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Hey guys,

A few months ago I posted a thread about asking for Tyranid Gimmick ideas, and I got a lot of great responses. I used several of them over the past few games and had reasonable success and it really helped a lot.

So now I am hoping for the same with Death Guard!! I am looking for unique/effective strategies for a potential army list. No generic lists we see a thousand times a day allowed. Creative, new ideas that are rarely/if ever seen. I have some spray paint and some official GW drybrushes ready to paint everything in this motif. I'm all ears!

pr0wler wrote:
So now I am hoping for the same with Death Guard!! I am looking for unique/effective strategies for a potential army list. No generic lists we see a thousand times a day allowed. Creative, new ideas that are rarely/if ever seen.

this is a hard one, as pure DG has much less choices (units, special rules, tactics etc.) available compared to nids... it's kind of designed to be a part of a CSM/Chaos soup... my best experience was with spoilers - massed T3/4 (poxwalkers, cultists, plague marines, characters) or T7/8 with autohit and re-roll to wound (drones, crawlers)... not Morty, sadly...

Well 20 dudes throwing grenades in one turn mortal wounding on 5s is a nice place to start^^

 elk@work wrote:

pr0wler wrote:
So now I am hoping for the same with Death Guard!! I am looking for unique/effective strategies for a potential army list. No generic lists we see a thousand times a day allowed. Creative, new ideas that are rarely/if ever seen.

this is a hard one, as pure DG has much less choices (units, special rules, tactics etc.) available compared to nids... it's kind of designed to be a part of a CSM/Chaos soup...

Fair enough. I will mention that the roster is not strictly closed off to the units that were just released. I am open to using other CSM stuff like Chaos Knight, Land Raider, predator etc. as long as it's part of a cool theme or gimmick. I do have a lot of Death Guard stuff already but not exclusively those units.

Two highly effective DG lists I’ve seen… neither featuring any actual death guard.

Option one is ~6 crawlers with Epidemius. Stick flamer sponsons on them and plant trees around your deployment zone. Detachments are:

- Nurgle daemon detachment of your choice, with Epidemius as HQ and a few units to serve as blockers (nurglings and plaguebearers) and to get objectives (plague drones).
- Death Guard spearhead, full of crawlers and maybe a chaos lord to make them a bit more accurate.
- A couple of trees.

This is about using Epidemius to buff PBCs, among other things. Their flamers can become ridiculously strong and the trees mean they can fall back and shoot.

Option two is zombies and a load of alpha legion cultists.

Detachments are:

- Typhus, some other HQ and some zombies.
- An alpha legion battalion of ~80 cultists.

The trick here is that any cultist that dies becomes a zombie. You can infiltrate cultists all over the place to cause all kinds of trouble, and then just swarm all over the board with zombies in later turns. You end up with a zombie-star, which you pile buffs onto.

My usual demon engine list revolves around a spearhead of 3 crawlers with a lord, an outrider detachment with 3 haulers, a prince and a few drones. And a battalion of assorted infantry and nurglings to round it off.

So far it's been fairly effective. The nurglings do a great job of locking deep strikes out of the table. The demon engines do a fair amount of damage while being silly durable. And being able to dump 30 buffed plaguebearers into deep strike is always annoying for the opponent.

Helbrute lascannon spam .. they dont get the -1 for moving
3 work quite nice.

40 cultists rapid firing 18" lasguns might be fun (mabe with vets strat on for +1 to wound) maybe case psy power em to t4 s4
put 10 pox walkers behind them then put dead walk again strat on them so if the cultists are shot they become pox walkers
put cloud of flies on the pox walkers if you need to to stop them getting shot at all XD... i call it the cancer blob

Havent tried it but im guessing a list with multiple foul blightspawns could be fun. Screen them from shooting with bloatdrones and have them advance up the table in a group. Maybe accompanied by a noxious blightbringer for extra threat range and a warlord with arch contaminator and fugaris helm relic. ( to buff both bloatdrones and blightspawns ) Might not do too well against hordes, but the bloat drones could help in that department.

 Latro_ wrote:
Helbrute lascannon spam .. they dont get the -1 for moving
3 work quite nice.

I'm tempted to get a couple, arm them with dual las and missiles, and keep them in my Deredeo's Hellfire Veil aura for the 5++ invulnerable save.

Hellforged Leviathan, double Soulburner Ribaudkins.

As a Helbrute, doesn’t incur penalty to moving and firing Heavy. And, can use Fire Frenzy to have it dish out 4 x 2D3 Mortal Wounds.

Edit - Also, what about Bell GUO bringing back Blight Haulers?

Poxwalker Horde!

New gimmick: generating casualties in every phase to get lots of free movement!

Ideas so far..
Start of own turn: blight tree casualties on allied militia.
Own Movement: Fabius Bile casualties on cultists
Own Psychic: perils (decent odds with renegade psykers)
Own Shooting: plasma overcharge ok militia.
Charge phase: overwatch casualties
Own fight: obvious
Morale phase: renegade enforcer discipline casualties
Enemy psychic: obvious
Enemy shooting: obvious
Enemy fight: obvious


I reckon I can move a poxwalker unit 23" in my first turn and then charge.

 KiloFiX wrote:
Hellforged Leviathan, double Soulburner Ribaudkins.

As a Helbrute, doesn’t incur penalty to moving and firing Heavy. And, can use Fire Frenzy to have it dish out 4 x 2D3 Mortal Wounds.

Edit - Also, what about Bell GUO bringing back Blight Haulers?

Unfortunately, Leviathan can't use Fire Frenzy, as it works on a 'Helbrute' (specific unit), not HELBRUTE (keyword)... I think two Butcher cannon arrays is the best loadout, they're most versatile and hit hard any target...

I'm pretty sure it does not get the DG trait either right as it does not even have the helbrute KW.

 Latro_ wrote:
I'm pretty sure it does not get the DG trait either right as it does not even have the helbrute KW.

well, since FW FAQ it does have HELBRUTE KW...

Keep the ideas coming guys! I have been digging in the codex with all of these suggestions so far and it is getting the gears going.

Okay this is the gimmickyiest list I can come up with.

Poxwalker Horde is the basic principle, but everything is geared to self kills or boosting poxwalkers. 15CP to play With, DG and daemon stratagems unlocked.

The aim is mutliphasic self kills to maximum poxwalker generation and movement .


++ Brigade Detachment +9CP (Chaos - Soup) ++

Legion: Iron Warriors

+ HQ +

Fabius Bile

Rogue Psyker Coven: 5x Rogue Psyker, Warp Flux

Sorcerer: Bolt pistol, Cold and Bitter, Eye of Tzeentch, Force axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Prescience, Warlord, Warptime

+ Troops +

Bloodletters: 19x Bloodletter, Bloodreaper, Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos

Chaos Cultists: 16x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, 3x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon, No Chaos Mark
. Cultist Champion: Shotgun

Nurglings: 3x Nurgling Swarms

Renegade Militia Squad
. Renegade Militia Champion: Autogun
. Renegade Militia w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Renegade Militia w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Renegade Militia w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Renegade Militia w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. 15x Renegade Militia with Autogun

Renegade Mutant Rabble
. Mutant Champion: Autopistol, Power axe
. 24x Mutant with Autopistol

Renegade Mutant Rabble
. Mutant Champion: Autopistol, Power axe
. 23x Mutant with Autopistol

+ Elites +

Foul Blightspawn

Foul Blightspawn

Renegade Enforcer: Autopistol, Power axe

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn

Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn

Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn

+ Heavy Support +

Renegade Heavy Weapons Squad
. Renegade Weapon Team: Autocannon, Lasgun
. Renegade Weapon Team: Autocannon, Lasgun
. Renegade Weapon Team: Autocannon, Lasgun

Renegade Heavy Weapons Squad
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar

Renegade Heavy Weapons Squad
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar
. Renegade Weapon Team: Lasgun, Mortar

++ Fortification Network (Chaos - Daemons) ++

Feculent Gnarlmaw

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) ++

+ HQ +

Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour: Combi-bolter, Plaguebringer

Necrosius the Undying: Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality

Typhus: Blades of Putrefaction, Plague Wind

+ Troops +

Poxwalkers: 20x Poxwalker

Poxwalkers: 10x Poxwalker

Poxwalkers: 10x Poxwalker

++ Total: [121 PL, 1999pts] ++

Not sure whether this would be in any way effective, but how about a drone list? Lots of plague drones and bloat drones, all lead by several winged Daemon princes. Would make for an unconventional and fast Death Guard/Nurgle list, good at quickly grabbing objectives and getting all up in your opponent's grill in short order.

Would the 20 plague marine + Putrifier gimmick count (so you use the stratagem to get 20d6 blight grenades with +1S and +1D and then... I forget what else but there's a way to make it do mortal wounds on a 6, Blades of Putrefaction maybe)? It was bandied around at the launch of the codex but is something that would never really be used, despite seeming cool.

I'm curious if anyone has just spammed poxwalkers and blightbringers? Poxwalkers screen and the blightbringers just melt stuff with their 3dmg flamers.

Blightspawn are definitely desirable. I've made 3... Want an excuse to run them. 9" range is the issue.

In a sensible pox horde I think they'd fit.

You can make so many nice lists the real question is are you going to play mainly friendly games or competitive games.

I have made a list that consists from 3 detachments cam demon and dg. Competitive.

The theme I believe suits dg that's why I mention it. You can always sub the detachments you don't like with pure dg. I explain the list and you can decide what you want after that.

Why soup!
Demon battalion
Poxbringer 2*
Nurglins 3*
Best troop low cost for table tactics poxbringer bring phy buffs and +1 str.
Csm
Sorc for warptime precience or death hex
1*40 cultist bomb
You can make it also with Abba.

Dg all the rest with
Typhus must and 20 poxwalkers.

From this point on you can decide various formation.
2*3 obliterators and or Mortarion
9-10 plasma oblis
2-8 pbc with flamers and epidemius.
These are the most competitive lists around atm as I know the depending heavily to dg. Didn't mention lists going deep to demons etc.
Now what you get and what you can decide.

2-8 Pbc are a pure dg list but I don't like it so much. It's good and strong but I don't like spamm lists for various reasons but it's a good one prolly getting nerfed.

A good option is 8 blightlords cost 464 points and Mortarion cost 470. You can decide to bring Mortarion in more fun games and blightlords in a more competitive play. That's what I use atm.

So not to make anyone dizzy!!

I like the zombie army as theme I love it. It's death guard it's flavored and it's v nice . It has low mobility as death guard and v v hard to remove from the table.

Now you can mix it as light as adding a patrol sorc and the 40 cultists till full soup. Since you want a flavor dg I'd keep only

Patrol or batt
1*sorc jump warptime +1
1* chaos jump
1*40 cultist
+2*10 cult if batt

And then full dg.

Key points
Typhus and poxwalkers so min a unit of 19 pox.

If you take pbc give your demon prince arc contaminator

If you decide to take blightlords don't forget cloud of flies for them

If you decide for Morty consider deathsroud termies hf

If no one mentioned it, Ally in 20 pink horrors with points aside for splitting. Plop some poxwalkers down behind them and spend the CP so they cannot be shot. Opponent shoots pink horrors, who split and split and split over and over and over. Poxwalkers grow big time. For 10 completely dead pink horrors, you get 50 extra free poxwalkers. You keep the base pinks above 20 as long as possible for their pretty good shooting. Buff up the horder and have surge forward. I think in a tournament hey used a bit fortification as their main damage.

No seems to have mention Doc Astartes-Slayer yet.

Step 1: Get Plague Surgeon
Step 2: Give the Plaguebringer Relic to him
Step 3: Cast Blades of Putrefaction on him
Step 4: Use VotLW on him.

He will now hit any Adeptus Astartes on a 2+, wound them on a 2*, cause a mortal wound on 3+ and two mortal wounds on 4+.
He should be able to clear out pretty much any Space Marine infantry unit in a single round of combat.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Blightspawn are definitely desirable. I've made 3... Want an excuse to run them. 9" range is the issue.

In a sensible pox horde I think they'd fit.

You've MADE them? pic or it didnt happen! Looking for cool conversion so Id be happy to have a look at them.

It's been over a year since this thread, and looking to do some more gimmicks. Any suggestions?

How about this one?

https://spikeybits.com/2018/08/3-winning-principles-baos-blightlord-knight-40k-list.html

nice, thanks for the link. I don't have all the models in that list but definitely have some and I like the overall strat.

Well, the bread and butter for DG are DR daemon engines and rerollable Plague Weapons with an Arch Contaminator warlord. Toss in some Nurglings and Heralds into a Daemons detachment and you should be good. I find my DG lists (and games in general) are better when I focus on scoring points and being annoying to my opponent than flat out killing stuff.