Tips on a new player's DeathGuard army and picking the next assault focused army

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Blastum**

Hey gang!

So I am finally playing 40K after being out of miniature warfare for 15 years. My last edition was 5th edition barely and you can imagine the catch up I am playing with 9th edition.

We just had our first (750pt) game yesterday with my Death Guard Army and my friend's newly built Thousand Sons. I have painted the majority of my army and it is one part the 8th edition kit models along with several purchases along the way. We had a blast and I got my ass handed to me due to his psychers.

So here is my question. Given that I use to be an ORKS player (Cult of Speed & Goffs), I found myself longing to get into assault with my Bloated Drones and Plague Marines. So I am at a cross roads, any ideas on how to rig my Death Guard to be assault driven.

And, also, if I were to go with another army that is "assaulty" and not brutal on the pocketbook, what do you recommend?

**Sgt. Cortez**

It's totally viable to play DG CC oriented. Between PMs with axes and flails, Helbrutes with scourge, Defiler, Drone with Mower, Terminators, Mortarion, Tallyman, Daemon Prince, Typhus and Poxwalkers you have plenty of options. Don't take all of these at once, though, you should always have some supporting fire that takes a little pressure of your CC units. Crawlers are decent to do that, small units of PM with Plasma or Blight launchers, too. Also support your marching infantry with Blight Haulers, they got a nice points decrease, too.
If you don't have War of the Spider yet, I'd suggest it as it gives the army a lot of tricks and puts it on a whole new level.

**Huron black heart**

You could try swamping him with poxwalkers, he won't like having to waste his smites on your chaff, then hit him with second wave of plague marines with flails and axes backed up by daemon princes, bloat drones and crawlers

**Blastum**

Oh man....thats sounds brutal. What is War of Spider? Also what stratagems do you recommend?

**pesusieni999**

Psychic Awakening is a series of supplement books for different factions that came during 8th edition and are still valid in 9th edition. War of the Spider book is one of them and contains the updates for Death Guard. I recommend you get your hands on the list of stratagems, relics, traits and plague companies from the book.

Poxwalkers got a bit of a nerf in the transition from 8th to 9th. Some people are currently speculating on the validity of Plague Marines as they got relatively small increase in points cost. In addition, the War of the Spider gave a ton of stratagems for them. Another unit some people really like is Blightlord Terminators. Flails of Corruption seem to be quite good if you get to close combat. Plague Marines with bolters can now be quite deadly in CC and you can also give them Bubotic Axes for added power.

1d4chan has a tactics page for Death Guard where some of the stuff is a bit old, but some newer https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Death_Guard_(9E). It lists the different stratagems and tactics. I am going to try out running bolter plague marines supported by a few characters and stratagems (see the list in the spoilers for current plan).

Spoiler:

**Blastum**

Love the feedback. Will check it all out! Thanks!

**Slayer-Fan123**

Plague Marines are garbage for melee, do not listen to the above posters. All the effort used to try and get them to melee is NOT worth the pitiful attacks (they're base A1 unless you forgo ALL shooting), especially for a prolonged combat, which granted doesn't happen often.
Blightlords are a lot better, especially if the rumor of all Terminators getting an extra wound is true.

**pesusieni999**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Plague Marines are garbage for melee, do not listen to the above posters. All the effort used to try and get them to melee is NOT worth the pitiful attacks (they're base A1 unless you forgo ALL shooting), especially for a prolonged combat, which granted doesn't happen often.
Blightlords are a lot better, especially if the rumor of all Terminators getting an extra wound is true.

I am not saying they are super good at melee, but I think people are testing if they are decent at least with the bare equipment. You are paying 18pts for the bolter marine that can be supported by strats in both melee and shooting. Hateful assault gives you +1 attack on charge and the trench-fighters gives another +1. Nothing compared to SoB Repentia for example, but not a total pushover either. Especially if you get to hit first due to Foul Blightspawn being near. That should clear at least some chaff that might be charging PM. And if enemy charges with something more heavy weight, I am more than happy they are wasting that stuff on PM and not on the DP, Blightlords or PBC.

**Blastum**

pesusieni999 wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Plague Marines are garbage for melee, do not listen to the above posters. All the effort used to try and get them to melee is NOT worth the pitiful attacks (they're base A1 unless you forgo ALL shooting), especially for a prolonged combat, which granted doesn't happen often.
Blightlords are a lot better, especially if the rumor of all Terminators getting an extra wound is true.

I am not saying they are super good at melee, but I think people are testing if they are decent at least with the bare equipment. You are paying 18pts for the bolter marine that can be supported by strats in both melee and shooting. Hateful assault gives you +1 attack on charge and the trench-fighters gives another +1. Nothing compared to SoB Repentia for example, but not a total pushover either. Especially if you get to hit first due to Foul Blightspawn being near. That should clear at least some chaff that might be charging PM. And if enemy charges with something more heavy weight, I am more than happy they are wasting that stuff on PM and not on the DP, Blightlords or PBC.

So perhaps I can just play my Death Guard army as a shooter army with some assault capability with Blightlords. I am cool with that.

The question then remains...

What other army is recommended for assault?

For transparency, I had a 10K point ORK army in 2003. It was awesome in assault with the 2nd edition Choppa rules. However, it was a chore to move an army of such magnitude. So I am looking for a smaller model count.

Thoughts?

**Sumilidon**

Smaller model count assault army can be achievable with most armies these days if you stick to the non-troop options or just min squad them. Eg:

Tyranids with mostly monsters
Chaos Marines with mostly Daemon Engines

You also have the usual Marine suspects, Blood Angels and Space Wolves who will always remain quite good because they are marines.