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 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I would consider melee plague marines only in a dedicated Blight Bombardment unit backed by purifier. Dual knives, maybe a few axes. I dont like the special melee weapons outside of Killteam. Too few base attacks.

If I ever get an extra plague marine box I might build them as melee.

Well, damage on the flail carries over, and its d3 attacks for each attack. So, it kinda offsets the lack of attacks. If you get in two attacks and both wound, that's 4 wounds which carry over from model to model. Opponent fails 4 saves and thats 4 marines dead potentially.

Actually, my other question would be, would just three melee plague marine squads be enough really. Allows for alot of points to do other stuff, but would just this three squads be able allow a list to be competitive for objective purposes. I don't mean capture all objectives, but at least be able to contest and maybe take mid field ones provided they have enough support from the rest of the list.

Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

 dan2026 wrote:
Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

Why not both?

Drones are awesome at harassing fliers and getting into the back field to take care of pesky objective holders. FLY is worth its weight in gold this edition. PBC are arguably the tankiest per point model in the game. Spitters and then block paths to force the opponent to deal with them. Make them charge you if they are assault, or charge them if not. PBC are great at disturbing castle and gunline armies.

 dan2026 wrote:
Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

PBC also is S7 while the drone is S6, making the PBC a lot better against vehicles. Drones usually do character assassination, clearing buildings/objectives or act as retinue for a daemon prince.

Missing FLY also rarely seems to matter to a spitter PBC since few things want to charge against its overwatch in the first place, and things that do either struggle to hurt it at all or cost a lot more than the PBC did. You still have the option to break it out by charging into that combat as well.

Running both is a very valid option, you opponent will not be able to kill all of them.

 Jidmah wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

PBC also is S7 while the drone is S6, making the PBC a lot better against vehicles. Drones usually do character assassination, clearing buildings/objectives or act as retinue for a daemon prince.

Missing FLY also rarely seems to matter to a spitter PBC since few things want to charge against its overwatch in the first place, and things that do either struggle to hurt it at all or cost a lot more than the PBC did. You still have the option to break it out by charging into that combat as well.

Running both is a very valid option, you opponent will not be able to kill all of them.

Fly is over rated after the nerfs to it, its still good, but not great like it once was.

My hang up with drones, personally, is that they cost 18 points more than a PBC. But the PBC is far and away more durable...

You can definitely run both, and drones arent bad by any means. I just can never justify drones over pbcs, and other platforms (helverins, contemptors) are most cost efficient

 Zid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

PBC also is S7 while the drone is S6, making the PBC a lot better against vehicles. Drones usually do character assassination, clearing buildings/objectives or act as retinue for a daemon prince.

Missing FLY also rarely seems to matter to a spitter PBC since few things want to charge against its overwatch in the first place, and things that do either struggle to hurt it at all or cost a lot more than the PBC did. You still have the option to break it out by charging into that combat as well.

Running both is a very valid option, you opponent will not be able to kill all of them.

Fly is over rated after the nerfs to it, its still good, but not great like it once was.

My hang up with drones, personally, is that they cost 18 points more than a PBC. But the PBC is far and away more durable...

You can definitely run both, and drones arent bad by any means. I just can never justify drones over pbcs, and other platforms (helverins, contemptors) are most cost efficient

In this case FLY isn't overrated at all and I don't think the Faq changes affected how the FBD works at all.
The fly change stopped DPs, Smash Captains and other deadly close combat death machines from making charges through terrain or even screens, then consolidating through models. FBDs aren't used for that.

The FBD fills a great role that FLY is needed for. It can, no matter the deployment or terrain, advance to the center of the board turn 1. It can still fire the spitters. Next turn it can move, fire and assault. Next turn it can fall forward and still shoot. It can't be tied down in combat.
I think it's priced right (or even low!) But it just means the PBC is criminally under costed. The PBC should cost about 20 pts more than the drones.
But then again, thats not what this thread is about.

I built a melee PM squad with all axes and maces and hadn’t thought about Blades. With VotLW, that’s mortal wounds on a 5+. Not Berzerkers deadly, but still very tasty, whilst also being able to take a beating.

Hmm. Also potentially able to pull a nasty surprise with a grenade bombardment. I like it.

With the emergence of orks into the meta, I'm expecting to see a lot more ork/horde players, is it time to revisit poxwalker shenanigans?

I've been toying with the idea of leaving 70ish points aside in my lists for poxes to grow but also to summon 10 plaguebearers depending on the game flow. With chapter approved new missions putting added focus on troops.

Can the poxwalker list be viable again?

poxwalkers aren't the answer to orks, a 40 men ork mob can wipe out a 20 men pox mob, if curse of the walking dead would work like before would be completely different, then yes they try to kill 20 pox just to see 20 more popping out then more when you kill the orks but now you cant bring pox over 20 and you need pay points. Anyway if you want stay stick to pure DG i guess you dont have many choices, but i would play at least 80 with thypus,

For me so far the only tactic providing competitive results with death guard involves high T lists flamers and demon troops. Rest just don't work extremely well (not bad either) in loost I try for turnaments . Marines pox etc are not making it when you can have a good ppxbringer plaguebearers combo. You can't have it all . And ATM death guard has it's points calculated to the last point . You try poxalker combo then typhus bla bla . Want Marine grenades etc then ttransorts etc . The point you need to invest wont provide results. And ATM I'm not sure anymore even if you over invest if you would even see results does not mean I get two three transports with 30 melee Marines and grenades I will actually do something serious. So many points just create a tax all around you somewhat gimp your list. And it's obvious when from the start of the edition and a 20 page rule set and index now we got 50 pages changes . It's just breaking up armies combos playstyle. It becoming annoying to buff every 3 months a different unit to sell . List becoming trash every 3 months.

 Brymm wrote:

 Zid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
Are people preferring PBC to Bloat Drones as platforms for Plaguespitters?
It seems like the Drones can charge, absorb overwatch and then fall back and still shoot. But the PBC are overall more durable but can't fly.

PBC also is S7 while the drone is S6, making the PBC a lot better against vehicles. Drones usually do character assassination, clearing buildings/objectives or act as retinue for a daemon prince.

Missing FLY also rarely seems to matter to a spitter PBC since few things want to charge against its overwatch in the first place, and things that do either struggle to hurt it at all or cost a lot more than the PBC did. You still have the option to break it out by charging into that combat as well.

Running both is a very valid option, you opponent will not be able to kill all of them.

Fly is over rated after the nerfs to it, its still good, but not great like it once was.

My hang up with drones, personally, is that they cost 18 points more than a PBC. But the PBC is far and away more durable...

You can definitely run both, and drones arent bad by any means. I just can never justify drones over pbcs, and other platforms (helverins, contemptors) are most cost efficient

In this case FLY isn't overrated at all and I don't think the Faq changes affected how the FBD works at all.
The fly change stopped DPs, Smash Captains and other deadly close combat death machines from making charges through terrain or even screens, then consolidating through models. FBDs aren't used for that.

The FBD fills a great role that FLY is needed for. It can, no matter the deployment or terrain, advance to the center of the board turn 1. It can still fire the spitters. Next turn it can move, fire and assault. Next turn it can fall forward and still shoot. It can't be tied down in combat.
I think it's priced right (or even low!) But it just means the PBC is criminally under costed. The PBC should cost about 20 pts more than the drones.
But then again, thats not what this thread is about.

Eh... I can see your point; FBD's are good character assassins. But at Str 6 (degrading), not to mention T7 with 10 wounds, I would even pay for a PBC over it if it cost more personally in most lists.

Reason being, Characters aren't the "glue" in many lists like they once were. I could see a case being made for them in certain makeups, your post actually made me think of a 3x Contemptor, 2x FBD, 2x helverin, 1x Renegade Knight list I might want to try out... mostly because the Drones would fill a role to get to the juicy bits while everything else can take care of the larger threats/infantry.

Actually you may have changed my thoughts on these guys... I've had 3 sitting in a box forever. Thanks Brymm


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yoda79 wrote:
For me so far the only tactic providing competitive results with death guard involves high T lists flamers and demon troops. Rest just don't work extremely well (not bad either) in loost I try for turnaments . Marines pox etc are not making it when you can have a good ppxbringer plaguebearers combo. You can't have it all . And ATM death guard has it's points calculated to the last point . You try poxalker combo then typhus bla bla . Want Marine grenades etc then ttransorts etc . The point you need to invest wont provide results. And ATM I'm not sure anymore even if you over invest if you would even see results does not mean I get two three transports with 30 melee Marines and grenades I will actually do something serious. So many points just create a tax all around you somewhat gimp your list. And it's obvious when from the start of the edition and a 20 page rule set and index now we got 50 pages changes . It's just breaking up armies combos playstyle. It becoming annoying to buff every 3 months a different unit to sell . List becoming trash every 3 months.

Poxwalkers can still work, I used them pretty well and took second in an event using them (you can see the link below) when Castellans + Loyal 32 + infinite CP was still a thing. Thing is its only 425 points for Typhus + 40 poxwalkers, your talking 330 for 30x Plagues + Scrivener. It also depends on your tactics, and what your detachment makeup is; Poxwalkers are fearless and make better objective holders (arguably) than Plaguebearers. Yes, plagues last longer, but T5 Poxwalkers are hard to move, and they regenerate if you can get them into contact with the enemy. You might see a slight resurgence if the new CA missions take a hold, because holding objectives longer will be more important.

I will say, I would honestly pay the 10 extra points for minimum Poxwalkers over minimum Cultists now.

How are people feeling about Myphitic Blight Haulers now they have dropped a ton of points?

Model is cute as hell.

 dan2026 wrote:
How are people feeling about Myphitic Blight Haulers now they have dropped a ton of points?

Model is cute as hell.

I plan on using them instead of my usual Plague Drones of Nurgle (which just went up in pts) as a Daemon Prince escort unit, since they're similar in points, and a lot easier for me to transport to games! 3 min drones vs the MBH. Four less wounds, but an armor save and better toughness with Plague Weapons and AT. They should work well with Arch Contaminator, or any Nurgle Daemon buff characters.

Gotta get 3 of em!

I also like to take Plague Marines in transports, so the MBH can help cover them when they disembark or their ride explodes.

I personally think Plague marines are resilient enough you can slog them up the field without Rhinos. Just my 2 cents. Doesnt take very long for them to get into 18 inch rapid fire range. So, they don't really need a Rhino.

I feel that plague bearers are better and have more hero support than pox walkers. When you combine 90 plague bearers with all plague god heroes. They are extremely powerful. So, if you want that kind of mass undead horde, then going plague bearers is better than going pox walkers.

The more playtesting and theorycrafting I do, the more I feel that Death Guard are now fairly strong post Chapter Approved. Poxwalkers could still be better but you can make a list with or without them, if you support them enough. I think there are a lot of good small combos and points-effective units. For LVO I might do mostly Death Guard with maybe a little bit of Nurgle Daemons rather than doing mostly Nurgle Daemons, Khorne Daemons, or Thousand Sons.

I especially think you can make Death Guard good versus Orks and Knights, which are two of the strongest options at events now.

As an ork player I found it nigh impossible to stop Mortarion, so maybe that's an idea?

 Jidmah wrote:
As an ork player I found it nigh impossible to stop Mortarion, so maybe that's an idea?

Lootastar didnt work?

On average, Mortarion survives a full round of loota star shooting (~120 shots) and the one DG player besides me in our group usually fields him with six Deathshrouds who will not survive the shooting but very well tank most of it. By turn three, the loota star has bloat drones stuck to it, shutting it down.
Even if not, that's 500+ points and 13-16CP spent on killing Mortarion and six terminators that have almost the same movement speed as fortifications.

Plaguebearers are good, I just cant invest in taking another horde army approach! Inhave over 200 ork infantry, 60 cultists, and about 90 pox walkers and converted zombies. That is why I'm hoping we see some fun stuff in Vigilus pt 2.

The story about the cargo containers dropped onto the planet surface, filled with thousands of pox walkers each is giving me ideas. Tide of zombies stratagem or something please!

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I personally think Plague marines are resilient enough you can slog them up the field without Rhinos. Just my 2 cents. Doesnt take very long for them to get into 18 inch rapid fire range. So, they don't really need a Rhino.

I feel that plague bearers are better and have more hero support than pox walkers. When you combine 90 plague bearers with all plague god heroes. They are extremely powerful. So, if you want that kind of mass undead horde, then going plague bearers is better than going pox walkers.

agree, there are lists out there that can remove 90 plaguebearers in about 4 turns, you can imagine how long to take out 40 poxwalkers, -1 to hit double save, move average 9" roll two dice for morale with chance to get back d6 models, can save at 4++... poxwalkers are still good but beside morale immunity they aren't same level as pb's,


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Plaguebearers are good, I just cant invest in taking another horde army approach! Inhave over 200 ork infantry, 60 cultists, and about 90 pox walkers and converted zombies. That is why I'm hoping we see some fun stuff in Vigilus pt 2.

The story about the cargo containers dropped onto the planet surface, filled with thousands of pox walkers each is giving me ideas. Tide of zombies stratagem or something please!

8th edition is the horde edition so forget that armies like demons or competitive DG/chaos will play less models

 Jidmah wrote:
On average, Mortarion survives a full round of loota star shooting (~120 shots) and the one DG player besides me in our group usually fields him with six Deathshrouds who will not survive the shooting but very well tank most of it. By turn three, the loota star has bloat drones stuck to it, shutting it down.
Even if not, that's 500+ points and 13-16CP spent on killing Mortarion and six terminators that have almost the same movement speed as fortifications.

Didnt account for deathshroud, even so though thats niche at best. But i can see that mucking up the star. How you averaging 120 shots if they mob up and shoot again w dakks.strat?

Assuming you reroll 1 on number of shots, you get an average of 2,33 shots per loota. 25 x 2,33 x 2 = 116,5. I guess that's where the 120 comes from.

I played a mech Astra Militarum and Blood Angels list this weekend. I took 3x PBCs w/ Entropy Cannons, 3x MBHs, a Daemon Prince (arch contaminator and Fulgis’ helm), and a Nurgle CSM sorcerer w/ Prescience (+1 to hit). Needless to say I shredded his armor killing 3-4 vehicles a turn. MBHs hitting on 2s and rerolling 1s are super nasty!

I also had 4 units of plague marines with 8x blight launchers in the aura of the DP.

hortsmann wrote:
Assuming you reroll 1 on number of shots, you get an average of 2,33 shots per loota. 25 x 2,33 x 2 = 116,5. I guess that's where the 120 comes from.

Seems.... low.

But still, morty by himself im sure would get shredded. Even with deathshroud, good placement of your gretchin wall/boyz should give the lootas two turns to blow up morty unless they have warp time. Even then, though, you should be able to get a warpathed unit of boyz into him and he should go down.

If someones taking two units of deathshroud to protect him then they are essentially paying over 700+ points for morty

@hortsmann: A loota will never shoot 2.33 times, but 2 or 3 times. The most common result is getting four shots out of a loota over two turns, even with CP.
I didn't math out anything though, I just took the value from experience. Actual math looks like this:
25 lootas shooting generate 100 shots, plus another 33.33 from Moar Dakka. They hit 44.44 times, plus another 22.22 ones get re-rolled into 7.41 hits, generate 7.41 additional attacks who become 2.47 more hits and 0.41 hits from re-rolling ones on those.
Total hits: 52.26
26.13 of those wound Mortarion, 13.07 are not saved and deal 17.42 damage to him after DR.

@Zid: The thing is, you also pay that many points for the lootas, plus the gretchin shields to keep them alive.

On top of that, you need to spend 1 CP for mob up, and 2+2CP for the Moar Dakka/Shoot again combo plus maybe a CP to re-roll number of shots, and then another for grot shield. Mortarion will not survive the ordeal, but it is by no means efficient shoot him with lootas. With the deathshrouds attached to need to burn through almost all the CP your three battalions gave you to take them and Mortarion down. Orks do very little without CP.

So in essence, yes I can kill Mortarion with the loota star, it will just lose me the game to do so. It's much more efficient to use the lootas to wipe out drones, helbrutes and plague marines or other things that can actually do anything about the loota star.

Ignoring Mortarion, denying multi-charges and just accepting that he will destroy one unit per turn has so far been the best course of action against pure death guard. Unless he gets his hands on multiple boyz mobs, he will struggle to make his points back. Mind you, I'm usually playing maelstrom missions, YMMV if you are playing tournament mission packs.

 Jidmah wrote:
@hortsmann: A loota will never shoot 2.33 times, but 2 or 3 times. The most common result is getting four shots out of a loota over two turns, even with CP.
I didn't math out anything though, I just took the value from experience. Actual math looks like this:
25 lootas shooting generate 100 shots, plus another 33.33 from Moar Dakka. They hit 44.44 times, plus another 22.22 ones get re-rolled into 7.41 hits, generate 7.41 additional attacks who become 2.47 more hits and 0.41 hits from re-rolling ones on those.
Total hits: 52.26
26.13 of those wound Mortarion, 13.07 are not saved and deal 17.42 damage to him after DR.

@Zid: The thing is, you also pay that many points for the lootas, plus the gretchin shields to keep them alive.

On top of that, you need to spend 1 CP for mob up, and 2+2CP for the Moar Dakka/Shoot again combo plus maybe a CP to re-roll number of shots, and then another for grot shield. Mortarion will not survive the ordeal, but it is by no means efficient shoot him with lootas. With the deathshrouds attached to need to burn through almost all the CP your three battalions gave you to take them and Mortarion down. Orks do very little without CP.

So in essence, yes I can kill Mortarion with the loota star, it will just lose me the game to do so. It's much more efficient to use the lootas to wipe out drones, helbrutes and plague marines or other things that can actually do anything about the loota star.

Ignoring Mortarion, denying multi-charges and just accepting that he will destroy one unit per turn has so far been the best course of action against pure death guard. Unless he gets his hands on multiple boyz mobs, he will struggle to make his points back. Mind you, I'm usually playing maelstrom missions, YMMV if you are playing tournament mission packs.

I think thats the clutch here is tourney packets, meaning tourney level armies (yall are both fielding optimized lists hopefully).

Mathematically, you will tier morty low enough that hes much easier to handle later in the game. But yes, the star takes a LOT of cp to run, but a typical ork list i face has 18 cp. As well, a mortarian list in a tournament setting has a pretty low chance of appearing; mostly because he has a very hard time against typical staples like the castellan. He does show in Smash Bros lists, but requires a lot of luck.

I dont know man, i really feel like orks can give morty the business; maybe not death guard as a whole, but definitely morty. Of course, as with anything in this game, sometimes it takes luck

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Plaguebearers are good, I just cant invest in taking another horde army approach! Inhave over 200 ork infantry, 60 cultists, and about 90 pox walkers and converted zombies. That is why I'm hoping we see some fun stuff in Vigilus pt 2.

The story about the cargo containers dropped onto the planet surface, filled with thousands of pox walkers each is giving me ideas. Tide of zombies stratagem or something please!

Since you can accept zombie models as poxwalkers, could you also use them as plaguebringers?

 tokugawa wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Plaguebearers are good, I just cant invest in taking another horde army approach! Inhave over 200 ork infantry, 60 cultists, and about 90 pox walkers and converted zombies. That is why I'm hoping we see some fun stuff in Vigilus pt 2.

The story about the cargo containers dropped onto the planet surface, filled with thousands of pox walkers each is giving me ideas. Tide of zombies stratagem or something please!

Since you can accept zombie models as poxwalkers, could you also use them as plaguebringers?

What, the power sword relic?

Probably means plaguebearers.

 tokugawa wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Plaguebearers are good, I just cant invest in taking another horde army approach! Inhave over 200 ork infantry, 60 cultists, and about 90 pox walkers and converted zombies. That is why I'm hoping we see some fun stuff in Vigilus pt 2.

The story about the cargo containers dropped onto the planet surface, filled with thousands of pox walkers each is giving me ideas. Tide of zombies stratagem or something please!

Since you can accept zombie models as poxwalkers, could you also use them as plaguebringers?

Zombies and Poxwalkers are definitely smaller than Plaguebearers (not to mention the base size is 25mm versus 32mm).

I too hope that Poxwalkers get a visit from the Vigilus fairy; I loved running them when they were good, they were dynamic and had a lot of character. I saw why they got nerfed, but I feel like they got nerfed too much; really they should have seen a 1ppm price drop I feel. Max squad size is 20, you can't go above starting without spending points, their strat is useless now with the cultist bump + needing reserve points, and they are SLOWWWWWW. 5 ppm feels about right for what they are; fearless horde of bodies that MIGHT see combat by turn 3. Especially when you consider the Typhus and Blightbringer taxes.