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 Tyno2025 wrote:
So I'm thinking of building up more of my Death Guard. I'm wanting to make it semi-competitive but I'm not sure how to go about it. I already have 2 DI sets with two extra Plague Marine boxes and I think just the plague surgeon. I do have a ton of Nurgle Daemons but I'd rather make it a pure DG army if possible and rather not add Morty because of points. Any suggestions on what to expand with?

With all that infantry, a squadron of Blight-Haulers would have pretty good synergy as a buff aura - and also net you a cheeky CP as an Outriders with the two DI drones and a third HQ. Nicely fill a gap in your firepower, as well. Second the above recommendation on a DP - especially with the relics and traits available to DG.

How have you built your PM boxes? I think a Rhino or two has a place. There’s dirty tricks to be had by having one drive up to the enemy, fire both barrels on a combi-plasma, and use putrid detonation. Gimmicks aside, in an army with M5 (albeit mitigated by Blightbringers), transports have a place.

I built my marines all having plasma guns. The champion has a plasma pistol Ang a fist. I had planned on getting at least 2 rhinos for them. I would like some of the terminators but not sure how they are. I'd also like typhus but don't want to combo with poxwalkers because it doesn't appeal to me really.

Before the Warptime and DS nerf, I’d have said that Blightlords were incredible. Solid chance to survive a 2W hit that’d take down any other Terminator (in a metagame with an influx of 2W models making 2W weapons more common), forced to take fewer saves against mass S4/5 firepower, cataphract armour to tank melta and suchlike, minor buffs to the cheaper melee weapons, longer plasma double tap, improved Heavy Flamer. Awesome deep insertion unit.

Now, with deep striking happening on turn 2 and an allied non-DG Sorcerer unable to have them walk up to a victim... haven’t bothered with my own Word Bearers Terminators all that much since those changes, and taken Blightlords off my own medium-term plans for a DG Brigade. Even putting them in a Land Raider... well, it broadcasts their location, and presents a means of an army that brought Lascannons to prevent them from getting very far. Still might get them as they look swell, but it’d be for display and narrative games only until someone other than a Space Wolf works out how to make Terminators work in 8ed.

Don’t get me wrong, Blightlords are definitely amongst the better termies, and will certainly frustrate opponents who already despair at DG staying power (cast Miasma on them and watch plasma spammers cry), but I suspect they’re best employed to teleport onto an objective that’s been screened by Nurglings to secure a drop zone. And that sounds like a niche that your Plague Marines are pretty similar to already.

Deathshroud are six ablative wounds protecting Mortarion from first turn annihilation after he fails to tuck his wings in behind the big ruin - that, unlike M, can benefit from Plague Surgeon. But, if you’re not planning on taking the big guy, all they seem to do is let a Character step in front of your screening units to make a long shot then play Lascannon Roulette. I suppose their weapons are pretty good, but I’m not going to try to make mine work other than as bodyguards.

i refuse to spend 180pts just to have a 1st turn bodyguard for Mortarion, if you start 1st you wasted 180pts if you start second they are bit useful but after the 1st turn ypu play with 180 less points, they will never see a decent CaC moving 4", only Gw's can make them cost 60pts each... ridicolous, with the AiP+warptime nerf then... they are close to total crap.

Unfortunately the nerfs just make Mortarion not usable for serious tournament play. He will get shot off the board. Turn those 400+ points into something else. Unless you like the predictability of having the whole opposing army shooting at him until he's dead on turn 1. The point being is that spending for the body guard doesn't change the outcome, it just changes how much you spend for mortarion.

I still run blightlords often in casual settings. They are really durable, and do insane damage. My go-to fun unit lately is Typhus and 3 deathshroud. Pop blades and give them +1S/T then charge whatever the hell you want. Knights, warhounds, land raiders. You will do serious damage to it!

Pop blades and give them +1S/T then charge whatever the hell you want

what your opponent want you charge, unless you play against an opponent who dont know how play. Where do you think to go with models with 4" movement+half advance and no warptime, if you play a pure Dg army list. If they charge what you want sure they do serious damage, but against a decent player you will charge only chaffs or unwhorty units.

Hmm. Deathshroud could go in a Land Raider or Spartan. A mixed list could Warptime that forwards on T1. Thoughts?

Playing against Custodes today! Running two battalions of pure Death Guard. I'll report back with my list, results and hopefully pictures of piles of dead bodies in golden armor.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Hmm. Deathshroud could go in a Land Raider or Spartan. A mixed list could Warptime that forwards on T1. Thoughts?

yes and if you start 2nd? what the reson to play when Mortarion will be alone anyway 1st turn cause they embarked? If you move the transport you cant disembark so first turn warptime is pointless. until turn two you cant be on the table, then better use blightlords and let them AiP and fire volleys of plasma.

You can just start them disembarked and embark them before moving the transport. Then you warptime the landraider up the field and disembark and charge turn 2. They will protect him from alpha-strike before you can get Miasma up.

It does work technically, but I think it has other problems:
- Why would you warp time the land raider and not Mortarion?
- If Mortarion dies, the deathshroud should be dead as well. What are you going to do with the empty land raider?
- Metric ton of points.

1 zillion point to do nothing? pls play against me

Crushing victory!

I played against 2k of Custodes and Ultramarines. He was using Helblaster squads around Gulliman, some of the regular squads of Custodes dudes, a unit of jet bikes, a named character Custodes dude, the ancient primaris guy and a captain. He was going full elite, no chaff.

I used my No Mortarion list with a few bloat drones, a Tri lobe, DP, 3 squads of plague marines, 3squads of pox walkers, plague caster and a few lords. Also the putifier and blightspawn. It came as two battalions so I had a ton of CPs. My opponent was pretty starved but rolled well to recover them.
I ended up going first in a maelstrom mission where you just make sure to have three cards at the start of the turn. I lost first blood but I was able to knock out hell blasters fast with plasma, bloat drones and the blight haulers. In the bottom of one, my opponent got pretty demoralized by incredible DR rolls on my part. To make matters worse, I was getting lucky with my cards, and I began scoring VPs at a pretty good tick.

It looked like a total disaster for my opponent until he managed to get some Custodes and Gulliman into combat. Then suddenly plague marines were dying by the handful.

Eventually though, I managed to fall back and shoot, then fall back and shoot until we called it turn 4.

MvPs were the drones and the blight haulers. They are so damn tough and deadly. A blight hauler was the one that charged and killed Gulliman the second time. GNASHING Maw for the win. Also, the Arch Contaminator trait with the relic Helm was so pivotal also.

Ok so my revision of my Cloud of flies gamble tactic brings in some thousand sons. To review my idea, a 20 strong squad of plaguemarines advancing up the field with characters in the footprint of the squad dealing massive (smite) damage while all protected with cloud of flies. using poxwalkers up front as shields.



The idea being you have 7 sources of smite spam 5 of which will be unaffected by progressive smite penalties due to brotherhood of sorcerors. While this isn't a strictly DG list it hinges on Cloud of flies to protect your smite sources. The question is how to take it up to 2k points. It does rely on getting first turn to cloud of flies the Plaguemarines. I think I could benefit from a cheap daemons detachment for nurglings and I think there is enough points to add 3x3 nurglings and a GUO and poxbringer. GUO using denizens to add some mid game threat

What are your thoughts guys?

Gotta love when you opponent starts losing faith after a string of successful DR rolls. That's the point when Death Guard feels most like the blessed of Nurgle,.

 Nithaniel wrote:
Ok so my revision of my Cloud of flies gamble tactic brings in some thousand sons. To review my idea, a 20 strong squad of plaguemarines advancing up the field with characters in the footprint of the squad dealing massive (smite) damage while all protected with cloud of flies. using poxwalkers up front as shields.

Spoiler:

DG battalion
DP
Sorceror
2x10 Poxwalker
1x 20 PM

Supreme command of Thousand sons
3 exalted sorcerors
2 Tzeentch DP's

The idea being you have 7 sources of smite spam 5 of which will be unaffected by progressive smite penalties due to brotherhood of sorcerors. While this isn't a strictly DG list it hinges on Cloud of flies to protect your smite sources. The question is how to take it up to 2k points. It does rely on getting first turn to cloud of flies the Plaguemarines. I think I could benefit from a cheap daemons detachment for nurglings and I think there is enough points to add 3x3 nurglings and a GUO and poxbringer. GUO using denizens to add some mid game threat

What are your thoughts guys?

If you want some more mortal wounds, bileblade GUO is pretty legit for getting spells off. Seems to be a pretty widely used competitive option. Personally I like the flail more. Drop the GUO, look pretty for a turn, then start flailing things that are locked in CC with the nurglings. Give the GUO fleshy abundance and use some of those CP to heal it for 2D3 a turn, can make for a very annoying model if your opponent can't take it down in a single turn.

What is yalls answer to knights? They seem pretty mean, and many players are at a loss other than ignoring them or using morty

 Zid wrote:
What is yalls answer to knights? They seem pretty mean, and many players are at a loss other than ignoring them or using morty

Actually I came up with my above list in part due to knights. Un-shootable smite spam is funny to me.

 Zid wrote:
What is yalls answer to knights? They seem pretty mean, and many players are at a loss other than ignoring them or using morty

using Morty wont work, they shoot too much, i hardly believe just Morty can handle 3-4 Ik. Smite/mortal spam can be an answer, or just lot of resilient models to flood the table and objectives. when you have 90 plaguebearers 16 nurgle drones and some Dp's, i think you can stand Ik, they shoot a lot but hard they can remove all those bodies in about 3 turns.

 blackmage wrote:

 Zid wrote:
What is yalls answer to knights? They seem pretty mean, and many players are at a loss other than ignoring them or using morty

using Morty wont work, they shoot too much, i hardly believe just Morty can handle 3-4 Ik. Smite/mortal spam can be an answer, or just lot of resilient models to flood the table and objectives. when you have 90 plaguebearers 16 nurgle drones and some Dp's, i think you can stand Ik, they shoot a lot but hard they can remove all those bodies in about 3 turns.

I dont disagree. This sparked a huge debate on the 40k plague marines facebook page.

sure Ik might change way some armies will list but i m unsure they can be a real changing factor, a competitive Tau list im afraid torn apart a Ik list so not sure how many Ik you ll see at tournaments.

They'll be a gatekeeper list I think. They won't be top tier but you'll still need to be able to beat them

The problem with knights is the big one. It has a 3++ so only a third of wounds will actually go to damage and it has the super flamer so charging with with anything will hurt.

 Nithaniel wrote:
The problem with knights is the big one. It has a 3++ so only a third of wounds will actually go to damage and it has the super flamer so charging with with anything will hurt.

nothing a death hex+smite spam cant solve. Actually im running a list with 3 Ts princes+Ahriman+1 Nurgle Dp and poxbringer, 6 smites (if i need) and death hex to strip of inv saves, might be hard anyway but im sure that knight will not enjoy a lot.

Whilst Death Hex did come to mind for myself, presenting it as a solution in a Death Guard tactica seemed like presenting Wulfen or Death Company as the answer to a problem faced by a Dark Angels player :/

Dg to be competitive must mix, accept it or start to be kicked in the nuts, sorry if im so straight but actually need to mix, is harder for pure Dg be really competitive, they can at some small tournaments but as soon as you raise the comp level they have harder time.
Think about necrons wraiths, try face them without death hex, ur only hope is then spam mortals ,or very hard ride of them, just an example.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Whilst Death Hex did come to mind for myself, presenting it as a solution in a Death Guard tactica seemed like presenting Wulfen or Death Company as the answer to a problem faced by a Dark Angels player :/

The one option with pure DG is to just wither it down with a load of shots. In a recent game I faced a knight (just a single one as part of a regular army) and downed it using weight of fire. Drones with plague spitters, smite and bonus mortal wounds from plague caster, plasma guns, bolters and close combat attacks from DP, drones, blight bringer (2 damage bell! ) and a chaos lord with plague bringer quickly added up to take it down in a single turn. I didn't do much else during that turn though and thank god it didn't explode.

The other options I can think of is pulling off the grenade combo. 9 marines with VotLW throwing hyper blight grenades should take a good chunk out of a knight.

If you are willing to add nurgle daemons, a daemon prince buffed with Putrefying Blades, Virulent Blessing and Locus of Virulence has the potential to do some pretty explosive damage.

Outside of that... you need to gang up on the knights with your entire army, there is very little in our arsenal that can put a ton of wounds on a T8 3++ model. The reward is huge, but so is the risk.

Something to consider against a knight is Gift of Contagion. All three debuffs are pretty annoying to knights, but if you mange to roll -1T, the target becomes a lot easier to kill.

If you are willing to add nurgle daemons, a daemon prince buffed with Putrefying Blades, Virulent Blessing and Locus of Virulence has the potential to do some pretty explosive damage.

pity cant work... blades can target only Dg unts, not demons units.

The one option with pure DG is to just wither it down with a load of shots. In a recent game I faced a knight (just a single one as part of a regular army) and downed it using weight of fire. Drones with plague spitters, smite and bonus mortal wounds from plague caster, plasma guns, bolters and close combat attacks from DP, drones, blight bringer (2 damage bell! ) and a chaos lord with plague bringer quickly added up to take it down in a single turn. I didn't do much else during that turn though and thank god it didn't explode.

one is a things, but we were talking of multiples, maybe supported by IG for some cheap chaffs

 blackmage wrote:

If you are willing to add nurgle daemons, a daemon prince buffed with Putrefying Blades, Virulent Blessing and Locus of Virulence has the potential to do some pretty explosive damage.

pity cant work... blades can target only Dg unts, not demons units.

So just use a DG DP... You'd need a daemon DP or Poxbringer nearby for virulent blessing and the locus but otherwise there's nothing to stop you buffing a DG prince with all three

 Brother Payne wrote:

 blackmage wrote:

If you are willing to add nurgle daemons, a daemon prince buffed with Putrefying Blades, Virulent Blessing and Locus of Virulence has the potential to do some pretty explosive damage.

pity cant work... blades can target only Dg unts, not demons units.

So just use a DG DP... You'd need a daemon DP or Poxbringer nearby for virulent blessing and the locus but otherwise there's nothing to stop you buffing a DG prince with all three

that's right but just remember that loci affect only units beloning to DEMON detachment, so Dg Dp isn't affected by nurgle locus.