Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I personally hope for anything for Deathshroud. Something like DA's Combined Assault, allow Deathshroud to teleport or deepstrike both within 3" of a character and more than 6" away from enemy models. Obvious "homing beacons" for this would be Morty or a winged DP. Make it 3 CP, bring their cost back up to 60 ppm, I don't care. ANYTHING to make them effective bodyguards and to actually get them into CC. I wanna field my scythebois again

Dg is in a good spot for incredible psychic awakening rules.
Why? Simply because dg is a midle tier faction with tools for everything but lack this suplement of power to reach top tier.

As exemple charge fiabilisation tool.
Huge difference for blightlords, deathshrouds and cc plague hordes.

Expect boost for everything shelved as for tyranids or thousand sons.
Don't expect too much for demons. It's quite difficult to boost them as they will be covered by their own codex and PA supplément. Imagine if they have differents powers inside demon's roster or da's roster. Chaos is oriented toward soup and you will select the best dataslate.

My wishlist:

Alchemical armory.
Give up cp for flavored weapons.
Phosporic rounds
Rad shells
Viral bolts
Flesheating grenade.
Poxwlaking strain


Because until now deathguard is described as the faction most eager to use devious and inhuman weapons.
Even before the betreyal it was their signature and it dosen't reflect in term if gameplay further than "plague weapons" and the plague skull of nonexistance .

I think they are a bit too grotesque wich beter fit nurgle's démon legions.
They are described as sarcastics and practicals but they still are space marines.

Give them gaz artillery stratagem, different poxes, infantry oriented stuff and i will be happy.

We don't need factions inside a chaos faction.
There is smartest way to incite playstyle.

I'd like to see everything you guys have posted, but my personal hope is that they flesh out the various Vectorums. That would give us our 'cults' and let modles like Necrosius and Mamon interact with the rest of the army. Also, DG could stand to have a bit more diversity in play style.

Back on the topic.

What do you think about terrax patern assault drill?

Transport capacity of 12 synergises prety well with cc plague marine units.

E8 for another tought unit.
No sloutch in melee. Gaining Deathguard keyword allow tallyman to boost it's ws4 for huge improvment (4+ vs 4+ reroll)
8 stormbolter's shots for chaft.
Magma cuters for ranged ap (weak ranged ap)

136 pts. I think it's a deal.

Speaking of psychic awakening, if we have charge fiabilisation we'll se a lot of them (when fw is allowed) .
But gambling on 50% charge for 1cp is meh.

Best way to use it actualy:
Embark plasma shooty squad + lord or tally (or both) , keep room for biologus/blightspawn for tactical options.
Send the terrax next to 10man blight lords, unleash hail of plasma/stormbolter and charge with the terrax and hope for blightlords to do the same.
Blightlords strugles against armored units, terrax doesn't.

Connect with blight drones (ws4 = > reroll) , connect with cc plague marine unit shrouded since t1.
It's very difficult to anticipate where will be the real threat, specialy if you have a biologus and 2 blightspawn somewhere.

agony.deluxe wrote:
Send the terrax next to 10man blight lords, unleash hail of plasma/stormbolter and charge with the terrax and hope for blightlords to do the same.

You basically said it yourself. In general, hope isn't exactly something that consistently wins you games. Without something to make 9" charges reliable (re-roll and additional charge distance), deep strike strategies can be fun when they work, but fail terribly when they don't. This is the main reason why deathshrouds see no play.

 Jidmah wrote:

agony.deluxe wrote:
Send the terrax next to 10man blight lords, unleash hail of plasma/stormbolter and charge with the terrax and hope for blightlords to do the same.

You basically said it yourself. In general, hope isn't exactly something that consistently wins you games. Without something to make 9" charges reliable (re-roll and additional charge distance), deep strike strategies can be fun when they work, but fail terribly when they don't. This is the main reason why deathshrouds see no play.

I know but blighlords see some play already and we have nothing to improve charge reliability.
Terrax is well suited to go alongside them.

Like i said about psychic awakening deathguard need very few things to be far more compétitive.

Charge reliability is a good exemple.

Blightlords aren’t a dedicated CC unit.

They are a bully unit. An area control unit. A deep striking anti horde unit. An large foot print that can be untargetable. A very effective use of buffs like -1 to hit or VotLW.

As a bonus they can make a long charge and just win a game off the deep strike with a silly 9inch command reroll charge.

Exactly. Blight Lords are an anti-infantry unit and really don't need the support of the drill to go along with them unless they are in over their head anyways. Meaning, you are doing something wrong or desperate.

In general, if you wanted to really make use of the drill, I'd probably try putting some melee plague marine in there with tallyman and psyker to support them. Or just bolters and a biologous purifier for the grenade combo. Both are a lot of eggs in one basket though and easily countered unless you bring three drills since you have no way of protecting them besides miasma.

This is exactly why it's so convinient to add a t8 melee unit to the maths.

Blighlords strugles against high toughness units with good saves, plasma and terrax are a solution.

Lord give the reroll aura, the transport capacity give you versatility.

You still can use blighlords as usual , terrax and it's crew are self sufficient.
But now you can contest screen + juicy targets.

How you will use your blightlords become less obvious thus harder to counter/predict.

In a context of pure deathguard list of course.

On the con side the price of terrax + squad + lord is quite high.
330-340.

If there is some tools in pa to reach melee i will try a big cc unit in terrax.

I still fail to see how blightlords play into this. Their job is to simply shred stuff with VotLW and storm bolters, charging is mostly a tool to move faster or wipe out some 1W infantry with the flail.

The drill is a decent model for its price, but DG aren't exactly lacking in the distraction carnifex department, and there is still the ~60% chance to fail the charge even with the CP re-roll.

Something that might work though is putting two squads of tripple plasma plague marines in there. You get 12 plasma shots in rapid fire range that way.

On the other hand With a lord with combiplasma and a simple squad you have 8 shots instead of 12 but rerolling "1" and there is still room for more.

The drill carries 12, so you can have both

I wouldn't be adding another 85 points to a unit that's dead next turn though - plus, I prefer meltas or storm bolters on my lords since I'm never going to overcharge the plasma anyways.

 Jidmah wrote:
The drill carries 12, so you can have both

I wouldn't be adding another 85 points to a unit that's dead next turn though - plus, I prefer meltas or storm bolters on my lords since I'm never going to overcharge the plasma anyways.

Combi meltas on lords are hidden gems. Being able to advance and still fire hitting on 2's gives a nice AT punch in support of the infantry he'll be hanging around

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
The drill carries 12, so you can have both

I wouldn't be adding another 85 points to a unit that's dead next turn though - plus, I prefer meltas or storm bolters on my lords since I'm never going to overcharge the plasma anyways.

Combi meltas on lords are hidden gems. Being able to advance and still fire hitting on 2's gives a nice AT punch in support of the infantry he'll be hanging around

I have never considered this! That seems awesome and totally worth trying, I have always just overlooked melts as an option at all due to it being so expensive and in this edition being so much weaker than in the past.

So, I had a really interesting DG game against 2.5k points of Ynnari Harlequins and a reroll/cover craftworld, playing the new maelstrom rules. Our mission's special rule was putting one archived card back into the deck at the end of our turn.

I was running double two poxwalker blobs with typhus to protect a unit of 20 plague marines (bolters/blight launchers), Mortarion, 2x PBC, 2x Drones, a unit of 3 MBH, palguecaster, foul blightspawn, blightbringer, biologous putrefier and an Arch-Contaminator DP as my warlord. Or, in other words, all the DG models

I always struggled with capturing objectives, so I just went all-in and removed all "Capture/Defend objective X" cards from my deck, plus some of ones that are likely to be impossible, like capturing all six mission objectives, kill a psyker and them some, and kept almost everything that had the possibility to award d3 VP.

I must say, it worked like a charm. The eldar player deployed first, but then decided to let me have first turn (make sure you play those new rules correctly, they are quite confusing).
I had kingslayer (warlord is 1d3 extra VP), death begets life(1VP/7models killed), symbol of the fly lord (exactly 3 objectives), kill something your shooting phase and kill something in the fight phase.
I chose to keep death begets life since I thought I could ramp up more VP in T2 and played kill with shooting, symbol and kill with fighting. The last one I played face down, knowing that the harlequins would come for me and hoped to sneak in a VP if I could kill one.
I basically spend T1 advancing my mega-blob forward (Noxius Blightbringer really helped here), keeping Mortarion screened from fusion pistols, with PBC driving up the flank towards the craftworld castle. After putting defensive buffs on everything (cloud of flies on 20 marines), I blew up only one vibro cannon with my MBH, 4/5 rangers and killed some scatter bikes, but didn't get more than 1 unit killed. I also failed to score symbol of the fly lord because I'm an idiot and moved one PBC barely out of 3" of the third objective, so one VP and first blood.
On the eldar's turn he came at me with everything, harlequin bikes put 20 wounds on the MBH, but as they could as one unit, he was denied power from death. he failed to kill Mortarion, leaving him at 6, he failed to kill both drones, one left at 6 and one at 7, and killed roughly 15 pox walkers spread between the two units, neither dropping below 10. The fight back and regenerate some pox walkers by killing harlequin bikes. He scores 4 VP for casting 3 psychic powers and holding an objective.

With Mortarion unexpectedly being alive, I play death begets life and start racking up kills. I move the noxious blightbringer onto an objective to both score the symband bait the harlequins into charging him because he has the "kill 1 or 3 characters" stratagem in play. I use another cloud of flies and the dead walk again to generate the pox walker unit surrounded by bikes. And so the tally begins - plaguecaster and typhus kill some bikes with smites, plague wind and fallout, Drones melt a star weaver each, one PBC deletes a unit of rangers, the other kills two scatter bikes and a black reaper with its mortar, foul blight spawn and assorted krak grenades kill some harlequin bikes, 20 marines use VotlW and kill another troupe, a vibro cannon and take 5 wounds of the last starweaver, Mortarion succeeds a 10" charge and gives Yvrain a close-up look of his Scythe and evaporates 4 scatterbikes with the other half of his attacks, pox walker unit 1 wipes a troupe with the help of a drone, pox walker unit 2, daemon prince and MBH wipe a unit of bikes. Total count: 26 killed models = 3 VP. I roll 3s for the two other objectives, archiving 9 VP for that turn.

Dice hate my opponent during his next turn. He falls for the bait, but tries to get Typhus, plaguecaster and floul blightspawn as well to score d3 VP instead of just one. Typhus just ignores 6 meltas fired at him with his 4++, blightbringer dies to some more meltas.
Mortarion dies, explodes, and I roll his MW like a god, putting a grand total or 32 mortal wounds on the craftworld castle, killing the black reapers, a warlock, a scatter bike and putting 2-3 mortal wounds on four vibro cannons, two warwalkers, an autarch and a farseer. He takes down one PBC to 3 wounds and kills the last MBH and a drone.
Afterwards he tries to charge the plague marine blob, but I greet him with a plague grenade volley (because I can), killing two harlequin bike in overwatch and the other two in the combat phase. Troupe charges all the characters, foul blightspawn melts one. Typhus uses counter-attack and kills one more bike, the eldar player still tries to kill 3 characters, but struggles to do so as the blightspawns' aura forces him to take turns with me. He splits attacks a bit too much, blightspawn survives on one wound, Typhus on 3, plaguecaster on 3. He scores 5 VP for killing a character, casting 3 powers and killing a unit with FLY. It's 11:9 right now and I'm all out of CP.

Turn 3 I play dominance (3 or more objectives), kill 1/3/6+ enemy units and one for having 3 units in my opponent's deployment zone.
I fall back from combat with the plaguecaster who then almost dies to a double-six perils, but stays alive thanks to DR, he kills the troupe master and another harlequin. Plague marines clear out the remaining transport and yet another vibro cannon, dameon prince, Typhus, characters and pox walkers clear out the harlequin bikes and decimate almost all harlequins, only a unit of two and a unit of one remain. The unwounded PBC kills another vibro cannon and charges into the castle and tags two vibro cannons and two warwalkers, locking them down. The remaining drone melts his last unit of rangers. Having kille 4 units, controlling 3 objectives and having the PBCs and the drone in his deployment zone I score 3d3 = 8 VP

His turn is rather short, as there is little left on the table that's not locked in combat. The two harlequins finally mange to down Typhus, but are eaten by poxwalkers in return. The one harlequin misses his melta pistol and then kills the blightspawn in combat. Autarch and farseer take PBC to 1 wound, everyone else falls back. He scores one VP, so the game is 19:11

Turn 4 I play kingslayer, as his autarch is exposed, death march (1 VP for being in the enemy's deployment zone) and killing a unit with a plague weapon. I killed his last scatter bike, one more vibro cannon, one warwalker and his autarch falls to the plague marine horder boltering him to death. I score all objectives, slay the warlord and roll another 3 for the d3 for a total of 25 VP.

At this point he only has a farseer with 1 wound left, a warwalker with 3 wounds and two vibro cannons with 2 wound each. He fails to kill the PBC sitting on an objective he could score, then tries to charge a PBC with his warwalker but gets destroyed by overwatch. He then suicides the two vibro-cannons into it as well, effectively ending the game.

I kill the farseer and score 3 more VP plus linebreaker in my turn and we agree to not roll for turn 6.

So just not caring about any specific objectives worked out really well for me, in CA 2017 I often had to table opponents with lots of mobile units to win maelstrom, so might as well get VP for doing it.

Aw man, the Greater Good book doesn't feature Death Guard at all It's IG vs. GSC vs. Tau.

What? Really? That's gak....

Interesting write up Jidmah, enjoyable to read. It makes me wonder if I'm playing my DG wrong as I tend to focus on clamping down the midfield and slowly win by accruing VP. This has had decent success so far but I do tend to end the game with most of my force evaporated. Do you think a more aggressive DG can work even without Morty? I'm asking because I don't have the model and don't want to field him either in 2000 point games.

Truth be told, the army would have been better without him, and I knew that when building the list. I just like the big guy.
Outside of drawing a bit of fire and going off in a spectacular explosion, he made sure one ynnari psyker was really, really, really dead.

Probably would have added 5x plasma blightlords, a las/autocannon predator and the Tallyman instead of him. Blightlords are pretty boss in maelstrom anyways, as they are great at denying objectives to your opponents.

New Psychic Awakening news is a bit of a kick in the teeth. Hey ho, all good things come to those who wait.

 lare2 wrote:
New Psychic Awakening news is a bit of a kick in the teeth. Hey ho, all good things come to those who wait.

Really is - so that will put DG at some point after Engine War so no earlier than May unless we somehow get thrown into the mix for Saga of the Beast which I doubt

Yea GW has broken my will to continue playing. I haven’t played in months. I’m tired of feeling out gunned and over marched playing every other army. No updates in years really sucks. I thought DG would be a model line and codex they would keep supporting.

They could be supported like AdMech, getting a spattering of new releases after a couple of years in play. They could be treated like GK that have got one new unit since 5th ed. Hard to say.

broxus wrote:
Yea GW has broken my will to continue playing. I haven’t played in months. I’m tired of feeling out gunned and over marched playing every other army. No updates in years really sucks. I thought DG would be a model line and codex they would keep supporting.

They are going to get PA rules, just not now. Which is a pity because GW teased us with a story about the Tau encountering the Death Guard during their 4th Sphere Expansion leading many to believe that the The Greater Good book would be about what happened out there. Alas, no such luck. We'll have to wait for may probably. Hmm, which factions haven't been covered yet either? DG vs. Sisters maybe? That would leave Deathwatch for a scrap with the Necrons, and I believe that's every major faction covered.

edit: Except Custodes. I have a feeling the Golden Banana's will be thrown into a DG vs. Sisters book. Inquisition and Officio Assassinorum are probably too small to be featured.

I'm fairly confident sisters are done. They were in the video for the first book and they marketed the limited edition fiasco as their PA release.

I doubt that our PA release will have anything of substance anyway if the TS update is anything to go by.

 NurglesR0T wrote:
I doubt that our PA release will have anything of substance anyway if the TS update is anything to go by.

Agreed just wait 3 years to get that garbage update like the TS. I am sure every death guard player will be happy. Currently, I think DG are over performing and we don’t really need any new rules . I mean the top performing DG lists at LVO did rank 172nd, 279th, and 363rd. I don’t know why anyone is surprised people who play DG have lost interest in the game.

Are you guys using the Blighthaulers a lot?
And if yes - mostly for their damage or to add durability to your footsloggers?

Slowly expanding my Death Guard army and thought about adding some to get my 3 squads Plague Marines with 2 blight launchers each some mobile cover.
Not sure if they are worth the investment because i feel like if i take them i should go for 3 to get that +1.

Another option would be drones but i am still not a 100% convinced about the damage output.
Yeah that flamer is kinda cool but i don´t really see those ~4 wounds if i get anywhere doing a lot for me.

Or simply max out crawlers instead?

Rest of the army is a Leviathan, a Contemptor, a crawler, 10 Blightlords and some characters.

In one of my lists I run 3 MBH backed up by a lord and 5 PM with 3 plasma, which are made super duper every turn. The damage output of this little cluster is nuts and has toppled some crazy stuff in its time. I tend to find that people ignore them as well, not really knowing what they can do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In that same list, I play them on one wing and on the other, 3 FBD with an archcontaminator Daemon prince. Again, absolutely savage.

 lare2 wrote:
In one of my lists I run 3 MBH backed up by a lord and 5 PM with 3 plasma, which are made super duper every turn. The damage output of this little cluster is nuts and has toppled some crazy stuff in its time. I tend to find that people ignore them as well, not really knowing what they can do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In that same list, I play them on one wing and on the other, 3 FBD with an archcontaminator Daemon prince. Again, absolutely savage.

Agreed - that sounds brutal.

I've had lots of gaks and giggles using triple drones with fleshmowers - them coupled near a AC DP always brings joy to my decaying heart +