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Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

Right now, Death Guard are really good. Especially, in my experience, in casual play. I have not lost a game with my Death Guard yet, and there's often games where it's straight-up lopsidedly in my favor.
So, what do you think would be appropriate nerfs for Death Guard?

I don't run the meta list (mine is Flyblown Host with Infantry for days, with the brick being Blightlords, not Deathshrouds) and it's still really good, so I feel like just a blanket 10% or so increase in points would be a pretty good start.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






What’s the key to your success though?

Are your dudes just unfairly tough to kill? Are you killing stuff too quickly?

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Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What’s the key to your success though?

Are your dudes just unfairly tough to kill? Are you killing stuff too quickly?
Yes.

It takes a lot of firepower to down even a small Plague Marine squad.
Any given Plague Marine squad is decently killy, and the Blightlords can annihilate a 10-man Rough Rider squad on Overwatch.

There's also a lot of stacking buffs.
Death Guard, in general, just feel overtuned right now to me.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in ca
Stealthy Kroot Stalker





Death Guard do feel really strong right now, but the only unit I've gone up against that really feels like an unassailable bulldozer is the Deathshroud / Lord of Contagion brick. (Especially in multiples).

With Death Guard's whole schtick of debuff aura's and naturally being very tough, it's a hard thing to balance as it really depends on if your opponent can handle the key breakpoints needed to kill a lot of the army. Flyborn Host being the most durable at a casual level helps too. Try to shoot, we all have stealth, get in close, now you're in aura range. It's a solid all rounder detachment that's hard to fight into.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/07/09 16:27:07


Armies:  
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Having wiped the floor with them far too many times this edition, I'm glad they feel tough again, but they're definitely overtuned. Price hikes are probably all that's needed as I don't really want them to go back to being cannon fodder, but I've also seen the 4 terminators brick require nearly 1400 points of firepower to down so....

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/07/09 16:11:06


 
   
Made in ca
Stealthy Kroot Stalker





Sorry, mean to edit my previous post.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2025/07/09 16:27:59


Armies:  
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




I think its got to be significant points hikes, or ripping apart Nurgles Rot so they have to take Scabarous Soulrot rather than the other 2.
   
Made in gb
Crazed Spirit of the Defiler




Sensible points changes.

Main offenders:
3 Deathshroud 140 to 160
6 Deathshroud 300 to 320
FBDwHBL 100 to 120
FBD/MBH 90 to 100

Some extras that are a bit too cheap:
Plaguemarines +5 per 5
Plaguemarine PA characters +5
Predators/Defiler/PBC +5

Adds 195 to my list, costing me two daemon engine hulls or 3 Deathshroud + 10 Poxwalkers.
   
Made in us
Commoragh-bound Peer




Behind the Emprah's throne

The only Deathguard that needs fine tuning, is to make the FBD/HBL more expensive.

Like increase them to 130pts.

Then Deathguard players will start fielding other units, like the predators.

Everything else seems pretty much fine where it's at.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

 Chewie wrote:
The only Deathguard that needs fine tuning, is to make the FBD/HBL more expensive.

Like increase them to 130pts.

Then Deathguard players will start fielding other units, like the predators.

Everything else seems pretty much fine where it's at.


Dont worry, that'll happen once they've sold enough drones.
   
Made in it
Longtime Dakkanaut




St. George, UT

Here is a few things that I felt seemed over the top.

Auras that stack just because they exist. No CPs needed, no tokens, just stacking abilities that make everything harder all the time.

I get that DG are supposed to be the tough army, but when things get a bump in toughness and extra wounds it just seems like it should be one or the other. That or points need to go up accordingly.

Moral wounds on Torrent weapons.... Seemed like they were everywhere...

But that's just what I saw a few time I watched them being played.

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




DG are problematic for a whole host of different reasons, which makes fixing things tricky. I think the first thing to do is ask what the army should be good at? For me, they occupy the niche of being very tough, infantry based and debuffing the enemy. I'd concentrate on that. At the moment their damage is insane and I would start by seriously curtailing that. I'd split out the PM units into shooting ones and close combat ones. At the moment a 10-man PM unit gets more shooting than many shooting-based battleline infantry and better close combat than many elite close combat units, and it's in the same unit! Then I'd reduce the damage output on the HBL Drone, probably by dropping the number of shots and Strength. Then the DS need the sweep profile seriously altered, especially when they get easy access to Lance and Sustained Hits. Finally, every single one of their "additional" characters (the ones that can join units alongside another character) need at least 20 points added to their cost. Some of their costs are insane even for just the statline, and most of them get 2 really good rules to buff their unit, when many similar characters only get one.

Then you can look at adjusting some points values on other units, but I think having DG be the expensive, more elite CSM Legion is a fine place to be, they just have to not be so good at everything. As a side note, I think the DG Codex is a good example of GW not understanding rules interactions properly. They really need to stop adding crit 5+ to armies that have easy access to Lethals or Sustained and they also need to understand how easy some of their conditional rules are to apply. I get the feeling GW thought Afflicted would be active about 50% of the time against DG and they have a lot of rules that key off that status (like the DS Deep Strike). The reality is, if the DG player wants a unit to be Afflicted they can usually do it, so you need to treat that rule as being active more like 95% of the time when balancing units.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




U.k

Ds shroud need a nerfing. Limit them to 3 in a squad or ease down on the damage, as said above too much access to lethal/sustained/lance then add in crits on 5+. It’s mad.

When you start listing rules an attack has and it gets to three things there’s too much going on.
   
 
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