thing as I was able to start throwing grenades turn 2 and also get into melee. Turn one I rolled doubles 4 on my advance.

Tallyman also didn't do what I expected.... out of the 9 strata's I started with. he brought back 3 of them which was awesome! However, once I got into melee, the board was so littered with debris, it was difficult to get my hard hitters into melee range as I still had about 14-15 PM in combat. There regular plague daggers aren't the best melee weapons especially against a dreadnought...lol. so rerolling the failed hits wasn't anything great.

 Commissar_Rex wrote:
DR: 33% save rate
DR+Plague Surgeon: 38%

(1/6)*(1/3)= .05555556

1/6 is the chance of a 1. 1/3 is the change of DR. multiply the two to get the chance of a 1 into a 5+, add that to the original 1/3 from DR. Really not a good choice.

Blightbringer is great for helping poxwalkers up the board and I guess plague marines if you have blight launchers on them and need to get them moving, but that's it. Problem with the plague marines is that then the other 3 can't fire (in this imaginary 5-man squad) their rapid fire, which in a DG detachment increases their effective range by the same amount as a full 6" advance roll would

Plague Surgeon is quite underwhelming, which is a shame considering the concept of the model is very cool. Would have been awesome if the aura was +1 to DR, but that might be too much, going from 33% to 50% is a huge leap and an auto-include

Yeah. Might be a competitive option (not auto-include) it if it allowed a full reroll but the reroll DR required a 6+ instead of 5+?

@Comissar_Rex: You could just have him hand out another 6+++ save, that would be the same technically and a cute buff for stuff that doesn't have DR like cultist.

He is kind of difficult to balance. If his re-rolls are too good, he makes PBC and Mortarion bonkers (changeling anyone?). If he is too bad, he has no reason to be fielded.
You need to find the sweet spot in between.

Having the Plague Surgeon's buff only apply to Infantry is that balancing act.

If he had the apothecary ability to revive/heal infantry in addition to the rerolls 1 of DR, I'd definitely field him more often.

You guys forgot to mention he looks hella cool

From all the DG characters I def think he looks the slyest hahahaha