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Only if you need some additional combi-bolter blightlords.

Ok, I think I'll skip them then. What's the best load out for the foetid bloat drones? I have the Dark Imperium one with the plague spewers, but I was thinking of getting one with a flesh mower and one with a blight launcher to allow for maximum versatility.

I gave my pair the spewers and the launcher as part of an Epidemius list. Not impressed with the launcher, but I haven’t used it since Primaris got buffed. Still feels a bit too inaccurate, when I encountered a fleshmower it had Tallyman rerolls that made it fearsome. Spewer, mower, haulers and DP are definitely my go-to DG detachment - start them next to a Gnarlmaw & Blightbringer and it’s going to get messy

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
What's the best load out for the foetid bloat drones? I have the Dark Imperium one with the plague spewers, but I was thinking of getting one with a flesh mower and one with a blight launcher to allow for maximum versatility.

It's quite easy to magnetize the drone (just like the Crawler) and I'd suggest to do so. Other than that, the spewers right now are the best loadout. I've had success with the mower, too. It's very cheap and you get 10 attacks, which complements a CC DG force pretty well. Throw some Dreadnoughts, CC plague marines, possessed and Prince into the mix and your opponent really has to think what he/she wants to take down first, as everything hits pretty hard.

Somewhere in the beginning of this thread someone did the math on the flesh mower, and it outperforms a talon DP - if it gets the re-roll aura of a DP. Also keep in mind that it is a plague weapon, so you get a lot more mileage out of Blades of Putrefaction.

As for the blight launcher - unlike plague marines or blight lords, it doesn't have BS 3+ and the drone doesn't get Inexorable Advance, so I'd rather buy two units of plague marines since provide CP and the drone doesn't.

Hey all,
I'm going to do my report in most likely 5 parts. I am mainly a Dad-hammer player in that I have limited time to play, hobby and write related to all things Warhammer.
This past weekend I played in the Michigan GT in Lansing. Sadly, the weekend was tainted with the passing of a great friend of mine, so alas, the overall amazing weekend was slightly less amazing. None the less I played in the event.
There were 120 players with a pretty diverse field. This was the first Iron Hands weekend and I was expecting to play my fair share. I posted my list earlier in this thread and just to go over some basic thoughts I had with it:
I was very prepared for Eldar Flyers. I have a ton of auto hitting guns as well as quite a few smite sources and flying assault threats. Plus I would be able to clear objective holding infantry pretty well, even those out of line of sight.
Next, I was prepared for most Marines. I could consistently handle power armor bodies as well as kill pretty much anything starting forward towards me.
Third, I was prepared for most Orks. The most dangerous unit to me was Lootas and I feel like it just isn't dangerous enough unless I make deployment mistakes or they roll very well.
Fourth, I was probably 50/50 with Tau/ Probably against a great player I would get smoked, and if I played someone making mistakes, I could probably take advantage. My drones and crawlers can soak overwatch allowing me to get a juicy charge with a prince or two.
Fifth, I feel like I would auto lose to knights. I just don't have the knight killing firepower let alone multiple knight killing power. I figured if I play them, I would just play the mission and hide.
I hadn't really considered how much of an impact Iron Hands would have and actually didn't prepare for them at all.

Last year I played 5 pretty tight games with my Plague Marine / Mortarion list but managed to earn 5 wins. I was looking for a repeat performance with a better score and higher place. The mission format changed just a bit, scoring would be a combination of Malestrom cards, end game objectives and semi-variable secondaries. The secondaries and how they worked were the big change. Now there would be six secondaries that would be an effect each game. Each secondary could only be picked once and would be drafted in a "I pick, you pick" format with your opponent. They were:
1. Slay Warlord and keep yours alive
2. Have more units in center at end
3. Have more units in enemy deploy than yours
4. Kill their most expensive unit and preserve yours
5. Control more terrain features at end
6. Kill more in round 1 than the opponent

My list:


Strange but doable. Each of these are always in play in each game. That means Mortarion had to go, he would always die meaning I would always lose Marked for Death, every time. Also, the terrain feature one was weird and seemed unnatural as controlling terrain features has never been part of the game, this would cost me in round 3.

Round 1: ORKS!!!
Setting up, I realized I was playing against another Dad-Hammer player, someone who has been playing on and off for many years and is busy working a job and raising kids. He was playing an interesting list with a mob of Flashgitz, 15 Lootas, a CAN MOB!, two dreads, lots of boys and more boys... and a big squad of MEGANOBZ! He also had a KFF mek, a weird boy, some Mek guns which I believe were Smashas and a Warboss.
He had more drops than me and I ended up deploying my troops in my back field to screen out a DA JUMP. In his deploying, he underestimated how far my drones could move and still shoot, and ended up deploying them just a little too close. We had access to chess clocks each game, but we didn't use them. I deployed the three drones right up front with the two princes behind, finally with the two crawlers behind them.
He won the roll off but chose to hand off the first turn to me. I have to admit I always want the first turn because I can just move to the center of the board and use my general resiliency to tank shots before unloading with spewers. Also, if there happens to be LOS blockers in the middle, I can use them for a turn too.
With first turn I was able to scoot up and position with some advance rolls to shoot plague spitters at the Lootas. The deployment only had us about 18 inches apart at the front of our deployment zone and Drones have a 20-25" threat range. I also was able to move up and Plaguewind on turn 1 with my Malignant Plague Caster. Between rolling good on shots and rolling good on Plague Wind, I was able to knock down all of the Lootas. Also, my Crawlers were able to drop some bombs down on the killa cans as they marched up the board.
His first round, he moved up the Mob, moved up boyz, moved up dreads and fired lots of shots, including a million rockits and shoota shots. He also managed to counter charge with his Meganobz against my front drones.
One drone died, another was badly damaged but on my turn the Terminators came down near the Flashgitz in the corner and shot them up pretty good and failed their charge. Sadly for me, I was not aware that Flashgitz had great Terminator killing guns and were multiwound models, making them just about the worst thing to drop down on. You live and learn.
I ended up counter charging with my Daemon Princes, who along with the remaining drone who fell back and shot, and the remaining fresh drone, managed to kill then Meganobz and Warboss.
Another timely Plague Wind helped scorch some boyz from one of the big squads, along with spewers from the tanks.
By the end of top of 2, things were looking grim for the Orks. One of his big squads was basically dead, the meganobz were dead, the warboss was dead. He needed a big turn 2 to turn the tide towards the green.
Sadly for him, his turn 2 didn't do everything he wanted it to. He just didn't have the firepower needed to take down my big tough units, he needed his Kans in combat, which they would be this turn, but he rolled poorly on that critical turn to do a lot of real damage. The damaged drone went down and I believe one Prince was wounded pretty badly. His Flashgitz rolled poorly vs my Terminators and as turn 3 rolled around, I was able to charge and kill the Flashgitz, fall back from the kans and drop mortar shots on them, smite them and torch them more.
The Kan/Prince/Drone combat was taking place near the center of the board and as it continued, I won the war of attrition.
Time was becoming an issue and I had scored quite a few Maelstrom cards up until this point. I had killed his Warlord and mine was alive and I needed to maintain the center of the board for my secondaries. I held 4 of the 6 objectives firmly and each would be worth 2 pts at the end. By the end of 4 I had tallied up a pretty decent but hard fought win.
The scoring was take the point differential and I add it to 25 and he subtracts from 25, giving me a 38-12 win.

ROUND 1 W 38-12

Lessons from this round: Perhaps starting terminators on the board would be a better idea? I could have gotten another round of anti-infantry shooting in, maybe pushing the win up a few more points. Also, chess clocks would have helped me score more also, we only finished 4 turns. MVPs were the Bloat Drones, they just do so much work.

Thanks for that - good read.

Hello people, I recently decided to shelve my Orks for a while and pick up some other guys in green. Loving though, immovable type of armies Death Guard seemed like a natural fit. Now having read the codex it seems the Death Guard love to use infantry, which is also right up my alley. So now I´m wondering what kind of units/list should I buy/build for a mono DG list that wants to have a lot of PM units. I was thinking of including some Poxwalker units to capture objectives/screen/throw in the meatgrinder and some MBH for the cover save and much needed anti-tank.
But I'm hoping some of you can help me with what to get seeing as I have no experience playing any army other than Orks. Furthermore Mono-DG is what I want to play with PM at it's core. Also tips/tricks on how to play such a list are much appreciated!

 Castozor wrote:
Hello people, I recently decided to shelve my Orks for a while and pick up some other guys in green. Loving though, immovable type of armies Death Guard seemed like a natural fit. Now having read the codex it seems the Death Guard love to use infantry, which is also right up my alley. So now I´m wondering what kind of units/list should I buy/build for a mono DG list that wants to have a lot of PM units. I was thinking of including some Poxwalker units to capture objectives/screen/throw in the meatgrinder and some MBH for the cover save and much needed anti-tank.
But I'm hoping some of you can help me with what to get seeing as I have no experience playing any army other than Orks. Furthermore Mono-DG is what I want to play with PM at it's core. Also tips/tricks on how to play such a list are much appreciated!

It's a fun list to take, and no mistake! It won't be winning any top tables, but who cares? You'll be the coolest guy in your gaming group!

When I play DG, I also use this basic core. Some of the best units we have to fill it out are as follows:
HQs: Daemon Princes
Elite: Blightlord Terminators, Foul Blightspawns
FA: Bloat Drones
Heavy Supports: Plagueburst Crawlers
Lords of War: Mortarion

The first choice is single or double battalion. I think double sounds the go with you; take three squads of Plague Marines in one, and then another with a big Poxwalker squad, and perhaps two min squads of cultists, to hold back field objectives. These are needed, as any of our other units are all mid or close range, and too expensive to be left in the back. Then HQs. You should take a DP, and then either another DP, or Typhus, if you go more HAM on the Poxwalkers. If you take two pox walker squads, take Typhus. If one, probably another DP. Besides that you want to cheap out on HQs. A Chaos Lord for re-rolls, and perhaps a Malignant Plaguecaster. If you take Typhus, you probably don't need another caster, as our powers are not amazing.

The second choice to make is Mortarion or not. If you have Mortarion, then basically he will be your flashy centrepiece. HQs + troops for a battalion or two will take 1000 odd points, and with Mortarion that gives you only 500 points to play with. This will get you 2-3 odd vehicles. Note that with your fluffy (and cool) troop base, Mortarion alone will die very quickly, as you won't have the sufficient threat saturation to help him live, or even to warrant him being a giant distraction carnifex. But then he's just so damn cool.

And then finally fill out your 500-1000 points as you will. My TAC list would be: a 5 man Blightlord Terminator squad, 2x Bloat Drones, and 2x Plagueburst Crawlers (not taking Mortarion usually). This gives a nice, tough midfield, and a good diversity of threats. Of these, however, I'd probably be quickest to exchange out the Terminators.

So overall my fluffy mono-DG list looks roughly as follows:
2x DPs
1x Chaos Lord
1x Malignant Plaguecaster
3x 7 man Plague Marine squads
1x 20 man Pox walker squad
2x 10 man cultist squads
1x 5 man Blightlord Terminator squad
2x Bloat Drones
2x Plagueburst Crawlers

Everything's tough, and moderately killy, with lots of auto-hitting spooge-cannons. Just like DG should be!

 Castozor wrote:
Hello people, I recently decided to shelve my Orks for a while and pick up some other guys in green. Loving though, immovable type of armies Death Guard seemed like a natural fit. Now having read the codex it seems the Death Guard love to use infantry, which is also right up my alley. So now I´m wondering what kind of units/list should I buy/build for a mono DG list that wants to have a lot of PM units. I was thinking of including some Poxwalker units to capture objectives/screen/throw in the meatgrinder and some MBH for the cover save and much needed anti-tank.
But I'm hoping some of you can help me with what to get seeing as I have no experience playing any army other than Orks. Furthermore Mono-DG is what I want to play with PM at it's core. Also tips/tricks on how to play such a list are much appreciated!

It's amazing how many ork players are picking up Death Guard - welcome to the other green guys!

I suggest picking up two halves of Dark Imperium as first order, as you get two units of plague marines, two of our awesome drones, some characters and enough pox walkers to do whatever you want. If you do not need multiples of any of the characters in there, so if you can get the other stuff cheaper by not buying them twice, do it. The LoC is not amazing, but can still be used as chaos lord.
What you want on your marines are plasma guns and blight haulers - the cheapest way to get them is the ETB set, but you'll end up with a lot of similar looking duded. If you buy the regular box set, make sure to build them with close combat weapons, as its the only way to get those - bolter marines can be gotten from DIand ETB.

Afterwards, the stars of the codex are pretty much what Tony wrote. Daemon Princes are awesome because of their DR and the 2+ armor relic, PBC are nigh unkillable harrasment units or anti-tank and blight lords are basically your swiss army knife that can do whatever you need, wherever you need. Foul blight spawns are just like the SAG, but as flamers, you'll love those.
MBH are solid, but don't expect wonders from them. They are a pretty schizophrenic unit that tries to do many things at once, but can't. For example, it wants to cover your marines with its aura and block charges for them, but it also wants to use its high movement speed zoom ahead to get a juicy target in 12" range.
As for Mortarion, I would advise against buying him until you have a 2000 points army without him. In my experience, games with always play out the same, so running him over and over becomes monotonous. Being able to switch him out from time to time will be more enjoyable in the long run.

In my opinion you don't necessarily need cultists for objective camping, pox walkers do that job just fine. You spend 20 points more on them, but in turn they lose 0 casualties to morale and more often than not are resilient enough to eat up small harassing units like scouts or assault marines that tried to bully them off an objective.

Thanks for the advice guys. Guess I will start looking for a demon prince model and the DI set. Those lists look a lot lie what I had in mind so it´s good to hear it´s possible to play that way. Competitiveness is not my number one goal anyway as my local garage hammer meta is relatively tame, only mono/codex, mono/faction lists and no high power factions.

My gaming group looks very similar and DG are quite powerful in that context.
You can get away with a lot of things as DG don't really force you to build your army in a certain way. As long as you bring something to handle tanks and something that can get into your opponent's backfield, pretty much anything works.
The only real dud I have found so far are helbrutes, as they have some anti-synergy with other DG daemon engines - they stick out like a sore thumb and become obvious targets for all your opponent's anti-tank.

I kinda wished Hellbrutes were usable, because while I do love the Death Guard lore overall the whole corruption and demons thing doesn´t do it for me. Luckily all but one of my regular opponents don´t really use many vehicles/monsters.

 Castozor wrote:
I kinda wished Hellbrutes were usable, because while I do love the Death Guard lore overall the whole corruption and demons thing doesn´t do it for me. Luckily all but one of my regular opponents don´t really use many vehicles/monsters.

Agreed

Ok I've just played vs new Ultramarines and I have to say I really got wrecked lol. They have so many tricks, buffs, stragames and Tigurius is just so strong. He had Marenus, tigurius, lieutenant, 10 intercessors, 10 hellblasters, 1 executioner, 10 scouts, 6 infiltrators and the ancient.

My PBCs flamed his troops, but they were always in cover and kept saving all at 3+. After they got destroyed by the hellblasters and executioner. My bearers holded 2 turns then got wiped. Only thing that did work was my DPs, but it wasn't enough sadly.

I really felt the difference in codexes during the game. Every turn he had some cool gimmick or trick while I only used cloud of flies and rerolls stratagem during the whole game.

Sorry if it seems like a rant but it wasn't a really enjoyable game ahahah.

Any tips on list building?
(I had DP + 8 marines + 3 PBC + 1 drone, Nurgle DP, poxgringer, 30 bearers, 6 nurglings)

It's the same against most codices though. Everyone burns through their CP by turn 2 and has to decide which ones to use, while DG just spends all their CP on cloud of flies and VotLW every turn.

Yea DG are not in a good place right now. They really need to get some love in the DEC update. I have written some proposed rule changes for them in the proposed rule forum.

 lindsay40k wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I think I'll go with one prince with a sword and spewer and one with two talons. The one with the spewer will have wings. If points allow for it, I might put in a third prince, with talons. In terms of my psychics, I have two plaguecasters and I am thinking of adding in a traditional Chaos sorcerer for additional psychic abilities. Is this a good idea?

Just to check - everyone’s aware that DG can’t get Dark Hereticus, yeah

(Unless you take a Sorcerer on Palanquin and successfully negotiate a strict RAW reading of its powers, which a lot of TO’s will reject - along with the Index model itself)

If you ally in a Chaos Space marine detachment then Chaos Familiar can be played on a <Heretic Astartes> psyker to replace any of its powers with one from the Dark Hereticus discipline...

I actually briefly did think that DG could use Dark Hereticus, I must have mixed them up with Nurgle daemons.

What's the best way to get drones armed with the fleshmower intact to the enemy lines?

Bring three, have daemon prince support them and advance turn one, charge turn two. Bring other vehicles with similar profiles like MBH, PBC or FW dreads for target saturation.
Drones are pretty durable for what they cost, especially with a flesh mower, if someone focuses them down, that's a good thing, because they are most likely wasting their firepower.

So thanks for everything so far guys, but I have a new question. Assuming I want to use predators or land raiders for anti tank, which one is best and how should they be used? My friend Hell's me to use a land raider but I'm not convinced, seems to much of an all eggs in one basket kind of deal. Then again T8 vs T7 is appealing. So please let me know what is best.

Both are kinda overpriced for what they bring, which is Lascannons. I might say 3 Las Missile helbrutes would be better off for not degrading and actually getting a Legion trait, but between the two tanks, Land Raider can at least move and shoot, and with a 2+ save, you still get a save against most AP.

However, what I find happens most often is your cargo in the LR wants to get close, while the LR itself doesent, gets wrapped in CC and sits useless for a few turns.

So for that, maybe a backfield tank is better.

 Castozor wrote:
So thanks for everything so far guys, but I have a new question. Assuming I want to use predators or land raiders for anti tank, which one is best and how should they be used? My friend Hell's me to use a land raider but I'm not convinced, seems to much of an all eggs in one basket kind of deal. Then again T8 vs T7 is appealing. So please let me know what is best.

I have recently added a predator with autocannon/lascannon to my list and it's awesome for mono-DG lists as it adds something DG otherwise is really bad at. The more important asset is the autocannon though, not the lascannon sponsons, so a landraider isn't exactly what I would be adding for anti-tank unless I plan to drive a bunch of Deathshrouds around with it. A wardog would probably a better option than either, as it has two autocannons.

 Jidmah wrote:
Bring three, have daemon prince support them and advance turn one, charge turn two. Bring other vehicles with similar profiles like MBH, PBC or FW dreads for target saturation.
Drones are pretty durable for what they cost, especially with a flesh mower, if someone focuses them down, that's a good thing, because they are most likely wasting their firepower.

I'm going to be having three haulers in my army most definitely. Crawlers are appealing as well. What weapons loadout should I give one? I do have sprues which I plan to use to create a Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought with either soul burners or butcher cannons. I was going to use it in a Tzeentch army, but it could also go in this one. There's also a helbrute that I have, armed possible with lascannons and missiles, that I might put in there, and I might get a rhino as well to transport my more melee-oriented PM.

In addition to two battalions of Death Guard, I was thinking of having a Nurgle daemon detachment with plaguebearers, nurglings, a herald, plague drones, and a Great Unclean One. The GUO I was thinking of giving a doombell to allow me to bring back slain daemon engines, or maybe just kit it out for maximum melee potential. Is any of this a good idea?

When I take a Land Raider, I take the Hellforged (FW) variant that can switch bolters for flamers. Much better suited to shock troops delivery, if you can take out tanky melee units then it can play pretty aggressively. Mine’s a high candidate for Warptime when it comes out to play it ate a Phobos Captain recently

 lindsay40k wrote:
When I take a Land Raider, I take the Hellforged (FW) variant that can switch bolters for flamers. Much better suited to shock troops delivery, if you can take out tanky melee units then it can play pretty aggressively. Mine’s a high candidate for Warptime when it comes out to play it ate a Phobos Captain recently

How does it work out? Guessing it's not very 'efficient', but is it good enough to not hold you back?

What do you put in it?

I'm thinking of getting some blightkings for possessed, but are they worth it in a DG army? Also, what about dual wielding plague cleavers?

Niiru wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
When I take a Land Raider, I take the Hellforged (FW) variant that can switch bolters for flamers. Much better suited to shock troops delivery, if you can take out tanky melee units then it can play pretty aggressively. Mine’s a high candidate for Warptime when it comes out to play it ate a Phobos Captain recently

How does it work out? Guessing it's not very 'efficient', but is it good enough to not hold you back?

What do you put in it?

It’s ok. Warptime is pretty important. A Spartan does the same thing much, much better, due to being able to shoot whilst in combat. It’s not going to make a splash in competitive any time soon. I usually put Berzerkers in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even then, two rhinos full of Berzerkers would outperform it.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I'm thinking of getting some blightkings for possessed, but are they worth it in a DG army? Also, what about dual wielding plague cleavers?

I cant speak as to whether they're worth it or not, but I was using blightkings as spawn and possessed in 7th and the models work great for this. The blightkings kit is a treasure trove of conversion fodder.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I'm thinking of getting some blightkings for possessed, but are they worth it in a DG army? Also, what about dual wielding plague cleavers?

DG Possessed have got a very unusual play in a Nurgle army.

By teaming up with a Blightbringer, and a CSM Warptimer (Word Bearers are best at this with the new stuff), and starting near a Gnarlmaw, they can easily charge on the first turn. Maybe even make the home run before even charging!

If they had DR, this would be fantastic. As it is, DG Possessed want to stack a few damage-buffing spells (which a melee army will bring anyway, and won’t have much else to cast them on in the first turn) to be as punchy as their Lorgarian equivalents.

You can technically field a DG Warptimer by taking a Palanquin Sorcerer. This is due to an accident of rules editing oversight, which will probably be withdrawn if some big event gets won by exploiting it - but that’s now less likely, as someone who really wants to do this sort of thing competitively will just take a WB or Ahriman to do it.