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In the days of the Great Crusade, the Primarch Mortarion took pride in his Legion's ability to command terrain. When the doughty warriors of the Death Guard seized a position, no foe could force them from it. When they sought to claim a vantage point, any resistance was torn asunder by the relentless onslaught of these fearless death-traders. When ground was of no value, Mortarion himself would command it to be discarded, deploying the bane-weapons of radiation, alchemy, and plague that even the Imperium feared, turning the battlefield into a No Man's Land that only his troops could endure. Slow, steady, and irresistable, the doctrine of the Emperor's Reaper placed little emphasis on the swift strikes of bikes, skimmers, or jump-troops - but his ingenious warriors found uses for them regardless.

Equipped with bulky, cylindrical jump packs that traded power for reliability, the Raptors of the XIV Legion were vanguard fighters who faced a shocking rate of attrition, as much from their role in breaking enemy fortifications as the deadly, horrifying weaponry they bore into the field. Hovering in the skies on their robust-but-brutal wings, these warriors identified and descended on points of resistance in a cloak of promethium fumes, jump-engines wheezing like dying men. Even as their targets' eyes turned skyward, the so-called "Smogwing" would unleash acid gas bombs, phosphex showers, hyperbacterial bombardments, and gouts of adhesive flame, opening the way for their brothers to advance into a hellscape the foe could no longer survive.

In the millenia since, the Smogwing have become the feared right arm of the Legion's Biologi, bearing their experimental concoctions and bioweapons into battle on a thousand worlds. Far from the glee common to Nurgle's followers, Smogwing Grenadiers are known to be grimly professional, carefully documenting the precise effects of each new pestilence with regard to different targets, climates, and delivery systems. Many form warrior-cults around a particular Biologus Putrifier, such as the Cult of the Withering Flame or the Ushers to the Devil-Bug, each convinced that they will be the one to perfect the form of death.

Smogwing Grenadiers (Fast Attack, Power Rating 8)

Smogwing Grenadier: M 10", WS 3+, BS 3+, S4, T5, W1, A1, Ld 7, Sv 3+
Smogwing Champion: M 10", WS 3+, BS 3+, S4, T5, W1, A1, Ld 8, Sv 3+

This unit contains 4 Smogwing Grenadiers and one Smogwing Champion. It can include up to 2 additional Smogwing Grenadiers (Power Rating +3), up to 5 additional Smogwing Grenadiers (Power Rating +7), or up to 10 additional Smogwing Grenadiers (Power Rating +13). Each model is armed with two plague knives, blight grenades and krak grenades.

Wargear Options

The Smogwing Champion may take a plaguesword and/or replace one plague knife with a power fist.

Any model can take a bubotic axe and/or a mace of contagion.

Any model can replace one plague knife with a blight launcher, a plague spewer or a plague belcher.

Up to two models can replace one plague knife with a great plague cleaver or a flail of corruption.

Abilities

Death to the False Emperor: See Codex: Death Guard.

Disgustingly Resilient: See Codex: Death Guard.

Vector of Desolation: A SMOGWING GRENADIER armed with two plague knives adds 1 to its Attacks characteristic.

Wings of Choking Death: During deployment, you can set up this unit high in the skies instead of placing it on the battlefield. At the end of any of your Movement phases the unit can descend on the battlefield – set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" away from any enemy models.

Blightbringers: Increase the Range characteristic of all Grenade weapons carried by this unit by 6". Enemy units hit by Grenade weapons from this unit do not receive the benefits of cover until the start of their next turn.

Bane-Weapon Bombardment: When this unit shoots at an enemy unit it moved over in its previous Movement phase, its attacks automatically hit. On a turn this unit was set up using the Wings of Choking Death ability, it instead receives this benefit against all enemy units within 12".

Keywords

Faction: CHAOS, NURGLE, HERETIC ASTARTES, DEATH GUARD

Keywords: INFANTRY, JUMP PACK, FLY, SMOGWING GRENADIERS

Points Costs

Smogwing Grenadier: 18pts

Smogwing Champion: 18pts

Bane-Weapon Bombardment feels like it's a setup for a timing argument over whether it works on overwatch, and the whole unit feels like it's a setup for a more efficient Blight Bombardment combo.

The unit feels unfocused and packed with redundant options; Blight Bombardment, Blightbringers, and Bane-Weapon Bombardment seems to render the flamer-equivalents sort of irrelevant, giving them 1A and then adding an entire special rule to give them 2A if you don't buy any more options makes buying special melee weapons wildly inefficient, so for practical purposes the only things the squad does are serve as a Blight Bombardment vehicle or serve as a pseudo-Havoc squad hauling Plague Launchers.

I'd suggest giving the squad 2A, a plague knife, and some kind of light grenade launcher (say 18"/Assault d3/S3/AP0/D1/Plague Weapon or 18"/Assault 1/S6/AP-1/Dd3/Plague Weapon at ~5-7pts) as default loadout, and drop all the special rules aside for Wings of Choking Death, then allowing any model to trade their grenade launcher for a Blight Launcher or a Plaguespitter, or one of the melee weapon options. As to stratagem interaction the mark target/ignore cover feels like a more appropriate thing to make a stratagem rather than building the unit around doing damage with a stratagem and giving them a situational support ability as a basic ability on profile.

A whole bunch of good points there - thank you for being so thorough. I'll need to have a ground-up rethink for these boys, though I'd rather avoid outright introducing new weapons...