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I like Death Guard for their durability on the battlefield, but i also like knights (DG can have them too) and assassins and inquisition.
So if i should pick an imperial army that are hard to kill that can use assassins and inquisition which army should i pick?

Iron Hands Inrercessors with a Chief Apothecary. Add a couple of vehicles including a dread to use the Iron Stone and Duty Eternal on.

Custodes? 2+ save with 4++ army wide, 3 wounds on basic Infantry.

Iron Hands. Both in the lore and on the table right now.

 Stux wrote:
Custodes? 2+ save with 4++ army wide, 3 wounds on basic Infantry.

Pretty much this if you're looking for sheer tough to kill individual models. A Custodes with stormshield is T5, 2+/3++ (1+ in cover, which custodies can really easily do), combined in a -1 to hit banner in a bubble. Welcome to your new masters of never f'ing dying ever. (I joke of course, whilst anti tank is quite cost inefficient against your bulwarks of Golden rage, Space Marines can leverage a frankly unfun amount of ap1-2 dice at you.)

Point for point, there's nothing imperial that is as durable as Death Guard. The closest is probably Iron Hands or Salamanders, as they have defensive traits. But those won't rival the full t5, 5+++ of Death Guard.

Custodes play and fell very much like Death Guard. If you want pox walker/cultist equivalents you'd probably have to look towards guard (competitive) or sisters of silence(fluffy).

Having spent a fair bit of time piloting Custodes, I have to say they don't feel particulary tough. Sure individual models take a bit of work to remove, but you have so few of them that the army as a whole doesn't have much staying power and unlike Marines (post Codex 2.0 anyway) they don't have enough firepower to compensate unless you're willing to jump into the Forge World side of things.

If you want something Imperial that doesn't feel like it's made out of cardboard I'd recommend Imperial Knights or a big pile of Leman Russ tanks, with Guardsmen to block out board space either way.

As said, Iron Hands Intercessors with Iron Father and Chief Apothecary is the obvious candidate.

Basic bataillon would be:

Iron Father Feirros
Captain or Lieutenant or something (or even a Librarian to cast Psysteel armour on a unit each turn, if it's really just durability above else).
3x 10 Intercessors
Chief Apothecary with Father of the Future WL trait

Perhaps add a hidden mortis/venerable Dread as a character while you're at it.

That's a pretty hard-to-shift core. Add your allies to taste.


Probably not at it's most hyper-tournament-optimized with allies, but it fits your requirements very well.

I will go a little out there and say IG Bullgryn spam. Lots of 2+, 4++ with psychic support to give -1 to hit, +1 to saves, plus the stratagem for another +1 to save (go to ground).

Not exactly DG, but a little different from what others are saying.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will read up on Iron Hands, but one question in that regard. Is it only now they are tough or were they tough in previous editions as well?

Ig sounds fun as well combined with knight and assassins. Not durable per se, but seen those bullgryns take a beating

Iron Hands all the way - mechanically from a game perspective they do everything that DG does but much, much better

zaible wrote:
Thanks for the replies everyone. I will read up on Iron Hands, but one question in that regard. Is it only now they are tough or were they tough in previous editions as well?

I think it's pretty recent. I had never seen an Iron Hands army before their supplement was released, then suddenly they became seemingly the most popular chapter of Space Marines. Meta chasing is a real thing it seems.