The bright crawler looks fairly good at first glance. It's really tough for cost and seems to have a lot of dakka. If all it's weapons are plague weapons I'd be even happier, as the str 8 might struggle a bit vs T 8 compared to str 9 lascannons, but that's not a huge deal. I think it'll do well given, enough it might actually screw over some alpha strike lists who rely on thinning out anti tank weapons turn 1.

What really struck me as impressive were the new blight haulers. Being able to keep nearby infantry in cover while having a lot of anti tank dakka is nice. They pair well with PM, who don't have the ork problem of trying to fit big squads entirely in the radius, not with msu being the smart choice. They are good enough I don't think I'll feel the loss of havocs as heavily as I imagined.

I'm excited for blight lord terminators, though I want a better description of their kit and loadout, whether the blight launchers are limited choices or can be taken across the squad, etc. Their price looks solid compared to normal csm terminators for the various defensive boosts. Again, a much better deal than what plague marines get.

The blight drones continue to look alright, the melee version is I think the most promising, though all could be useful. I do think the heavy blight launcher variant might struggle compared to the blight haulers though.

Our new characters are a mixed bag. The good is the tallyman, offering us both the dark apostle melee utility as well as a weaker version of the ultramarine warlord trait that everyone loved. Given it's 1/6 instead of 1/3 it's without a doubt still worth including at least one. If it stacks or you are running a melee based army probably a few more.

The biologis and foulspawn are both... alright. Being able to disrupt charges a little helps a defensive DG army, while the grenade boost could be useful in very specific situations (the stratagem). I just don't see either really doing enough work to justify their inclusions.

The apothecary is probably the biggest disappointment of the codex but I may have just expected too much from him. Going from a 33% chance to block a wound to a 38% chance just isn't very significant and the short range also hurts as you'll have to spam them. The fact it only works with infantry makes it even more mediocre, doesn't boost the demon engine DR. The helm might help one be useable, but honestly this unit (and the two above) are all going to need to pull their weight in combat to be worth their cost, they aren't particularly impressive force multipliers. Which disappoints me.

As for the other disappointing choices, deathshroud look just awful. So expensive, practically useless out of deepstrike, these are really just for dropping in in front of morty to shield him for a turn, or maybe loading into a LR with your HQ of choice.

Poxwalkers didn't go down in price, which shocked me. They can gain synergy bonuses cultists can't but I already mentioned the apothecary being kinda meh and typhus is fairly expensive for baby sitting what is a chaff unit. Honestly, I'd rather take plague bearers for screening if I can spare a detachment. It helps that DG HQs don't seem to benefit from the CT much at all, and I don't think there is anything else they lose by being part of a mixed detachment so long as the main detachment is DG, so they can be added without much issue or even needing specific demonic HQs.