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They are too fragile because they are only 1 wound. Fearless wounds are king on objectives. PM accomplish little with their two special weapons, and a 2+ save in cover and T5 isn’t of particular value compared to the 15+ bodies you could have instead. That’s my experience at least.

Three special weapons. They play different and can accomplish different things. In my lists and experience, my Plague Marines aren't shot at early or even mid game due to midfield threat overload. During that time the Plague Marines are scoring objectives and adding significant plasma/blight launcher fire for relatively cheap. As the game progresses my opponents generally run out of fire or time that can dislodge the PMs.
In practice when Ive run Pox Walkers, Plague Bearers or Cultists, they don't do what I need very well. In the first two I get no fire power obviously and the third they die easily to whatever my opponent has left and/or fail morale checks as we have no way to get fearless on them.

You gotta play your game and use what unit fills the role you need it to fill best. It isn't always take the most efficient choice. It's take the choice that does the job you need done. If you don't need your troops to do what Plague Marines do, then don't take them. But simply looking at efficiency misses a huge part of the game.

In the smash captain meta, I'm just not keen to show up to a game without a significant screen, and PMs are entirely inappropriate for that job. Once I've bought a big bag of PBs/cultists to screen the big hitters, and paid for the big hitters themselves, I've never had the free points (or need for any PMs).


PBs and cultists score the objectives just like PMs in the early game, whilst also providing a screen, and though they don't have the same firepower, I've got loads of dice coming from gatling cannons, butchers cannons, autocannons, plaguespitters etc and can't think of many situations where I'd find myself wishing I had those extra few plasmas, bolters, or blight launchers.

Fair point on the screens.
Metas may vary as according to Chapter Tactics and the BCP, post FAQ has seen a HUGE drop in Smash Captains. Screens are still needed but little red jerks are a lot less common.




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Oh and yeah, if they aren't needed, don't take them. Since I have almost no other form of multidamage shooting, they were it.

They're not so ubiquitous but there are still plenty around post-FAQ and there's a pretty high chance of meeting them in competitive circles. I Played two lists with six TH/JP/SS captains between them at a tournament over the weekend. Sure, only one can be the meta-build no-overwatch-and-all-the-attacks BA dill weed but all of them will seriously threaten knights, leviathans etc.

The deepstriking nerfs have made screening the back of the board less fundamental but you definitely still need solid padding.

 Brymm wrote:
Just to chime in on Plague Marines: they aren't bad. Not super efficient but very usable. Running three squads of double blight launcher with plasma champ gives some really good objective getting fire platforms that are hard to shift out of cover for only 118 pts a pop. The blight launchers are super reliable at putting out multi damage wounds onto whatever you need to put wounds on and are often ignored while the opponent tries to kill your super dangerous stuff.
If you want your troops to do nothing except not die, then yeah, plague bearers are better. Don't discount the Plague Marines because the internet says they arent the most efficient choice. They aren't playing or even watching your game, play the models you like and play them the best you can.

Well said, Plague marines might very well be the best power armor troop choice in the game right now with their durability, loadout flexibility, and synergy options. They wont win tournaments, but just because a unit isn't in the top 1% of units, doesn't mean that it is terrible. Top 10%, or even top 25% of units are awesome. Some of my most enjoyable games are with a ton of plague marines, and at the end of the day, enjoyment is all we are looking for.

That says more about power armour and terminator armour then it does about Plague Marines. I do prefer the imagery of slow units of plague marines marching across the table laying down a relentless hail of firepower. I don’t think they’re too far off from being able to mesh that vision with a reasonable points cost.

power armors are not point wise not in chaos nor in space marines chapter, pity.
chaos play cultists Dg play poxwalkers, at least list trying to get good results at major events, then in local store game you can play PM with good success, this at least in Italian ETC.

 blackmage wrote:
power armors are not point wise not in chaos nor in space marines chapter, pity.
chaos play cultists Dg play poxwalkers, at least list trying to get good results at major events, then in local store game you can play PM with good success, this at least in Italian ETC.

This is very true. It's not just Death Guard that have lackluster PA troops; there's a reason Thousand Sons players take Tzaangors instead of Rubric Marines. And the loyalists play Scouts instead of Tactical squads.

Here's hoping Chapter Approved takes all this into account, and we see price drops across the board on PA units, and while we're at it, Terminators as well.

I wonder if Plague Marines dropping to 15ppm is too much? Effectively in a 7 man unit that is a free plasma gun.

I agree that out of all PA infantry at the moment, PM's rank up as one of the better ones you can get. T5 and DR can make them very hard to shift to the point of frustratingly so.

Are they points efficient to the level of Kabalites and Guardsmen? Well no, but that is a different argument all together.

it's just an urban legend they are hard to dislodge no serious list has any problems deal with PM's.

In my experience, everything that's half decent at killing Plague Marines is trying to kill Mortarion, Terminators, Drones or Daemon Princes.

Not saying that they couldn't use a point drop, but there is a huge difference in durability between plague marines and other one wound power armored units. You can kill those with nothing but bolters.

 blackmage wrote:
it's just an urban legend they are hard to dislodge no serious list has any problems deal with PM's.

Indeed.

In my humble xp, my PM die pretty quickly. If I'm gonna field a unit that dies pretty quickly then it may as well be pox. The damage they do prior to dying always seems to be fairly inconsequential as well.

It's a real shame as I love PM (thematically and play-style wise) but I always do better running pox.

 Jidmah wrote:
In my experience, everything that's half decent at killing Plague Marines is trying to kill Mortarion, Terminators, Drones or Daemon Princes.

Not saying that they couldn't use a point drop, but there is a huge difference in durability between plague marines and other one wound power armored units. You can kill those with nothing but bolters.

Not my experience at all. Anything exceptional at killing plague marines are attacking more important things. Anything less than exceptional can attack PM; a pile of heavy bolters, or especially assault cannons, make mince meat of plague marines. Assault cannons are more efficient at killing PM than Pox point for point. That seems a bit off to me.

Pm dies by guards lasguns or marines bolters, no need to use heavy weapons , then as i said before many times anything depend where you play them, in competitive they aren't great, in semi competitive or casual games they can find their spot

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 Brymm wrote:
Just to chime in on Plague Marines: they aren't bad. Not super efficient but very usable. Running three squads of double blight launcher with plasma champ gives some really good objective getting fire platforms that are hard to shift out of cover for only 118 pts a pop. The blight launchers are super reliable at putting out multi damage wounds onto whatever you need to put wounds on and are often ignored while the opponent tries to kill your super dangerous stuff.
If you want your troops to do nothing except not die, then yeah, plague bearers are better. Don't discount the Plague Marines because the internet says they arent the most efficient choice. They aren't playing or even watching your game, play the models you like and play them the best you can.

Well said, Plague marines might very well be the best power armor troop choice in the game right now with their durability, loadout flexibility, and synergy options. They wont win tournaments, but just because a unit isn't in the top 1% of units, doesn't mean that it is terrible. Top 10%, or even top 25% of units are awesome. Some of my most enjoyable games are with a ton of plague marines, and at the end of the day, enjoyment is all we are looking for.

When sisters squad receive some real rules in CA2018 next month, they may be a good contender of best Powerarmored troops.

I hope death guard get some love. I enjoy the army but I hate playing to the "meta" which is IMHO a horrible unfluffy thing and very close to "badwrongfun" for me.

Considering doing stuff purely for fun/casual/local RTT play. I've thought of taking a Nurgle Daemon detachment with 30 Plaguebearers as I've had luck with those but I'm thinking now of 3 plague marine squads, blightlords (I love these guys even if they are expensive as hell; I keep them cheap and don't go with all combi-weapons. Combi-bolters and axes, flail and blight launcher), 2 drones, 2 crawlers, and some other things.

I've been watching a lot of 1750 battle reports as opposed to 2000, seems like a better point value overall for me. Doubt I can sell the locals on it though they prefer 2k.

I think this is the attitude of most players anyways. At events I've been to, only the top 10% of players plus an addition 10% of try-hards are running anything like "net lists" or meta lists. The other 80% are just playing the best version of the army they can make from the models they own.
Just play what you like and practice at winning with it. Learn the missions, make efficient choices for list building that will mirrior what you like playing. Don't live and die by the internet meta. That's the recipe for feels badsies.

 Brymm wrote:
I think this is the attitude of most players anyways. At events I've been to, only the top 10% of players plus an addition 10% of try-hards are running anything like "net lists" or meta lists. The other 80% are just playing the best version of the army they can make from the models they own.
Just play what you like and practice at winning with it. Learn the missions, make efficient choices for list building that will mirrior what you like playing. Don't live and die by the internet meta. That's the recipe for feels badsies.

Love this advice.

Do daemon engines like Plagueburst Crawlers or Decimators count toward the Epidemius tally?

 slave.entity wrote:
Do daemon engines like Plagueburst Crawlers or Decimators count toward the Epidemius tally?

Yes

First time running a DP this weekend. Now I see what all the fuss is about! Put Arch-contaminator and Suppurating Plate on him and had him in an Outrider detachment with 3 FBD (2 plaguespitters and 1 mower). They rampaged through everything they came into contact with! Lost the game but had great fun.

On another note, is it possible to run 3 FBD and a Chaos Sorcerer in one Outrider detachment using Heretic Astartes as the keyword? Know you can't use Chaos as a keyword anymore but Heretic Astartes links them both. And if so, would this give me access to Heretic Astartes strategems?

Cheers in advance.

 lare2 wrote:
First time running a DP this weekend. Now I see what all the fuss is about! Put Arch-contaminator and Suppurating Plate on him and had him in an Outrider detachment with 3 FBD (2 plaguespitters and 1 mower). They rampaged through everything they came into contact with! Lost the game but had great fun.

On another note, is it possible to run 3 FBD and a Chaos Sorcerer in one Outrider detachment using Heretic Astartes as the keyword? Know you can't use Chaos as a keyword anymore but Heretic Astartes links them both. And if so, would this give me access to Heretic Astartes strategems?

Cheers in advance.

I think you can. Page 4 of main rulebook FAQ declares that once you have an AL and a DG detachment, you can use Tide to bring a DG cultists unit back.

 lare2 wrote:
First time running a DP this weekend. Now I see what all the fuss is about! Put Arch-contaminator and Suppurating Plate on him and had him in an Outrider detachment with 3 FBD (2 plaguespitters and 1 mower). They rampaged through everything they came into contact with! Lost the game but had great fun.

On another note, is it possible to run 3 FBD and a Chaos Sorcerer in one Outrider detachment using Heretic Astartes as the keyword? Know you can't use Chaos as a keyword anymore but Heretic Astartes links them both. And if so, would this give me access to Heretic Astartes strategems?

Cheers in advance.

You can field that detachment, but you won't be getting access to stratagems - all codices explicitly require at least one "pure" detachment taken from that codex only to access stratagems.

 Jidmah wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
First time running a DP this weekend. Now I see what all the fuss is about! Put Arch-contaminator and Suppurating Plate on him and had him in an Outrider detachment with 3 FBD (2 plaguespitters and 1 mower). They rampaged through everything they came into contact with! Lost the game but had great fun.

On another note, is it possible to run 3 FBD and a Chaos Sorcerer in one Outrider detachment using Heretic Astartes as the keyword? Know you can't use Chaos as a keyword anymore but Heretic Astartes links them both. And if so, would this give me access to Heretic Astartes strategems?

Cheers in advance.

You can field that detachment, but you won't be getting access to stratagems - all codices explicitly require at least one "pure" detachment taken from that codex only to access stratagems.

Yep, this. If your sorcerer was DG, you would have access to DG stratagems and so on as it was a pure DG detachment. But if your sorcerer chooses a different legion from the CSM codex, you con't have access to their stratagems and legion tactics.

Cheers for the pointers! Was mainly after a way to sneak in Heretic Astartes stratagems without having very many CSM units. Looks like I'm back to running an Alpha Legion patrol.

You would get psychic powers though. Sweet sweet Warptime.

 Brymm wrote:
You would get psychic powers though. Sweet sweet Warptime.

If you take a Sorceror on Palanquin of Nurgle from the index, you can still get dark hereticus spells and STILL be battleforged! It's why I am planning on building one, also because it looks cool.

DudleyGrim wrote:

 Brymm wrote:
You would get psychic powers though. Sweet sweet Warptime.

If you take a Sorceror on Palanquin of Nurgle from the index, you can still get dark hereticus spells and STILL be battleforged! It's why I am planning on building one, also because it looks cool.

Yeah, this is a pretty cool trick that’s going to be useable for the time being by virtue of mounted chaos characters being ignored - until somebody wins a tourney whilst using it, whereby it’ll get FAQ’d to death.

I'd like to point out that the communities/events banning indexes is increasing rapidly since the ork codex has been released.

Check with your local meta whether index is still an option before building a model.