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Hey gang,

I've always been into Plague Marines. I love their aesthetic, their fluff, and also I have a serious love for zombie stuff. I know a lot of people play Nurgle marines, but this was more for fun, and the more I thought about how much I liked them, the more I wanted to make a fun playable list.

So here we go

HQ
Typhus - 230

Troops

7x plague marines - 175

7x plague marines - 175

25x Zombies - 110

25x Zombies - 110

Fast Attack
4x Chaos bikers , 2x Melta, MoN, Veterens OLW, Melta Bombs - 143

Heldrake - 170

Heavy Support

Havocs, 2x Heavy Bolter, 2x Lascannon, MoN - 150

Obliterators, MON, Veterns OLW - 237

1500 total

Strategy wise, we'd move the zombies up to secure objectives or tarpit something scary.

Marines take scarier objectives and shoot / assault

Typhus and Oblits deep strike behind enemy lines for much dakka

Havocs control objectives at the back while firing at enemy armor

Heldrake does what Heldrake does.

Thoughts? Criticism?

Looks pretty solid except for the bikes in my opinion. I dont really see them being useful in this list. They are your tank hunters however I doubt they will reach the enemies tank line in one piece. only 4 guys and no fearless isnt really tanky enough to get to the enemies good stuff.

I feel like your obliterators deepstriking can do a better job at tank hunting than your bikers.

I would cut the biker unit entirely and give your plague marines some rhinos and plasma guns.

Also in your opening statement you said people use a lot of nurgle marines, are you talking about CSM with mark of nurgle here? Because I rarely see those being used at all, wonder where you heard or read that they were.

Sorry, I meant I always see / hear people using Plague Marines. I use those terms interchangeably to my detriment.

Good thoughts on the bikes. But I don't really want to do more rhinos. I know thats kinda heresy, but I'm just tired of painting them heheheh.

Thats why I was thinking fast attack might be a good option to close the gap for anti-armor.

Are there any other anti-tank options that work well?

Or is there a better Fast Attack option I should be looking at?

 doctor_doom wrote:
Sorry, I meant I always see / hear people using Plague Marines. I use those terms interchangeably to my detriment.

Good thoughts on the bikes. But I don't really want to do more rhinos. I know thats kinda heresy, but I'm just tired of painting them heheheh.

Thats why I was thinking fast attack might be a good option to close the gap for anti-armor.

Are there any other anti-tank options that work well?

Or is there a better Fast Attack option I should be looking at?

Well to be honest, your biker unit would be a lot better with a lord on bike in there... You could cut typhus and run a nurgle lord with bike, and for the same 230 even buy 2 more bikers for the unit. He gives fearless, can take a third melta (combi melta) and has a great selection of melee weapons. I know youre into the zombies and all, but maybe you should go with cultists at 1500 and make it a typhus list at 1850? I dont really see him doing much with the obliterators aswell, they like to stay mid range or long range, mid in your case as youre deepstriking them. But then typhus wants to be up close... So no real synergy there in my opinion.

As for other Anti-Tank units, you could take a melta heavy raptor unit, a forgefiend with 2 hades autocannons or a helbrute with twin linked lascannon. The helbrute is pretty garbage, the forgefiend wont get you trough AV13-14 reliably so that leaves the raptors. Id go with those if you want to keep typhus instead of buffing your biker unit.

Also if youre not gonna put your plague marines in a rhino their effectiveness really falls off from my experience. I feel like they are best used as your front line/mid field defending units with some plasmas thrown in there so they are versatile and can take on most foes. Without the rhinos they will arrive near the battle really slow instead of turn 1 or 2. But if youre tired of painting them, nothing I can do about that I guess

 M0ff3l wrote:

Well to be honest, your biker unit would be a lot better with a lord on bike in there... You could cut typhus and run a nurgle lord with bike, and for the same 230 even buy 2 more bikers for the unit. He gives fearless, can take a third melta (combi melta) and has a great selection of melee weapons. I know youre into the zombies and all, but maybe you should go with cultists at 1500 and make it a typhus list at 1850? I dont really see him doing much with the obliterators aswell, they like to stay mid range or long range, mid in your case as youre deepstriking them. But then typhus wants to be up close... So no real synergy there in my opinion.

As for other Anti-Tank units, you could take a melta heavy raptor unit, a forgefiend with 2 hades autocannons or a helbrute with twin linked lascannon. The helbrute is pretty garbage, the forgefiend wont get you trough AV13-14 reliably so that leaves the raptors. Id go with those if you want to keep typhus instead of buffing your biker unit.

Also if youre not gonna put your plague marines in a rhino their effectiveness really falls off from my experience. I feel like they are best used as your front line/mid field defending units with some plasmas thrown in there so they are versatile and can take on most foes. Without the rhinos they will arrive near the battle really slow instead of turn 1 or 2. But if youre tired of painting them, nothing I can do about that I guess

Thanks for all that insight! I really appreciate it. You've given me a lot to think about. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I wanna keep with the zombies, so I changed the list to 2000. Heres the update, I took some of your advice, but also changed a bit of the list around.

HQ

Typhus - 230

Chaos Lord - MoN, Bike, Combi-melta - 110

Elites
4x Terminators - MoN, 1x PF, 3x Power Maul, 4x Combi Bolters
Land Raider - 2x TL lascannons, TL heavy bolter
- 390

Troops
7x plague marines
7x plague marines
25x zombies
25x zombies

570

Fast
Bikers - MoN, Veterans, Melta Bombs (champ), 2x Meltaguns - 143
Heldrake - 170

Heavy
Havocs - MoN, 2x Heavy Bolter, 2x Lascannon

Obliterators

387

total 2000

So new game plan is to put typhus in with the CC terminators in the Land Raider and run that hard and fast up the field.

Havocs in the back objective, plague marines moving up and taking care of objective holders, zombies running to objectives / tarpitting.

Bikers providing support to Land Raider, now with fearless.

Obliterators, not sure if I should deep strike them or not. I guess they're better for midfield, so I might drop them in there? or just foot slog them up the field. to sit on something.

Heldrake blows up the things.

Hows that sounding?

Looks better, only things that I would note here are that your lord is lacking a good melee weapon and that the biker unit is not beefy enough (I assume its just the 2 melta dudes, champion and lord)? That way you cant meatshield the good stuff with just boltgun bikers. Not sure what to cut for more bikers but it is needed.

Also if youre going with this list, be the cool guy and convert some scythes as power mauls for your terminators... that would look super sweet with typhus and is also super nurgly!

I took out the bikers and the biker lord, and replaced with 10 x Rapters with MoN, 2x melta, 1 cobi-melta, melta bombs and Chain Axe.

That would be pretty solid I think.

The zombies from the Renegades and Heretics of IA13 are dirt cheap in points and when they kill a unit and consolidate, they get d3 more zombies. Might want to consider it. if they can kill anything.

I like the list, but I'd also drop Typhus and put a Nurgle lord on a bike. A Nurgle DP with black mace wings armor is pretty awesome also- maybe grab 1 mastery with him to avoid being tarpitted

Helcult is generally better than plague zombies.

Being a zombie half's your attacks and prevents you running.
Helcult gives fearless so all you miss out on is the 5+ FnP

Helcult all the way.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm gonna stick with the zombies for now, as its my aesthetic, but I see the value in what you're suggesting.

I was thinking of cutting some of the VotLW upgrades I have on stuff and putting some special weapons on the foot slogging Plague Marines.

Is it crazy to want two flamers in each squad? hehehe

 doctor_doom wrote:

Is it crazy to want two flamers in each squad? hehehe

I run my plague marines as a squad of 10 with 2 flamers and a power fist on the champion. They ride in a rhino with dirgecaster and dozer blade. It's pretty expensive (around 300 points) but my reasoning is as follows:

Power Fist - Since the champion is initiative 3 and striking after marines anyway, he might as well go unwieldy.
Flamers - The unit is very expensive as it is so saving 20 points by taking flamers over plasma really helps. I also like to run 5 havoks with 4 plasma guns in a rhino for my plasma options, these plague marines are more for survive-ability and objective secured)
Dozer Blade - 5points to basically ignore difficult terrain means you can always have your rhino in ruins meaning even an explodes result leaves your plague marines with some cover (e.g. against vindicators ><.
Dirge caster - Why not, it's 5 points and you can often turbo boost it up 18" to protect some critical charge from another unit (ideally you want to have disembarked by this point to avoid getting rhino surrounded and popped - killing the guys inside)

Cultists are almost always better than marines (including plague marines) but sometimes you just want some iconic units to go to battle with.