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From what I gather the PBC is great at taking lots of wounds off vehicles and monsters, but not that great at killing infantry.

It basically should be used like a predator annihilator with lascannon sponsons.

Also I would park a chaos lord next to the Plague burst crawlers to mitigate that 4+ to hit a bit.
Also other units to gain from the chaos lord to get more from his points.

Also the tanks can be healed with some demon magics and there are other perks too that make them at least ok for me.

Ah that makes sense. Yeah I played another game today and one took out one of those new Primaris Dreadnaughts pretty quickly. The chaos lord sounds like a good plan and I'm sort tempted to chuck some daemons in so that might be sweet too.

EDIT: also, was wandering what people's thoughts are on Plague Bearers. I tend to use a blob of 20 pox walkers to cover my melee unit of Plague marines (using that amazing stratagem). Would a unit of 16 Plague bearers do a better job of that? With toughness 4, 5++, 5+++, seems like it'd make up for the 4 less wounds in the unit.

Moral can hurt the plague bearers.

I have been screening my pox walkers with 20+ plague bearers. At least that way the enemy has to really work to create pox walkers.

Since I have played mostly marines, I can't really think of an effective way to deal with high toughness units other than jamming 8 lascannons into it. So I'm trying to think about how we can effectively deal with an Eldar wraith-list, especially one with the -1 to hit tactics and lots of wave serpents, at the end of the day I think DG really doesn't have a reliable way to take out a -1 to hit Wave Serpent, so perhaps the best option is simply to use our superior defense to weather their attacks and use our poxwalkers to screen our high value units so that the wave serpents can never get a good disembark for their passengers.

I think a few Bloat-drones with the heavy blight launchers/plague mowers and plasma/blight launcher plague marine units would do pretty well against high toughness armies, along with a couple of Plagueburst Crawlers

 Continuity wrote:
So I recently started DG and I've been brainstorming matchups, I know PBC is highly rated but it seems like its damage output will drop a lot when facing any armies with -1 to hit bonuses or fliers, and I have a hard time figuring out how DG can handle a fast eldar list with army-wide -1 to hit which can control the board in relative safety. Do we have any good strategy to dealing with these kind of opponents without fetching some CSM units?

Ive heard multiple blightspawn is a winner!

Park 1-2 in your back field with screeners like nurglings and let them flamer punch stuff in the face!! also limits charging units.

 sennacherib wrote:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Yes they do loose fire support ability when they advance. That’s why I usually post it up as a shooter next to a objective. It can pump out the damage each turn at range and if the enemy is foolish enough to deep strike something nearby to take the objective, well let’s just say that they don’t live long. Or at least that’s the plan.

Won’t a PBC do more damage, is harder to kill, and is cheaper? It is better to be good at either shooting or close combat, not both. I hate paying for rules I don't get to use. If they get another points drop per the rumors they may be worth looking at.

PBC only do more damage when paired with a lord with arch contaminator. They are also way less punchy in melee. Likely why defilers cost more. Real problem with defilers is that they are jack of all trades master of none.

In shooting PBC do more damage than defilers regardless of heroes. It also does more damage than a predator with 4-las cannons

COLD CASH wrote:

 Continuity wrote:
So I recently started DG and I've been brainstorming matchups, I know PBC is highly rated but it seems like its damage output will drop a lot when facing any armies with -1 to hit bonuses or fliers, and I have a hard time figuring out how DG can handle a fast eldar list with army-wide -1 to hit which can control the board in relative safety. Do we have any good strategy to dealing with these kind of opponents without fetching some CSM units?

Ive heard multiple blightspawn is a winner!

Park 1-2 in your back field with screeners like nurglings and let them flamer punch stuff in the face!! also limits charging units.

Blightspawn is one of those things that has ridiculous burst damage, but its range is seriously limiting (5' movement + d6 advance + 9' range) so anything that feels threatened by it will likely move out of the way, it needs to be paired with a blightbringer to enhance its movement.

Its ability to limit charging units is a missed potential, since it only forces chargers to fight normally instead of last, which means this ability is not going to save a unit getting charge by some CC monster because the opponent will just activate his unit first.

Definitely a character that requires finesse and very careful movement to make the most out of and I will try it out in my lists, but I wouldn't rely on it to shoot planes out of the skies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Yes they do loose fire support ability when they advance. That’s why I usually post it up as a shooter next to a objective. It can pump out the damage each turn at range and if the enemy is foolish enough to deep strike something nearby to take the objective, well let’s just say that they don’t live long. Or at least that’s the plan.

Won’t a PBC do more damage, is harder to kill, and is cheaper? It is better to be good at either shooting or close combat, not both. I hate paying for rules I don't get to use. If they get another points drop per the rumors they may be worth looking at.

PBC only do more damage when paired with a lord with arch contaminator. They are also way less punchy in melee. Likely why defilers cost more. Real problem with defilers is that they are jack of all trades master of none.

In shooting PBC do more damage than defilers regardless of heroes. It also does more damage than a predator with 4-las cannons

How does PBC fair when shooting at things with a -1 to hit bonus? I expect its damage output to get hit very badly.

I'v had quite a bit of luck with defilers in 8th as a HtH unit.

with a Scourge you get in there unscathed (possible) ye have 4 s16 attacks at -3 doing d6 damage and 3 s12 -2 3dmg attacks! its not to be sniffed at!!!

Really decent if you have a DP near by re-rolling 1's to hit.

Ye rocking 14 wounds, 3+ 5++ inv and you get a wound back a turn (this is very userful). They can definitely take some punishment .

Plus with DG you have the awesome always blows up strat which owing to the defilers massive footprint can be terrifying.

I normally dont even bother firing its guns, 8" run and smoke first turn.

nevermind

Blight Hauler found? Also our Manreaper Lord of Contagion, is seems.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/11/40k-breaking-new-nurgle-blight-hauler-primaris-kits-spotted.html

 Continuity wrote:

COLD CASH wrote:

 Continuity wrote:
So I recently started DG and I've been brainstorming matchups, I know PBC is highly rated but it seems like its damage output will drop a lot when facing any armies with -1 to hit bonuses or fliers, and I have a hard time figuring out how DG can handle a fast eldar list with army-wide -1 to hit which can control the board in relative safety. Do we have any good strategy to dealing with these kind of opponents without fetching some CSM units?

Ive heard multiple blightspawn is a winner!

Park 1-2 in your back field with screeners like nurglings and let them flamer punch stuff in the face!! also limits charging units.

Blightspawn is one of those things that has ridiculous burst damage, but its range is seriously limiting (5' movement + d6 advance + 9' range) so anything that feels threatened by it will likely move out of the way, it needs to be paired with a blightbringer to enhance its movement.

Its ability to limit charging units is a missed potential, since it only forces chargers to fight normally instead of last, which means this ability is not going to save a unit getting charge by some CC monster because the opponent will just activate his unit first.

Definitely a character that requires finesse and very careful movement to make the most out of and I will try it out in my lists, but I wouldn't rely on it to shoot planes out of the skies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Yes they do loose fire support ability when they advance. That’s why I usually post it up as a shooter next to a objective. It can pump out the damage each turn at range and if the enemy is foolish enough to deep strike something nearby to take the objective, well let’s just say that they don’t live long. Or at least that’s the plan.

Won’t a PBC do more damage, is harder to kill, and is cheaper? It is better to be good at either shooting or close combat, not both. I hate paying for rules I don't get to use. If they get another points drop per the rumors they may be worth looking at.

PBC only do more damage when paired with a lord with arch contaminator. They are also way less punchy in melee. Likely why defilers cost more. Real problem with defilers is that they are jack of all trades master of none.

In shooting PBC do more damage than defilers regardless of heroes. It also does more damage than a predator with 4-las cannons

How does PBC fair when shooting at things with a -1 to hit bonus? I expect its damage output to get hit very badly.

A PBC will still do more damage than a 4-las cannon Predator if they even both have -1 to hit.

If I follow the new flowchart right, our PMs can take Plasmapistols again and the champions have access to Combi - and powerweapons again. Cool thing We still can't take powerweapon + combiweapon like in older editions, though, but that's okay for me.

I'm thinking about putting a single helbrute into my mono DG army just for the sake of having a really neat conversion I want to use. I use three squads of 5 PM with max plasma, 1 squad of 10 blightlords with Typhus, 2 blightspawn, 2 plaguecasters, 1 flying DP, and several units of pox walkers.

I get several combat points from this so the option of using the helbrute stratagem is there if needed. What loadout would you suggest for this model? I haven't done the arms yet and have conversions for all weapon options. I don't want to magnetize so once I pick something I'm probably sticking to it. Any particular role this helbrute should fill?

I think taking advantage of the moving and shooting should be considered. I built mine with Reaper and Missile Launcher. But if I had to do it differently, maybe a heavy bolter and a power scourge for the fluffy 7 attacks.

Twin Las and Power Scourge

So what are you experiences lately playing DG?
I was really afraid of IG and Mechanicus since their codex came out, but playing against them now it doesnt feel that wrong, I'm winning a lot of games. Ofc our stratagems are weaker and less flexible, but with the psychic powers, blightlords, PBCs, and archcontaminator princes, I dont see DG that ''underperforming''.

broxus wrote:

 Continuity wrote:

COLD CASH wrote:

 Continuity wrote:
So I recently started DG and I've been brainstorming matchups, I know PBC is highly rated but it seems like its damage output will drop a lot when facing any armies with -1 to hit bonuses or fliers, and I have a hard time figuring out how DG can handle a fast eldar list with army-wide -1 to hit which can control the board in relative safety. Do we have any good strategy to dealing with these kind of opponents without fetching some CSM units?

Ive heard multiple blightspawn is a winner!

Park 1-2 in your back field with screeners like nurglings and let them flamer punch stuff in the face!! also limits charging units.

Blightspawn is one of those things that has ridiculous burst damage, but its range is seriously limiting (5' movement + d6 advance + 9' range) so anything that feels threatened by it will likely move out of the way, it needs to be paired with a blightbringer to enhance its movement.

Its ability to limit charging units is a missed potential, since it only forces chargers to fight normally instead of last, which means this ability is not going to save a unit getting charge by some CC monster because the opponent will just activate his unit first.

Definitely a character that requires finesse and very careful movement to make the most out of and I will try it out in my lists, but I wouldn't rely on it to shoot planes out of the skies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Yes they do loose fire support ability when they advance. That’s why I usually post it up as a shooter next to a objective. It can pump out the damage each turn at range and if the enemy is foolish enough to deep strike something nearby to take the objective, well let’s just say that they don’t live long. Or at least that’s the plan.

Won’t a PBC do more damage, is harder to kill, and is cheaper? It is better to be good at either shooting or close combat, not both. I hate paying for rules I don't get to use. If they get another points drop per the rumors they may be worth looking at.

PBC only do more damage when paired with a lord with arch contaminator. They are also way less punchy in melee. Likely why defilers cost more. Real problem with defilers is that they are jack of all trades master of none.

In shooting PBC do more damage than defilers regardless of heroes. It also does more damage than a predator with 4-las cannons

How does PBC fair when shooting at things with a -1 to hit bonus? I expect its damage output to get hit very badly.

A PBC will still do more damage than a 4-las cannon Predator if they even both have -1 to hit.

From what I remember of the math done, the plague burst crawler only out damages the predator when backed up by a lord. In regards to the -1 to hit, the las predator will drop to a 50% chance to hit while the crawler will drop to a 33%. I don't know where you got the math on your statements, but a source might be good.

Nope the PBC always wins. http://www.mathhammer8thed.com Make sure you add up the damage of all four weapons.

Against a T7 vehicle with a 3+ save a PBC does 7.388 damage
Against a T7 vehicle with a 3+ save a Las predator does 5.185 damage
Against a T8 vehicle with a 3+ save a PBC does 5.625 damage
Against a T8 vehicle with a 3+ save a Las predator does 5.185 damage

Sooo... played a small tournament yesterday and got crushed xD Grey Knights vs. Mortarion ain't a funny combination...

Anyway, some of my findings:

- PBCs were very hit or miss. Sometimes they did good damage, sometimes they completely missed their mark and I did 0 damage with all shots (curse you Stygies VIII Kastelans with your -1 to hit penalty and 5++ (or was it 4++?) against shooting) and sometimes they did quite well, but never earth-shattering. Thinking I'm using them wrong. Trying to create a parking lot with a chaos lord with them does not seem to be worth it. I only had 2 (my 3rd isn't finished yet) and even then I had a lot of trouble actually deploying them next to each other because they're rather broad and terrain got in the way. Let alone the trouble of having to deploy 3 or 4 within 6" of a Chaos Lord... furthermore, placing all your tanks close to each other makes it easier for your opponents to lock them all up in melee which happened in my GK game (Celestine with her move-twice trick to lock them both into CC turn 1...). I planned to use Poxies as meat shields but was forced to deploy them elsewhere most of the time to deter deepstrikers.

Also, the main thing they seemed to be awesome at was actually soaking damage instead of dishing it out. The things are dead 'ard. This leads me to believe it's better to spread them out over your deployment zone to harass your opponent with constant light damage that he'll have to dedicate a lot of resources to to take out or take serious damage over the course of a match. A Distraction Carnifex of sorts.

- Contrary to my former belief Blightlords without a Flail don't work. Too easy to tarpit them in CC. Happened in 2 out of 3 matches (although it was nice to see them holding out for 3 or 4 turns against a VenDread smashing them Too bad I couldn't do much back to it). Gonna need another squad of them to model 2 with flails (still got 1 left) and the rest with combi-melta's. In the end that means I'll have a squad with flail + 4 combi-plasma's and a squad with flail + 4 combi-melta's. I still think combi-plas is very nice and worth the risk but I think it'd also be nice to have a squad that doesn't depend on having a Lord nearby to operate at full effectiveness.

- I really need to learn to play Morty smarter if I don't want to get one-shot with GK Smite + Combi-Bolter spam... Why are those Deathshroud so damn slow

I also wonder if I should play DG focused on one thing or in a more varied style... the PBCs and Poxies were very tough but they also seemed to be a little disconnected from the rest of my army. I wonder if I should just get 3 squads of melee PMs and toss them all into Rhino's to accompany Mortarion while I make a separate list with my PBCs, ranged PMs and Poxwalkers that's more focused on mid-long range firepower and on attritional warfare rather than just rushing into assault or deepstriking close like Mortarion, my Demon Prince and Terminators like to do. Lots of things to think about.

I was wondering how effective a whole line of plague marines marching up the board firing their blight launchers would be. So with that in mind, I made a list with 6 squads of these, with plague burst crawlers in support.

The idea is that everything in the list is hard to kill. Plague marines, plague burst crawlers, and daemon princes all have DR. The list is a mid ranged one because of the plague marines, but its designed to take punishment and keep on firing (a very death guard trait). The daemon princes are just there to provide a possible counter charge in case some melee unit gets close and needs to be taken out. I would counter charge them with a plague marine squad backed by two DP which would be the ones doing the actual killing. I would take the helm artifact and arch contaminator to give a bigger bubble and rerolls to wound on all plague weapons within the bubble (good for the blight launchers and plague burst crawlers).

Here’s the rough list.

6 squads of 5 plague marines, 2 blight launchers and a buonic axe for each squad. 2 Daemon Princes, 5 plague crawlers, 1 chao lord.

So, I would deploy the 6 squads in one unbroken continuous line across the whole board. And the 5 Plague burst crawlers would be spread out at a distance behind them so that they fill up the space behind, so that deep strikers cannot get in. So, the idea is just to keep firing and pound the crap out of people and rely on the famed resilience of death guard to carry the day. I might not have the best in shooting, but I would expect my shooting to stay in the game and keep firing for a much longer time than the opponents.

The line of plague marines would march forward to just within range of 24 inches of a target and shoot. Ideally, they would stay at the 24 inch mark. But if something really comes close, I would rely on my two DP to take those out. I don’t have to worry about morale, because all the squads are just 5 man strong. I don’t know if this shooting is enough to overwhelm the opponent, but in theory, its 24 blight launcher shots, plus all the shooting from 5 plague crawlers, with rerolls to hit on 1s, and rerolls to wounds.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
If I run into a situation where melee wise, I am obviously stronger, because the opponent is a pure gunline. Then I would move advance my plague marines every turn along with the two DP, while still firing plague burst crawlers in support.

Hopefully, the plague marines's resilience would be able to weather enough shooting along with my own counter fire, which is undiminished despite advancing forward every turn. And when I get into range of charging, the entire line will charge, supported by the two DP.

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:

broxus wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Yes they do loose fire support ability when they advance. That’s why I usually post it up as a shooter next to a objective. It can pump out the damage each turn at range and if the enemy is foolish enough to deep strike something nearby to take the objective, well let’s just say that they don’t live long. Or at least that’s the plan.

Won’t a PBC do more damage, is harder to kill, and is cheaper? It is better to be good at either shooting or close combat, not both. I hate paying for rules I don't get to use. If they get another points drop per the rumors they may be worth looking at.

PBC only do more damage when paired with a lord with arch contaminator. They are also way less punchy in melee. Likely why defilers cost more. Real problem with defilers is that they are jack of all trades master of none.

In shooting PBC do more damage than defilers regardless of heroes. It also does more damage than a predator with 4-las cannons

Not entirely true. Predators do 5.08 wounds to tanks. Pbc do 3.82.
Pbc do in fact do about .38 wounds more to a tank than a defiler. Defiler however can re roll to hit and to wound for a whole phase for 1 cp bumping their damage output by a significant level. They are also punchier which makes them better in the back field to guard objectives, and their range is significantly longer.

Are three Blight Haulers effective enough anti-tank to be in this discussion with the Defiler vs PBC vs LasPredator?

Thoughts on Hellforged predators loaded up with flamers ?

Charge up the field autohitting and charging stuff.. Then exploding. Could be fun.

I'm really torn as to what to try next. I'm in a newer play group that's moving up from 1000 points to basically 1850.

I've been running two squads of 8 plague marines (with 3 plasma in each), Lord of Contagion, Typhus, a Foetid Bloat drone so far and been wrecking the Tau I play against most often.

But now that he'll be spamming Crisis Suits and drones I'm a tad afraid what to add to combat that.

I have ten terminators to add to the above army. Five are built pure melee and I'm thinking of building the other five for shooting.

I am leaning towards removing the bloat drone because it never does anything for me. I'd really love some more plague marines but I have a feeling I'm going to really want some Plagueburst Crawlers to try to hit the suits.

for me PBC could be played more agressive than you can ever think, lot of damage is dealt with plaguespitters, when you sit the PBC on objective your opponent should spend lot of efforts to disloge it, so you have time to develop the rest of ur army, at KP is a very hard nut to crack, maybe it's not the best damage output platform but sure it drag lot of efforts and if ur oppoent haven't a decent anti tank he will never remove them, more or less the same with foetid drones, play aggressively, and they work fine for their cost, if you expect to place them at bottom of your deply zone and shoot with mortars only... well.... good luck, play a single drone/pbc is a no sense.

Dew wrote:
Are three Blight Haulers effective enough anti-tank to be in this discussion with the Defiler vs PBC vs LasPredator?

That's almost like comparing apples and oranges. Blight Haulers' effective range is much shorter - 12" for maximum effectiveness - but they can move and fire without penalty, so they really are fast attack vehicles rather than heavy support. They can't park on high terrain and hit far-away tanks like the others can.

 Continuity wrote:
Its ability to limit charging units is a missed potential, since it only forces chargers to fight normally instead of last, which means this ability is not going to save a unit getting charge by some CC monster because the opponent will just activate his unit first.

It does mess up multi-assaults though, since only 1 unit will get to swing before whatever they charged.

Can anyone help shed some light on how they effectively use Mortarion to get in range?

I used him for the first time yesterday... but he got blown up by the end of turn one.... I try to run up bloat drones and my daemon prince with him but he just gets focused fired so hard.

I was playing on hammer and anvil deployment and it would have taken me 2-3 turns to get in charge range, theres no way he would survive that long the way im playing at least....

So yea any input would be great