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Death guard possessed are one of the only infantry units that can have powers from the deathguard, csm and nurgle daemon disciplines cast on them. From all 3 they can get miasma of pestilence. From CSM they can have warptime, diabolic strength and prescience. From DG they can have blades of p and putrescent vitality put on them. From the Daemon codex they can have virulent blessing.

The powers all combined let them move twice, hit on 2s with 5+ DTTFE, strength 8, toughness 5, D3+1 attacks, +2 to wound rolls doing double damage on 5+ and a minus 1 to hit them.

Boosts from other models would be: Reroll 1s to hit from a chaos lord or daemon prince, reroll all hits from a tallyman, 2 dice pick the higher to advance from a blightbringer, Leadership buffs from unclean ones and bilepiper, a further +1 strength from a poxbringer, the nurgle loci doing a further +1 damage on rolls of a 6+ to wound and finally epidemius and all his perks.

Only 3 stratagems can apply to them: Cloud of flies so they can't be targeted, and veterans of the long war, a further +1 to wound rolls, and grandfather's blessing brings back a slain model on one wound.

The feculent gnarlmaws are really useful too. If they start set up on the board you'll be running the possessed with essentially 1+ saves with the ability to advance and charge. Combine this with warptime and they'll be moving and advancing twice and still be able to shoot.

The issue I'm having is tournaments only allow 3 detatchments more often than not. So if I take psykers from the 3 codexes in 3 different detatchments which is what you have to do now, I can't take a fortification to bring in the gnarlmaw, which can't be daemonically summoned. If I bring a deathguard and csm detatchment and the bring the fec from a daemon fortification detachment then I won't have the nurgle daemon buffs. If I summon a poxbringer to get the +1 strength and virulent blessing I won't get the Loci because summoned daemons aren't part of a detatchment.

Is there anyway I can get all these perks on possessed? Or is the best I can do everything listed here but the loci. It's actually a big deal because the loci would go off on wound rolls of 3+ because of the plus 3 to wounds rolls from two psychic powers and VOTLW.

If I add horticulous into my army to make a gnarlmaw then it won't be around at the start of the turn 1. That means if the opponent goes first I'll only have a 3+ save on the possessed. If I go first they can't advance and charge turn 1 because you need to start your turn next to it.

So if you were running this list for fun, not from a competitive standpoint, would you give up the loci or give up the gnarlmaw starting the game on the table and having to bring horticulous?

Thanks, hope that all made sense

Careful, Diabolical Strength only affects a single model, not the whole unit, so I usually save it for my Daemon Prince.

I think one thing you have to keep in mind is that psychic powers are not guaranteed to go off 100%. It’d be nice to have all those buffs, but Possessed are so expensive as is that it wouldn’t be the best bet to rely solely on them. Take it from someone who routinely runs a full squad of 20 in lists as low as 1000 points.

I don’t have much experience with the Daemon or Death Guard codices, but I can tell you that Alpha Legion Possessed are hilarious if things go off as planned

ravenerioli wrote:
The issue I'm having is tournaments only allow 3 detatchments more often than not. So if I take psykers from the 3 codexes in 3 different detatchments which is what you have to do now, I can't take a fortification to bring in the gnarlmaw, which can't be daemonically summoned.

Little known fact...the Battle Brothers beta matched play rule is not as restrictive as you think. As long as you share a faction keyword other than Chaos you could still take a soupy detachment if need be, provided you understand the other ramifications (like not getting access to stratagems because you lack a pure detachment for those factions, etc etc)

For instance could take a detachment with Nurgle CSM and Nurgle Daemons (then take a DG detachment for the possesed and a fort of poop trees). You won't get the faction perk, like Alpha Legion -1 to hit, and pretty sure the CSM strats are unavailable (because you lack a pure CSM detachment), but if you really want the poop tree, possesed, heralds and warptime that may be your only option.

Don't forget Epidemius, max tally is:
+1S
+1T
+1A
Re-roll 1s
+1 move

All DG daemon engines and mortarion can get most of these buffs as well.

I think with the 2 spells for +1 to wound, you can ignore a lot of the strength buffs. You would be wounding a warlord titan on 4s at that point, and basically everything else on 3s.

Downside to possessed is they have no way to re-roll wounds, and they don't have plague weapons, so putrefaction wont help with mortal wounds.


With the detachment rule, NURGLE is pretty solid for soup. If you run Epidemius lists, you wont need stratagems as much as you need the soup.

NURGLE battalion, Daemon fortification and a patrol or supreme command for whatever book you want stratagems from.