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Hello everyone,

I was a staple member here back in the 5th ed/early 6th ed days. Yesterday I happened by the game store here in Jacksonville, where I just got stationed, and saw the new Death Guard. Having just received a cash influx, I took the plunge; picked up the Death Guard codex, the starter set, and a box of Plague Marines. I've been browsing army lists and the whole gamut, but....

What should I be focusing on for Chaos? My 8th ed knowledge is limited, though I do like the introduction of keywords to armies. I know I basically can use anything with "Chaos" or "Nurgle". I'm a huge fan of any Chaos god except Slaneesh. Would a Nurgle/Tzeentch army be good? What about Khorne/Nurgle? Coming back the rules have changed so much, but unlike before, I don't want to buy models for the sake of buying models.

I appreciate any help ya'll can provide!

As far as I can tell, the best three strategies for "non-ultra competitive play" seem to be Tzeech with Daemons (smite spamming), Alpha Legion with Khorne Bezerkers, and Black Legion with ALL THE CHAOS! If you wanna just play chaos, I suggest getting or using an abbadon, going black legion, and just using whatever you want with pretty good success.

 vaklor4 wrote:
As far as I can tell, the best three strategies for "non-ultra competitive play" seem to be Tzeech with Daemons (smite spamming), Alpha Legion with Khorne Bezerkers, and Black Legion with ALL THE CHAOS! If you wanna just play chaos, I suggest getting or using an abbadon, going black legion, and just using whatever you want with pretty good success.

Interesting! What would you recommend if just starting with Death Guard explicitly? I don't want to have to sink a lot of money into books just yet. I know Typhus and Mortarion seem pretty awesome, I always did like Typhus in 5th even if he sucked back then

 Zid wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
As far as I can tell, the best three strategies for "non-ultra competitive play" seem to be Tzeech with Daemons (smite spamming), Alpha Legion with Khorne Bezerkers, and Black Legion with ALL THE CHAOS! If you wanna just play chaos, I suggest getting or using an abbadon, going black legion, and just using whatever you want with pretty good success.

Interesting! What would you recommend if just starting with Death Guard explicitly? I don't want to have to sink a lot of money into books just yet. I know Typhus and Mortarion seem pretty awesome, I always did like Typhus in 5th even if he sucked back then

Trying to save money? Don't get Mortarian. He makes Death Guard viable, but he is also the price of a super heavy as far as I can tell. Typhus is pretty good, and poxwalkers are good screeners.

All in all, get yourself some artillery, some termies, just a bit of everything (which the dark imperium box gives you) and you're set! It's a pretty simple army, but if you wanna bring it to tournaments i'd save up for Mortarian.

 vaklor4 wrote:

 Zid wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
As far as I can tell, the best three strategies for "non-ultra competitive play" seem to be Tzeech with Daemons (smite spamming), Alpha Legion with Khorne Bezerkers, and Black Legion with ALL THE CHAOS! If you wanna just play chaos, I suggest getting or using an abbadon, going black legion, and just using whatever you want with pretty good success.

Interesting! What would you recommend if just starting with Death Guard explicitly? I don't want to have to sink a lot of money into books just yet. I know Typhus and Mortarion seem pretty awesome, I always did like Typhus in 5th even if he sucked back then

Trying to save money? Don't get Mortarian. He makes Death Guard viable, but he is also the price of a super heavy as far as I can tell. Typhus is pretty good, and poxwalkers are good screeners.

All in all, get yourself some artillery, some termies, just a bit of everything (which the dark imperium box gives you) and you're set! It's a pretty simple army, but if you wanna bring it to tournaments i'd save up for Mortarian.

I'll be getting Mort eventually, though my priority is on the smaller stuff first. Definitely some good feedback. Are Terminators still kind of "meh"?

1) Typhus is decent, with 30 poxwalkers in a big blob he becomes excellent. And Necrosius buffs this combo also.

2) Get a sorcerer or a demon prince. Chaos has the best psychic powers in the game.

3) Get a big blob of cultists. They are great for screening, removing screens, and securing objectives.

4) A lot of people run a unit of blightlord teminators with plasmas

I'd get a couple of the new Plagueburst Crawlers and slap the entropy caannons on them - if you like the model - and pair them with a cheap chaos lord for rerolling 1s to hit. They are ridiculously tough and put out good damage. I play against them all the time and they give me the weepies. Not top-tier broken, but definitely good, and really thematic for DG.

High-five fellow Jaxer! Chaos is in a really strong place right now with very few duds (mutilators). Honestly, you can use just about anything and have a decent game. You will want the chaos marine codex too if you ally non DG in, and you’ll want them in separate detachments so they get their own rules and powers.

As far as recommendations, cultists are good chaff for any list, helbrutes, rhinos and predators offer decent armor for different roles not covered by pure Nurgle, and a generic Sorcerer offers buffs you can throw on either faction.

 Badablack wrote:
High-five fellow Jaxer! Chaos is in a really strong place right now with very few duds (mutilators). Honestly, you can use just about anything and have a decent game. You will want the chaos marine codex too if you ally non DG in, and you’ll want them in separate detachments so they get their own rules and powers.

As far as recommendations, cultists are good chaff for any list, helbrutes, rhinos and predators offer decent armor for different roles not covered by pure Nurgle, and a generic Sorcerer offers buffs you can throw on either faction.

:Looking at the DG dex, cultists and helbrutes fall under the faction keywords, so suppose they'd fit in a Mono DG list! Is armor a huge thing in 8th?

I'm thinking as a start:

Typhus
Noxious Blightbringer
Plague Surgeon
1x Unit of Blightlord Termis
2x Helbrutes
Bunch of poxwalkers
1-2 Units of Plague Marines (not sure weps tho)

I'm assuming you want the normal Chaos sorcerer typically? I'm also assuming he'd be in the same detachment with non-nurgle cultists then? Sorry, barely got used to ally rules in 6th, so mixing dexes is all new to me. I also haven't read how independant chars work, but I'm guessing no more hiding HQ's in units? I'm interested in Deathshroud termis in a Land Raider lol

Characters are their own units now, but you can’t shoot them if anything else is closer. And they can reactively charge into any combats 3” away from them, so there’s not too much different from before.

There’s a bunch of different detachments now, it’s pretty easy to organize all your guys into the most beneficial groups. But yeah keep all the same faction keywords together so they can use their legion tactics, stratagems, and relics.

Armor and walkers got a big buff with 8th, in that most of them doubled or tripled the amount of wounds they had previously. You can also shoot everything with much fewer penalties.

 Badablack wrote:
Characters are their own units now, but you can’t shoot them if anything else is closer. And they can reactively charge into any combats 3” away from them, so there’s not too much different from before.

There’s a bunch of different detachments now, it’s pretty easy to organize all your guys into the most beneficial groups. But yeah keep all the same faction keywords together so they can use their legion tactics, stratagems, and relics.

Armor and walkers got a big buff with 8th, in that most of them doubled or tripled the amount of wounds they had previously. You can also shoot everything with much fewer penalties.

Very interesting, I read most of the rules on my flight today. Saves are wayyyyyy different, the Mortal Wounds thing seems kinda OP to me, or maybe thats just because DG do a lot of them. So individuals can "follow" behind units, though they don't count as part of the unit. I do like the change to characters though, helps so people can't single out the one dude you want to try and protect as easily/

I posted a sample list on the lists part of the site. I'll probably pick up the normal Chaos and 1k Sons books as well, but this will get me going for now. Thanks for all the info!