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 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I'm curious, would Putrid Blightbringers and other AoS human models, such as the Gutrot Spume, work well as Death Guard? I love the models, and I was thinking of converting a few to give them bolters and Death Guard power packs and pauldrons. The one problem that I see is that most of them are only partially armored, in contrast to the Death Guard who are completely armored except for some mutations. Could they still work as Death Guard or would they stand out too much in a DG army?

Scale wise they have the same bulk as Blightlords so won't look out of place from a size point of view.

I don't think it would look out of place with less armour, as long as the right wargear is shown they will tie in with the rest of the army if you like that aesthetic. If you're concerned of them looking out of place you can use other AOS models to represent some other DG units in your list to help tie the theme together, like using marauders as cultists for example.

I just bought some blightkings and want to use them as possessed. They have quite a few mutated arms and their different armor is not that important for possessed. They just need some backpacks and I'll probably give them some proper PM helmets. Also there are a lot of axes in the pack I want to give my PMs as bubonic axes.

Oh, yeah, they’re good for Possessed. I’d try to use the most energetic poses, given that Possessed are very athletic (by DG standards)

Since the topic’s come up: Possessed and Chaos Spawn. What do we reckon to them? Possessed have Epidemius and Gnarlmaw synergy, could be pretty brutal. Start them next to a tree and they’ve got a 1+ save if we don’t get first turn, and a CSM/TS sorcerer can Warptime them for a T1 charge...

After CA dropped the price on Possessed I think they're in a pretty nice spot if you want to run CC heavy DG. They're even better if you ally some Nurgle Daemons, but even without I think they're okay.
Compared to a PM with bubotic axe they're 1 point cheaper for D3 attacks instead of two (biggest downside), 2W instead of 1+DR, 5++, +2movement (important), no plague weapon, -1T. So I'd say those two are about even, Possessed have more synergies, though. It's always good to have choices and I could imagine if you go full CC with DG your enemy will probably concentrate their firepower on more important things than possessed.

Spawn for example, which are really good for 25p. They mostly lack synergy with other things in the DG and so far I've only used them with my CSM renegades, but with their D2 they are dangerous for everything you throw them at. And they're good to fill up detachments with 1model units.

Possessed having both heretic astartes and daemon keyword makes them the most buffable unit in the Nurgle faction, they benefit from soooo many rules once you run a death guard and chaos daemon list, a few highlights:
* Daemonic Lotus for extra damage
* Virulent blessing for more damage
* VOTLW for MORE DAMAGE, combos especially well with Virulent Blessing
* Warptime
* Putricent vitality for S6 T5
* Cloud of Flies, this one is huge, hide them out of LOS turn 1 to avoid alpha strike, warptime them up the board and then use cloud of flies on them, you now have a relatively guaranteed charge

 Continuity wrote:
Possessed having both heretic astartes and daemon keyword makes them the most buffable unit in the Nurgle faction, they benefit from soooo many rules once you run a death guard and chaos daemon list, a few highlights:
* Daemonic Lotus for extra damage
* Virulent blessing for more damage
* VOTLW for MORE DAMAGE, combos especially well with Virulent Blessing
* Warptime
* Putricent vitality for S6 T5
* Cloud of Flies, this one is huge, hide them out of LOS turn 1 to avoid alpha strike, warptime them up the board and then use cloud of flies on them, you now have a relatively guaranteed charge

Why go with so many moving parts when you can just deepstrike a bloodletter bomb instead? Also, that will probably kill everything, guaranteed. Furthermore, possessed's random amount of attacks can be crippling.

Gryphonne wrote:

 Continuity wrote:
Possessed having both heretic astartes and daemon keyword makes them the most buffable unit in the Nurgle faction, they benefit from soooo many rules once you run a death guard and chaos daemon list, a few highlights:
* Daemonic Lotus for extra damage
* Virulent blessing for more damage
* VOTLW for MORE DAMAGE, combos especially well with Virulent Blessing
* Warptime
* Putricent vitality for S6 T5
* Cloud of Flies, this one is huge, hide them out of LOS turn 1 to avoid alpha strike, warptime them up the board and then use cloud of flies on them, you now have a relatively guaranteed charge

Why go with so many moving parts when you can just deepstrike a bloodletter bomb instead? Also, that will probably kill everything, guaranteed. Furthermore, possessed's random amount of attacks can be crippling.

Because this is a death guard tactica, and Chaos in general is pretty much a solved faction where everyone is fully aware of the best tool for each purpose. A Bloodletter bomb is definitely the best combat option in a Chaos soup, but if we are only discussing the most viable units in the book then this thread will be full of people talking about how to use their 1 daemon prince and 3 PBCs

Aside from everything you have mentioned I'd also add the humble +1 S from a nearby herold(who can then also do some psychic stuff). S6 can be pretty important against Eldar, IG and the like.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
After CA dropped the price on Possessed I think they're in a pretty nice spot if you want to run CC heavy DG. They're even better if you ally some Nurgle Daemons, but even without I think they're okay.
Compared to a PM with bubotic axe they're 1 point cheaper for D3 attacks instead of two (biggest downside), 2W instead of 1+DR, 5++, +2movement (important), no plague weapon, -1T. So I'd say those two are about even, Possessed have more synergies, though. It's always good to have choices and I could imagine if you go full CC with DG your enemy will probably concentrate their firepower on more important things than possessed.

Spawn for example, which are really good for 25p. They mostly lack synergy with other things in the DG and so far I've only used them with my CSM renegades, but with their D2 they are dangerous for everything you throw them at. And they're good to fill up detachments with 1model units.

Yup. Spawn may have some aditional utility if you are stacking Leadership debuffs alongside a CC unit with an Icon of Despair, and Noxious Blightbringer with a Dolorous Knell.

Hmm. Well, Possessed and PMs being about equal is a stamp in the PM column. ObSec and Battalion farming, and all. Buuuut that does mean that Possessed are pretty ok in an Epidemius list, which is not short on efficient Battalion fillers. Maybe... hmm, Blightbringer can give them more efficient advances, and Gnarlmaw can enable advance and charge... not bad, but you want Warptime to really capitalise on it, and that means either a certain interpretation of DG Palanquin Sorcerers, or four detachments, or a Nurgle HA soup detachment (which disables LEGION traits and unlocks no strats).

If 7" + Blightbringer is not enough for you... I'd probably choose a classic and would stuff them into a Rhino. ;-) I must admit though in my Meta I have never needed Warptime so far, even when I had it I usually ended up swapping it ingame for prescience. Obviousely YMMV.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If 7" + Blightbringer is not enough for you... I'd probably choose a classic and would stuff them into a Rhino. ;-) I must admit though in my Meta I have never needed Warptime so far, even when I had it I usually ended up swapping it ingame for prescience. Obviousely YMMV.

In my recent 2 test games using warptime I agree. The need to be within 3" and then have the target zoom off leaves the psyker exposed as well.

We're a week from LVo now. I've heard the new big thing with DG is the deredeo/contemptor which works with inexorable advance right?

I thought it is about time I broke my 15year long rule of no FW models and I'm gonna try them out but for the deredeo how do you model the butcher array and greater havoc launchers? Kit bash or use the loyalist weapons as counts as?

So I'm coming back to DG and the game after a couple years, and I'm actually really disappointed. I've been playing and getting back into it over the past couple weeks and for the life of me I can't make it work. I'm wondering if DG are just screwed at this point or if there's something else I'm missing. Everything from HQ down seems overpriced and underperforming, except a couple of units (PM) that are good but out of meta regardless. Most of the posts in this thread seem to be about FW models which just makes it seem like the best way to play DG is to not play it.

So what am I missing? Besides Mortarion and FW is there any way to make this army work?

zverofaust wrote:
So I'm coming back to DG and the game after a couple years, and I'm actually really disappointed. I've been playing and getting back into it over the past couple weeks and for the life of me I can't make it work. I'm wondering if DG are just screwed at this point or if there's something else I'm missing. Everything from HQ down seems overpriced and underperforming, except a couple of units (PM) that are good but out of meta regardless. Most of the posts in this thread seem to be about FW models which just makes it seem like the best way to play DG is to not play it.

So what am I missing? Besides Mortarion and FW is there any way to make this army work?

Do not despair son of Mortarian (although I guess despair is kinda our thing?) as DG are actually very strong. That is not just me either as you can check 40k win statistics and you'll find DG have a very positive win ratio in comp gaming.

So, let's start by having you post your list here so we can help. In general things that are good include Demon Princes, malignant plaguecasters, Typhus in the right lists, blightlords, blightspawn, all of the troop choices though we do best mixed instead of just one. Our real strength though is our access to Demon engines.

Drones and crawlers especially but even haulers are workable depending on the list. DG do best when operating as a mixed mechanized force where you are surviving your enemy more than they are killing you. You play to objectives and just out last them.

Everything with disgustingly resilient is good in the Codex and a valid choice in a casual Meta. Everything else needs a little bit of help or planning. I consider DG to be one of the strongest Codizes. So as Buddha said, post your list and also what you are up against.

most successful Dg lists at major tournaments, play allied with demons mostly, pure Dg (no FW) armies very seldom got any good result

Okay, so it MUST be me. I never really liked mixing forces and almost always just do "pure" armies and have done so with DG.

My most recent list is a Lord of Contagion and Plaguecaster, Blightspawn, Putrifier and Tallyman as my warlord with Fugaris' helm and arch-contaminator (rerolling hits in CC and plague wounds in 10"), two Helbrutes one las/missile one reaper/missile, 2 crawlers and 3 haulers, and 5x5 Plague Marines with 2 Blight Launchers and 2x20 meatshield Poxwalkers.

I did pretty well my last game. I kind of sat in a ball and shot things as they came. Even got a Blight Bombardment off that removed an entire squad of Nob Bikers. The only stinker was the Lord of Contagion. He killed one Nob and then sat around but I still think he'd be good for anti-charge.

 buddha wrote:

zverofaust wrote:
So I'm coming back to DG and the game after a couple years, and I'm actually really disappointed. I've been playing and getting back into it over the past couple weeks and for the life of me I can't make it work. I'm wondering if DG are just screwed at this point or if there's something else I'm missing. Everything from HQ down seems overpriced and underperforming, except a couple of units (PM) that are good but out of meta regardless. Most of the posts in this thread seem to be about FW models which just makes it seem like the best way to play DG is to not play it.

So what am I missing? Besides Mortarion and FW is there any way to make this army work?

Do not despair son of Mortarian (although I guess despair is kinda our thing?) as DG are actually very strong. That is not just me either as you can check 40k win statistics and you'll find DG have a very positive win ratio in comp gaming.

So, let's start by having you post your list here so we can help. In general things that are good include Demon Princes, malignant plaguecasters, Typhus in the right lists, blightlords, blightspawn, all of the troop choices though we do best mixed instead of just one. Our real strength though is our access to Demon engines.

Drones and crawlers especially but even haulers are workable depending on the list. DG do best when operating as a mixed mechanized force where you are surviving your enemy more than they are killing you. You play to objectives and just out last them.

Yerp.

Death Guard usually has to soup to be a good TAC option, but the parts that are DG are extremely strong for being an old codex.

Played with the same list and got tabled turn 3. Wooo.

What sort of missions are you playing, and what sort of stuff’s killing you fast? What’s your PM unit loadouts & Plaguecaster spells? (Also - have you checked that your roster’s using Chapter Approved 2018 points values? Some of your units have had significant price cuts since the Codex came back from the printers.)

I notice you don’t have Cultists - if you’re not bringing a load of Nurglings, they are a cheaper source of area denial than Poxwalkers. And yeah, LoC is a tricky one to use - TBH I only take mine as Typhus, the only time I’ve really seen LoC do the business is when it teleports in and makes the charge, or when it’s in a slow or static gunline that gets charged. I much prefer a flying Daemon Prince, running it with drones and haulers.

zverofaust wrote:
Okay, so it MUST be me. I never really liked mixing forces and almost always just do "pure" armies and have done so with DG.

My most recent list is a Lord of Contagion and Plaguecaster, Blightspawn, Putrifier and Tallyman as my warlord with Fugaris' helm and arch-contaminator (rerolling hits in CC and plague wounds in 10"), two Helbrutes one las/missile one reaper/missile, 2 crawlers and 3 haulers, and 5x5 Plague Marines with 2 Blight Launchers and 2x20 meatshield Poxwalkers.

I did pretty well my last game. I kind of sat in a ball and shot things as they came. Even got a Blight Bombardment off that removed an entire squad of Nob Bikers. The only stinker was the Lord of Contagion. He killed one Nob and then sat around but I still think he'd be good for anti-charge.

Since your opponent is fielding nob bikers, I guess you aren't running against top tournament armies. I'll share some of my experience running pure DG:

- Lord of Contagion is a dud. He is very slow and does nothing besides close combat. Just use him as chaos lord in terminator armor (use the power axe option if you want WYSIWYG). The re-rolls help your entire army and you can make him arch-contaminator with helmet to boost both auras.
- Biologous Putrifier isn't great unless you are planning to use the grenade combo. Since you are running units of five marines, I'd rather drop him or replace him with a Noxious Blightbringer to speed up your army
- With that many pox walkers you probably want to be running Typhus. Otherwise, I would reduce their numbers. Blight haulers are much better screens against orks than them.
- The helbrute with reaper/missile is odd in my opinion. I have found the reaper cannon to be lacking, a helbrute fist with a storm bolter (bolter drill!) does a similar job and enables the helbrute to smash multi-wound models, like nob bikers. I have found the best load-outs to be Twin Las/Missile and Fist/Plasma.
- If you haven't already, switch your plague burst crawlers to plague spitters instead of entropy cannons. Your helbrutes are better long-range artillery than PBC are, so put spitters on them and charge them forward and tie down units you don't want in combat. You'd be surprised how long it takes for a unit of nobs to chew through one of those tanks. With a bit of luck they might not be able to kill it before the game ends, and as long as you keep charging them, they won't be charging anything else. In my experience, anything not dealing d6 or flat 3 damage has a hard time killing PBC.
- Get some bloat-drones (plenty can be gotten from ebay) and a winged daemon prince. Those are the bread and butter of any pure DG army, and serve as all-rounders for taking out backfield units, enemy characters, light vehicles and infantry or capturing/clearing objectives.
- Blightlord terminators are one of the best units we have. With just combi-bolters, blight launcher and a flail they force your opponent to divert a non-trivial amount of firepower towards them or risk having a unit in their backfield they won't be able to handle anymore at the end of the game. My eldar opponent from my last game ignored them and they rampaged through his backfield, killing multiple units of rangers, illic, a farseer, some wraithguard while holding an objective for two consecutive turns for 2 VP.

Adding to Jidmah, the great thing about Helbrutes is the Power scourge. Together with a Tallyman a cc Helbrute can really go mad. 2 fists are also nice and cheap.
I actually Don't see anything in your list that wants to be in CC aside from the Lord, so the Tallymans Bonus is mostly lost. Same with the putrifier, with only 5man squads there's not much He can buff.

I forgot about the scourge, I rarely use them since it does the same as the twin talon daemon prince. But yeah, if you are not running a prince, the scourge is boss, great against both infantry and vehicles. Sadly, it doesn't come with a bolter.

zverofaust wrote:
Okay, so it MUST be me. I never really liked mixing forces and almost always just do "pure" armies and have done so with DG.

My most recent list is a Lord of Contagion and Plaguecaster, Blightspawn, Putrifier and Tallyman as my warlord with Fugaris' helm and arch-contaminator (rerolling hits in CC and plague wounds in 10"), two Helbrutes one las/missile one reaper/missile, 2 crawlers and 3 haulers, and 5x5 Plague Marines with 2 Blight Launchers and 2x20 meatshield Poxwalkers.

I did pretty well my last game. I kind of sat in a ball and shot things as they came. Even got a Blight Bombardment off that removed an entire squad of Nob Bikers. The only stinker was the Lord of Contagion. He killed one Nob and then sat around but I still think he'd be good for anti-charge.

I'm a relatively new DG player, but I can tell you what I learned so far:

1) Blightspawns are strong but very swingy. So I would not rely too much on them
2) Tallyman, blightbringer and surgeon have never done anything for me
3) Following point 1 and 2, don't spend too many points on buffing characters. Imo only the biologus is worth it.
4) I find that LoC NEVER makes up for its points, so I stopped using it. A Daemon prince on the other hand is usually my MVP
5) In all games where I was focused in killing my opponet I LOST, while in the games where I was focusing on taking objectives and playing the missions I WON by a lot.
6) 5-7 plague marines squad with BL and Plasma with Arch-contaminator are good shooting, but die fast if focused
7) In EVERY game I found that TERRAIN played a huge factor in determining my win or loss. During my first games I played with basically no terrain (I'm not talking about crater or forests and not even ruins, I'm talking about BIG LoS blocking buildings and walls) My opponent would just stand still, shoot more than me and completely table me. Now I watched some videos on how to build a competitive table and I made some home made buildings. The game feels incredibly more tactical and I even had some turns in which my opponent could not shoot ANYTHING without moving (and moving usually implies penalty in shooting).
8) I almost always find myself using the same 3 stratagems over and over, which is pretty fething sad tbh
9) Crawlers and drones with spitters with an Arch-contaminator DP nearby are ALWAYS my MVPs
10) I learned that I have to play really conservatively with DG, and never overxtend too much.
11) Daemons are really good allies. Expecially the poxbringer, nurglings and plaguebearers
12) the Stratagems "blight bombardament" is insanely strong, but I use it mainly as a deterrent to melee armies. Not as an offensive tool.
13) Blightlords are cool and strong
14) Hellbrutes are really squishy without DR, I stopped using them
15) I'm still not sold on Haulers, usually I only bring one, just for charging and distracting shooty units, but he usually never makes it up for its points. Never tried 3 tho.

This is my experience so far, I hope you can find something usefull for you

 N0tThatGuy wrote:
1) Blightspawns are strong but very swingy. So I would not rely too much on them

I have had games where it did next to nothing besides drawing fire and I have had games where it rampaged through my opponent's army as if he were Mortarion himself. In my last game he single-handedly took out over 600 points of wraith constructs. For just 77 point, he is worth the gamble.

Also keep in mind that he benefits from arch-contaminator. If you are already running that, low strength rolls are much less of an issue since even wounding on 5+ means about half of your auto-hits wound.

Otherwise, I fully agree with all of your points

Point worth bearing in mind regarding units that have a very wide and unreliable spread in hitting power - your opponents will generally tend to remember that time it dissolved a Knight or full unit of Blood Claws and either kite it or commit disproportionate force to eliminate it. Either way, your 77pt unit is exerting a lot of pressure on your opponent - and it doesn’t necessarily have to fire its weapon once for that to make it instrumental in a victory. It’s more of a scarecrow than a speartip. We’re not pre-Sigmar Gloomspite Gits and an army of randomly unreliable units isn’t our thing, but one or two wild cards can be nicely disruptive.

New to Death Guard and also still learning 8th edition. I have one question about Daemons before I post my tactics question.
1) Can demons such as plague bearers, plague drones, and nurglings, be set up during deployment? Or do they have to be summoned?

I love the plague drone models, but they seem very fragile with only 4 wounds. I was thinking of building a strike force out of a demon prince, plague drones and bloat drones. Was thinking to send the flyers forward, with some defensive buffs. Miasma of pestilence on the drones. Demon prince uses the death guard version on the bloat drones, and a poxbringer casting on the plague drones.

If I have to summon the models, my plan wouldn’t work I think, because the summoning model
Can’t move on the turn they summon.

Here is what I was thinking of building(2,000pts)
DG detachment
DP of Nurgle talons x 2, wings, supporating plate.
Typhus

20 pox walkers
2 x10 cultists (guarding the crawlers)
2 bloat drones -spitters
3 plague burst crawlers -spitters

Demon detachment
Poxbringer
30 plague bearers (plague bearer bomb?)
2x3 nurglings
5x plague drones

they can be deployed, anyway if you are into mix demon gods i would go for bloodletters instead plague drones, 25 Bl with icon and instrumets in Ds, far more useful and deadly, unless you play without matched rules you cant cast a same name power more than 1 time x turn, so no two miasma of pestilence, also if they come from different codex

You can start with Daemons on the board just fine and you did the right thing in putting them in their own detachment, otherwize you'd lose DG and Daemon-boni. Since you can't cast the same Power twice in matched play I'd take fleshy abundance (the healing Power) on the poxbringer, as you can also heal your bloat Drones or your prince that way. Blackmages advice concentrates on a tournament setting, I don't think bloodletters belong in a pour Nurgle list like yours at all

Hello chaps, I'm building my first 40K army, and I've really enjoyed painting up my Plague Marines.

I'm primarily going to be playing against a friend of mine who has a force of Thousand Sons, and our intention is to start at 1000 points, but I'm slightly worried about the matchup.

I have painted the following:

Daemon Prince of Nurgle

Necrosius The Undying (a bit expensive but I'm hoping his 3 DtW per turn will help)

x3 squads of 5 Plague Marines with 2 Blight Launchers, and a Plasma Gun Champion

Leviathan Dreadnought with dual Butcher Cannon arrays.

This leaves me with 60 points, and I'm unsure how to proceed. I have thought about a Biologius Putrifier, but suspect that my PM squads are too small to benefit. I have also considered a Noxious Blightbringer to get me mid-table quicker, but the character is a bit uninspiring apart from the movement boost. I've also thought about a Nurgling auxiliary detachment to provide some cover for the Dreadnought, and soak up some of the Smite spam.

My friend will be fielding something like:

Ahriman

Daemon Prince

10 Rubricae

10 Cultists

5 Scarab Occult

2 Helbrutes with Dual Lascannons and Missile Launchers

I'd be grateful for any insight and advice.