Death Guard Tactica

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**Jidmah**

Brymm wrote:
Hey guys,
Anyone here routinely use Plague Spewers on their Princes? I've been playing around with my lists and due to a big change at the annual GT I attend, I need to drop Morty due to him being a reliable handicap every game.
If you use them, do you think its worth the 15pt tax?

IMO, only if that daemon prince is an arch contaminator or you are having trouble with eldar/planes. I did the math a while back and the extra attack from hateful blows on the DP favors of the sword over talons. So, compared to the dual talon prince you get more damage for more points, but you will have more trouble killing primaris, shining spears or other elite infantry. It's kind of annoying that the spewer is heavy, so you can't advance and shoot it.

**Brymm**

I'm actually loaded on spitters already with three drones and a crawler for Eldar planes and light transports already. But again, dishing out 3.5 auto hitting nearly auto wounds per prince near the warlord prince seems good.

Plus, you have the math on the sword vs claws? I thought I mathed it out in the past and found the claws better in almost every spot. More attacks meant more chances for DTtFE to go off. Now with the new Errata giving chaos stuff an extra attack on the charge or being charged, does that swing it back to the sword?

**Jidmah**

It should be somewhere in this thread.

Talons are better than sword, but sword+spitter is even better but cost more. Also, don't forget you still get to use the other talon once, most people do.

**lindsay40k**

So basically it seems that Spewsword vs Dualtalon is pretty balanced for the price

If you’re facing hit modifiers or non-Imperium, Spewsword probably nudges a little ahead

**Brymm**

lindsay40k wrote:
So basically it seems that Spewsword vs Dualtalon is pretty balanced for the price

If you’re facing hit modifiers or non-Imperium, Spewsword probably nudges a little ahead

That's how I'm planning then. Again, I'll keep everyone updated on what I end up running and how I do up to and after the event in October. It might have three spewer princes, three drones and a crawler! Thats a lot of autohitting!

**lindsay40k**

On another question - what Helbrute loadouts work well for DG? Normal ones, not Contemptors. I’m using Skaven for Cultists and Rat Ogres for Spawn and picked up a box of Stormfiends to make into dreads.

Power Scourge and Heavy Plasma look like a solid pick for a meta likely to flood with Primaris, especially with Legion trait. Paired fists might be nice if Aggressors and infiltrating dreads start to get popular.

**PoorGravitasHandling**

Anyone casting putrescent blades on MBH triples after the hateful assault buff? Risky if you get stuck but that's 12 attacks at -2 after a full round of shooting.

**Brymm**

Yeah, that probably works. Again, a Bloat Drone is probably better, if you could possibly convert into something that looks anything like a FBD, that would probably be better.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
Anyone casting putrescent blades on MBH triples after the hateful assault buff? Risky if you get stuck but that's 12 attacks at -2 after a full round of shooting.

Blades is a good sneaky choice to throw on a trilobe. Very good against single wound infantry, great to charge after shooting some sort of tank. Blades lets them do some mortal wounds and harm bigger stuff in combat. Why not?

**Nightlord1987**

I would add spewer to a prince only if I had points to spare, or the offchance I'm playing a Power Level game.

Swords are better for Chaos Daemons Nurgle Princes and upgraded to the Corruption Relic.

**Jidmah**

lindsay40k wrote:
On another question - what Helbrute loadouts work well for DG? Normal ones, not Contemptors. I’m using Skaven for Cultists and Rat Ogres for Spawn and picked up a box of Stormfiends to make into dreads.

Power Scourge and Heavy Plasma look like a solid pick for a meta likely to flood with Primaris, especially with Legion trait. Paired fists might be nice if Aggressors and infiltrating dreads start to get popular.

I toyed with them a lot, and it's basically just twin lascannon/missile launcher that works. Any other variant suffers from "oh it doesn't have 5++ and DR?" and just dies before it does anything. If you can't hide it 48" away from you enemy's mid-range fire it's dead meat.

**Brymm**

Here's the current incarnation:

Spoiler:

Hopefully just handles hordes, lots of autohitting near auto wounding shots for paper airplanes and light vehicles, and anything wanting to assault within 9inches. Slightly worried about 3 knights or lots and lots of heavy armor, but I'll just play objectives at that point.

**Jidmah**

I'm sure I've asked this before, but no flails?

**vaklor4**

Im thinking of getting into DG, what would some traps or pitfalls be for getting into the faction? Any units I should avoid buying?

**lindsay40k**

vaklor4 wrote:
Im thinking of getting into DG, what would some traps or pitfalls be for getting into the faction? Any units I should avoid buying?

Currently, our screening horde units are poorly priced to compete with the board control of Nurglings and the endurance of Plaguebearers

Mortarion is in a tricky position whereby he's priced like a Knight but has lower T, and Deathshroud can only (expensively) tank for him if he keeps pace with them

Melee Plague Marines are viable but you'll need Rhinos to deliver them

**Brymm**

Jidmah wrote:
I'm sure I've asked this before, but no flails?

I was confused, since I was running only 9 BLs, I thought it was a launcher or flail. But I can get both, if I ran 10man, I could get 2 of both.

Flails are nuts with the hateful rule.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I dropped the combiflamer on the Lord for the points for a flail.

**Jidmah**

vaklor4 wrote:
Im thinking of getting into DG, what would some traps or pitfalls be for getting into the faction? Any units I should avoid buying?

The biggest trap is probably the Plague Surgeon, as he doesn't actually do a good job at protecting your stuff.
Afterwards come the Deathshroud who are terrible at protecting Mortarion, but casual-okish if you just use them like assault terminaors.

All other Death Guard specific units are decent, except maybe the heavy blight launcher drone.

Defilers, Predators and Helbrutes suffer a bit from being the easiest to kill targets in the army.

As long as your army has some sort of plan it should work. For tournament level play you definitely need to add CSM and/or daemons.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brymm wrote:
Jidmah wrote:
I'm sure I've asked this before, but no flails?

I was confused, since I was running only 9 BLs, I thought it was a launcher or flail. But I can get both, if I ran 10man, I could get 2 of both.

Flails are nuts with the hateful rule.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I dropped the combiflamer on the Lord for the points for a flail.

Yeah, flails with 3d3 attacks are insane. Looks good otherwise, though I wonder what you intend to do with all those CP.

**Brymm**

VotLW, auto explode, rerolls, sneaky replace dead terminators, etc

**slave.entity**

*edit* nevermind

**ZergSmasher**

Just played some Death Guard vs. Ultramarines. Not competitive lists or anything, although my opponent had Calgar and I had Morty. I ended up winning by tabling him, mostly because my DR rolls were absolutely on point all game long. Morty lived longer than he should have as well.

My takes from the game:
-Morty is good, but he's often just a bullseye with wings. His buff aura is decent but not any better than that of a Daemon Prince really. He absolutely needs to be in combat to get full use, as he's too expensive to be just a distraction carnifex. Not easy to do with pure DG since we lack Warptime.
-Myphitic Blight-haulers are good, but can fall short vs. T8 targets. Always, always, always run them in units of 3, and it's probably worthwhile to keep a Lord or Daemon Prince nearby for the reroll 1's to hit.
-The Foul Blightspawn is pretty nasty, but also very swingy. I'd still take at least one in every game with DG.
-Personally I think Plasma is the way to go on Plague Marines over Blight Launchers. Again, you want a reroll 1's buff character nearby so you can supercharge relatively safely. Blight Launchers aren't terrible, but that d3 damage can bite you sometimes, and the AP isn't as good as a plasmagun.
-Bloat Drones might be the best unit in the DG codex, especially near a DP with Arch-contaminator. More expensive than a PBC, but having Fly makes it worth the extra points. I'd say always take the spitters, although I must admit I've never tried the other options so my opinion on them is based on supposition.
-My list this evening had a lot of fast moving elements, with Morty, 2 Bloat Drones, a trilobe of Blight Haulers, a DP, and a Rhino full of Plague Marines, a Foul Blightspawn, and a Malignant Plaguecaster. I think this is probably one of the better ways to play Death Guard, as opposed to trying to play straight PBC gunline or something.

**Brymm**

Agreed.

In favor of Blight Launchers: when near your Arch Contaminator guy (10 inches with Helm), hitting on 3s rerolling 1s then usually wounding on 3s rerolling all is just brutal. Even against higher toughness I find my launchers doing work. And since I usually run double BL and Plas champ PM squads, I see them side by side in a shooting phase, and BLs come out better for me.
My two cents.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and I make sure I do more Plague weapons as we use the tactical cards and we have a mission where you gotta knock off the last wound with a Plague Weapon. I draw that card often.

**lare2**

@ZergSmasher: nice write up.

On FBD, never ran the heavy blight but the mower's good fun. Do prefer spitters though sometimes I only have the pts for the mower.

**orkswubwub**

I saw this recently discussed a few pages ago but any more opinions on Blightlords in competitive meta (ITC)?

I haven't had the opportunity to play test but was considering resurrecting Don Hooson's list from BAO that he won in 2018 - except with moirax wardogs with lightning locks and a few tweeks.

The Hateful Assault rule looks like a great buff for the BL - they are decent in close combat but hitting on 3+ can be janky, particularly if no rerolls nearby and even with the flail the number of times an odd ork boy would survive (to revive the squad), charging into something truly fearsome (grot blob) or running into something that is -1 or 2 to hit in melee - just didn't feel like it was enough to get anything done. The extra attack also works well with our pyschic powers (Blades) and VOTLW (no new news here)...

However, on the flip side, AP weapons look to permeate the meta now, with even a bread and butter Intercessor squad rocking -2 AP with rapid fire at 30 inches, and can be hard to dislodge with combi-bolters if in cover. At the time the list was run initially (2018) it looked like mortars and other low AP weapons were the flavor with the 2+ being great for this small arms fire...

I've used the blightlord blob a few times with some of my worst tournament results - having piloted it poorly as well as running into some rough matchups (7 eldar fliers etc.) so I'm lukewarm but love the models so i'm considering digging them back up...

TLDR: Is it worth bringing Blightlords in competitive or just not feasible currently?

**Brymm**

I think Blightlords are incredible.

They are anti horde and anti marine units that can deep strike and are incredibly hard to remove.

They synergize well with our few strats and psychic powers and our best warlord trait. They benefit from the new assault special rule and the new bolter rule. They went down in points last year. The flail is an amazing weapon against just about all targets. Axes are just the perfect stats to cleave the new Marines.

They rock 2+/4++/5+++ and are T5 2W.

Except for their slow speed, there's nothing not to like.

**ZergSmasher**

I'm just sad I modeled mine with Combiplasmas when it's better to keep them cheap.

That said, I don't think Intercessors are the biggest threat out there for Blightlords. Yes, they can easily get -2 AP, but they are only S4 so wounding BL on 5+, and we still get a 4+ and a 5+++. The aforementioned Aeldari Flyers are far far worse, as BL basically can't interact with those meaningfully.

**Brymm**

What about a Death Guard monster mash list?
Running drones, crawlers, haulers, daemon princes and Morty?
Does it have legs?

**Jidmah**

Brymm wrote:
What about a Death Guard monster mash list?
Running drones, crawlers, haulers, daemon princes and Morty?
Does it have legs?

Works well enough for a fun list, but it's too few models and to little killing power(Mortarion dies first anyways) to actually win the game.
Such a list definitely needs terminators or pox walkers to take objectives.

**Brymm**

Jidmah wrote:
Brymm wrote:
What about a Death Guard monster mash list?
Running drones, crawlers, haulers, daemon princes and Morty?
Does it have legs?

Works well enough for a fun list, but it's too few models and to little killing power(Mortarion dies first anyways) to actually win the game.
Such a list definitely needs terminators or pox walkers to take objectives.

I keep coming back to that as well. I'll probably give it a go without Morty and trade in terminators and walkers. Its really close on points too. I'll report back with the list.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoiler:

**Nithaniel**

Saw a list at LGT that ran Morty with chaos monster mash and magnus. This guy used warptime on a unit of 6 deathshroud to reliable move and advance twice getting them reliably to match pace with Morty. Made people think twice about targetting Morty and virtually guarantees he survives.

**Brymm**

Tried a monsterish mash list vs Tyranids today. The Haulers didn't work, folded surprisingly fast to Hive Guard fire, a 10+ 6w smite, charge from a hive tyrant and by turn 2 those 24 wounds were toast.

Too few infantry also hurt me. Game is paused on turn 3 but it looks real grim.

I'll report back.

**Lord Damocles**

How are people equipping standard Plague Marine squads?

I've got enough models for two units of seven and a unit of five.
I assume two plasma guns and plasma champ for the large units and maybe double blight launcher and plasma champ on the smaller?

Is it worth taking melee upgrades on the Champions, or just the plasma?
Are any of the non- plasma/blight launcher weapons actually useful?