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So my friend played Black Templars, and his list needs work. I don't know space marines well enough to assist. So I'm asking for help here. I ran a single battalion of deathguard (basic stuff, 1 DP, 1 hell brute, 1 defiler, 2 PBC, 5 x 7 plague marines (all squads with 3 special weapons), and I summoned epidemus cause I wanted to and he sucked in this list). Anyhow, I got first turn, popped a landraider and he never really got to play to the strengths of his list.

I'm wondering... what is a better version of his list?

Battalion

Named Chaplain (Grim something)
10 Marines with CC

Emperor's Champion
10 Marines with CC
10 Marines on foot with Missile Launchers

3 Landspeeders (heavy bolters, Krak,Frag Missiles)

Venerable Dreadnought Twinlinked Lascannon
Venerable Dreadnought Twinlinked Lascannon
Venerable Dreadnought Twinlinked Lascannon

Land Raider Crusader (assault cannon, Multimelta)
Land Raider Crusader (assault cannon, Multimelta)

Somewhere around 2000pts 9th edition point values.

Okay Dakkites... give me your suggestions.

Has he considered getting High Marshal Helbrecht?

He might add something with his rerolls to hit and +1 str on the charge. At least he'd wound on 4s

Helbrecht... never considered. Not sure its enough. I felt that the overall firepower of this list was lacking. But I have no idea what to do about that.

With the current models, the only way I see to feasibly add fire power is to change the landspeeder weapons. You could add some specials to the space marine squads and then combat squad the close combat halves into the landraiders.

Adding special close combat weapons, powerfists and the like, to the marine squads might help too.

Combat squading is a great idea... that'll help considerably.

Personally I feel Black Templar’s are a bad match against Death Guard, especially the list he is facing. In terms of suggestions, my answer would be mobility and firepower. Big change I would make is to swap one of those land raiders for 2 of the new fire strike turrets and either a third turret or a drop pod.

I play a similar death Guard list and the priority target are those plague marines. 9th is an ObSec game and those marines are tough as nails to deal with. The new turrets will make short work of them however, allowing you to grab the objectives for the endgame outcome. Originally I would have suggested rifle dreads but they are now legacy however those new turrets will be spot on.

Death Guard also love to plod on forward, a drop pod allows a good back field drop with a durable, cheap unit that can also deliver some ObSec. A guy I play against likes to use his rifle dreads to clear an objective before dropping a drop pod later in the game to hold it when I no longer have the numbers to effectively deal with it.

In summary, D2 weapons are king against Death Guard - bring enough of them at least S6 along and the game becomes one sided.

First thing, he doesn't appear to have a battalion, that would require a second command element.
So. (I reckon you folks gave good advice, but I am bored so I will too.)
You could (even using bog standard old school tac marines) ... go with ...
MSU style units (5 each squad, x 6 squads = 30 tac marines) -- give each one a plasma rifle and combiplasma and you have already greatly enhanced the effective firewpoewr agaisnt 3+ save (2+ in cover) armored things. That at least gives a bunch of littlel shots (especially at closer range) to plink away with. Arm each sarge with a decent melee weapon as well, and now when your 10 guys step out of the landraid, they put down 8 plasma shots and 12 bolter shots, rather than 20 or so bolter shots. BIG difference in firepower against an enemy who may be lounging in +1 save cover, and its 2damage weaponry, like the man just said.

You will have to give somethign up to pay for all the spec weaps,, of course. Drop a dreadnaught to make the troops that much more effective, because it fires 2 lascannon a turn. Bang, Bang. six small squads with 2 plasma each can outperform the anti-armor role of such a pair of lascannon, easily, just like they can kill more numbers of small enemy soldiers like CSM. Now his armor has to worry abotu your landraiders getting close enough to dump 4 squads with 8 plasma out nearby, they can't just pay attention to the dreadnaughts with their anti-tank guns. Or maybe you start with the troops all in reserve and bring them in suddenly on one side of the board in a local mass -- and end up fighting half his army (and forcing him to cover the board edge all over till you do)

A second such dreadnaught removed would let you get more creative -- perhaps your force could invest in a captain as the officer to run around with. Perhaps you would do well (I don't konw if dark angels CAN use these) with that psychic awakenening special tech marine who can be upgraded to give the vehicles near him a +1 to hit.
Jog him along between the landraiders and near the remaining dreadnaught, and I think he would fill your command requirement nicely, while giving you more effective firepower on your big things.

I don't know if that's a decent idea for a marine list at all, and I am trying in my discussion to not cause you to buy LOTS more models to do this.

If you step outside "pure" marine lists,an augmented malleus inquisitor gives you a psychic punch very nicely, you can pick one up with a combimelta for 70 points and use his 2 psyk a round to smite, castigate (a sniper version of smite) or to castigate,psychic pursuit (allows the melta to fire as a sniper gun).

Six MSU squads of 5 tac mar each with combiplasma, powerfist, and plasma rifle (each) and a captain would cost you 2 dreadnaughts from the list. It would give your troops a much more flexible posture, greater shooting, greater melee, and you can bring 4 of them forward in the landraider and have 2 start in reserves. So turn 1, the enemy is starved for easy target choices, till you want to unass troops on him and start firing.

Anyway. I am sorta rambling and outside my area of expertese here, so I will stop, but I think that up arming the squads with plasma + a captain to reroll 1's would go a long way to give you better firepower -- and spread that firewpower among all your marine bodies, so its not as easy to kill with a couple melta shots hitting a single dreadnaught. Sure, you got 2 dreads less, but there would even be a few points to pass out a few close combat weapons of some sort to the MSU squads, I think. Bog standard captain, with combiplasma and powerfist, instead of 1 ven dread, I think that leaves about 40 points to play with and that could get your small squads a lot of powerswords or axes or claws or fists. or something.