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The Codex releases soon, but there are leaks out there, so Imma start this early.

A combo immediately sticks out to me-10 Blightlord Terminators with 2 Reaper Autocannons, 2 Spewers, and 2 Blight Launchers plus 4 CombiBolters, all led by a Lord Of Virulence.

Assuming you're targeting an Afflicted unit (which should be easy-a single squad of Plague Marines can easily Afflict any target within 24") you've got...
3d6 S6 AP-2 D1 hits (with Anti-INFANTRY 2+)
2d3+2Blast BS3+ S7 AP-2 D2 shots (with Lethal Hits)
8 BS3+ S8 AP-2 D1 shots (with Sustained Hits 1 and DevWounds)
16 BS3+ S5 AP-1 D1 shots (with Lethal Hits)
All rerolling wounds.

Against something that's T10+ (after the -1 Toughness from Affliction) and 2+ (which could be a 3+, if you pick the right Plague) you're dealing...

2.92 from Spewers (3.89)
1.78 from Launchers (2.37)
2.47 from Reapers (3.09)
1.70 from Bolters (2.56)

Number in parentheses is if they have a 3+ Save base or you use the right Plague.
That's a halfway dead Land Raider (3/4ths with the Plague) which is pretty nice!

Edit: Using AnyDice, Imma check to see what the odds are of toasting a Land Raider entirely, with the -1 Save Plague.

The numbers show: 11.89% chance of one-phase killing a Land Raider.
64.89% chance of getting it to bracket, though!

Speaking as a non-DG player, I've seen some of my fellow eldar players stressing out over the rule that basically gives you a 50% chance of doing mortals to afflicted units every turn. It seems like it would be relatively easy to spend a turn afflicting most of the enemy army in one go and then watching MSU armies melt?

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Speaking as a non-DG player, I've seen some of my fellow eldar players stressing out over the rule that basically gives you a 50% chance of doing mortals to afflicted units every turn. It seems like it would be relatively easy to spend a turn afflicting most of the enemy army in one go and then watching MSU armies melt?

My Knights don't like this at all. It's hard enough to dislodge DG forces... I don't need them slagging my Armigers.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Speaking as a non-DG player, I've seen some of my fellow eldar players stressing out over the rule that basically gives you a 50% chance of doing mortals to afflicted units every turn. It seems like it would be relatively easy to spend a turn afflicting most of the enemy army in one go and then watching MSU armies melt?

The exact wording of the rule is:

In your opponent's command phase, roll 2d6 for each Afflicted enemy unit, subtracting 1 from the result if that unit is Below Half-strength. If the result is 6 or less, that enemy unit suffers d3 mortal wounds.

So 41.66% chance for units that are not below half, 58.66% for those that are. There is a stratagem which allows a Lord of Virulence to make an objective marker within 30" radiate contagion and plague marines can tag you with affliction by shooting. Otherwise, it's the same contagion range game it always has been, sprinkled with infiltrating poxwalkers instead of cultists.
Edit: Forgot the new shooty drone. It can cause a 6" AoE affliction effect on a unit it shoots.

Important here is context. This is the detachment rule for the TERMINATOR detachment, all enhancements and stratagems only work for terminator units, which is blightlords, deathshroud and potentially a unit of poxwalkers lead by Typhus.
Both types of terminators have improved by a lot, and as a result will get more expensive. While anyone should know that the points in the back are worthless, it's an indicator: Blightlords go up 50 for 10, deathshrouds a whooping 110 for 6. An army focused on terminators will have a very low unit count, so the ability is more or less compensating for the much lower damage output compared to an army loaded with plague marines and vehicles.

I also think that the detachment as a whole compares poorly to others. None of the enhancements are above "I got points to spare" level and the stratagems are all quite weak. I don't think you will see that detachment often in competitive, every other options looks way better and isn't locked into terminators. But take that with a grain of salt, I have played no more than a hand full of games with Death Guard in 10th.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
The Codex releases soon, but there are leaks out there, so Imma start this early.

A combo immediately sticks out to me-10 Blightlord Terminators with 2 Reaper Autocannons, 2 Spewers, and 2 Blight Launchers plus 4 CombiBolters, all led by a Lord Of Virulence.

To me the whole codex looks like combo-land. Plague Marines with Malignant Plaguecaster and Biologus jumping from a rhino stick out as an insanely shooty unit, Lord of Contagion and Deathshrouds seem like a match made in the garden of nurgle, and almost every shooting unit either has some sort of debuff it applies to its target or gets extra effects for shooting afflicted targets.

It will be quite the learning curve to figure out how to use all these things in the best way possible.

Famous last words - but scattering mortal wound abilities have usually not been that good, as you can't rely on them.

I mean if MSU Eldar units are out in the open so Plague Marines can shoot them to make them afflicted, you can probably just kill them.

Plague Marine party bus led by plaguecaster and biologus out of a rhino getting sustain/lethal and crit on 5+, rerolling all wounds thanks to rhino disembark has me excited for DG again.

Genuinely reads and feels like a fun codex to play

Yeah, the synergy everything has with everything is awesome. I'm totally giving my orks a rest to play DG now.

I'd just brace for a wide-spread points hike next dataslate. Almost everything feel like it's too cheap.

A while ago, I tried to go over in my head how a unit could both have lethal hits and devastating wounds on a weapon profile, like the Lord of Poxes has, and I just couldn't figure it out. How does it work in practice?

Pretty sure the two rules don’t interact. So your lethal hits wound without being able to also be devastating wounds. See the designer's commentary, pg 17.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Pretty sure the two rules don’t interact. So your lethal hits wound without being able to also be devastating wounds. See the designer's commentary, pg 17.

Yeah, this.

For what it's worth, unless you have rerolls or something else real funky, a Lethal Hit is barely ever worse than a Devastating Wound.

If you have 36 attacks, hitting on a 2+, wounding on a 3+, and the opponent is saving on a 2+ somehow...

Lethal and Dev
36 attacks
6 wounds and 24 hits
6 wounds plus 12 wounds plus 4 DevWounds
7 wounds go through

Dev Only
36 attacks
30 hits
15 wounds plus 5 DevWounds
7.5 wounds go through

And since it's AP-2, realistically you're never gonna save on better than a 3+, which adjusts the math to 10 (Lethal and Dev) vs. 10 (Dev alone).

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
A while ago, I tried to go over in my head how a unit could both have lethal hits and devastating wounds on a weapon profile, like the Lord of Poxes has, and I just couldn't figure it out. How does it work in practice?

In practice, if you roll a critical hit, you skip the wound roll and tell the other player to roll a save. If you rolled a regular hit, you roll to wound instead. If that roll is critical, the target immediately takes the mortal wounds, otherwise they get a save.

For multiple attacks:
1) Roll hit, set critical hits aside
2) Roll to wound, add non-criticals to the dice set aside in 1)
3) Opponent rolls saves
4) Apply mortal wounds for critical wounds rolles in 2)