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What would you add or change? Do you think Psychic awakening will help at all?

psykic awakening should help. IMHO one big thing death guard needs is a new "chapter tactic" bolter disipline makes their current CT a little weak.

They have one page of relic, one page of stratagem, in an era where those do a lot.

Some more stratagems will be nice, we have very few even if the ones that we have are pretty good.
I hope for a way to give Lords, Sorcerers and Possessed disgustingly resilient.
What I expect from the Plague Company rules they teased is something like the Thousand Sons got. The codex already described the companies, so one could make guesses how these translate into rules.

No faction has less stratagems than death guard do, they are tied for the least with assassins.
A pile of good stratagems could change a lot, since they have no trouble gaining many CP with their pox walkers,

A good relic or two could also help, right now one of them is an auto-take, not because it's essential to DG strategy, but because all others are worthless.

Death Guard have lots of solid units, but they really need some sort of army-wide push similar to doctrines or psychic tides to mitigate the codex-creep that has enabled everyone to plow through their defenses. Inexorable Advance being redundant for anything but helbrutes, blight launchers and plasmaguns didn't help either.
I'd really like them to get something that makes all their units harder to kill when you run a pure army, something like +1 to DR or +1 to toughness (up to a maximum of 8).

We already know PA won't do that, but getting access to the contents of the shadowspear box would really help, and there really is no fluff reason why DG wouldn't have masters of possessions, obliterators, venom crawlers or greater possessed.

Last, but not least, a second psychic discipline would be nice - when running pure DG, especially when Mortarion is involved, you can easily have 8 or more casts per turn, but just six powers. It doesn't even need to be game-breaking powerful, just having more options along the lines we already have would already help a lot.

The Noxious Blightbringer Bellboy needs a boost.
As does Lord of Contagion.
The Icon Bearer should have an aura effect similar to a Loyalist Ancient Standard Bearer.
A Stratagem for Spawn. (Thousand Sons get one, damn them)
Infiltrating/outflanking Pox Walkers. (as seen in lots of stories)
The cooler Plaguecaster model from SM Heroes.
Some way to heal our Daemon Engines. (aside from Fleshy Abundances psy power)

I'm listing these regardless of whether or not I think PA will bring them (for the most part, I think PA will help some, but I don't expect a huge boost). My notes also assume you're running pure DG. A lot of the DG weaknesses can be fixed with a second detachment of CSMs from the Chaos dex (I have a Purge battalion that I run along side, and sometimes just a Supreme Command detachment of Sorcerers for Warptime).

Overall, I think DG have the bones of an army with a lot of solid potential. I'm not sure it would take much to give them a big boost. Whether or not we get in PA remains to be seen.

Agree on new strategems. We have a few that are decent enough but could really use a boost. I'd like to see something to give Poxwalkers a little more "oomph" for example. I'd also like to see the Gellerpox more "officially" rolled into the DG book. I know they get trash talked quite a lot, but they actually do help with some weaknesses. They take a deft hand to use correctly (I do this wrong more than I do it right ...), and I'd like to be able to take them without having to tale ALL of them, but they can be quite helpful. Especially in smaller games.

- The Noxious Blight Bringer definitely needs a boost. Even if it's just a points reduction, that would help.
- Would like to see the Plague Surgeon get something more akin to the Chief Apothecary option.
- Chaos Lords and Sorcerers need to be able to get Disgustingly Resilient. It's so odd that they don't.
- Wouldn't mind seeing Plague Marines get a second wound (although this might make them too good for their current points level)
- More ways to do additional mortal wounds in different phases. Mortal wounds were DG's thing when they first came out, and now there are a handful of armies that spam these much better (Thousand Sons for example)
- Lord of Conatgion needs a fix of some sort, but I'm not quite sure what. As it stands, he's the "Mutilator" of the DG codex. Great in CC, but will almost never get there. He's not much of a DIstraction Carnifex as he can largely be ignored, and IMO, he's to many points for a lone objective camper.
- Some additional psychic powers revolving around making DG units more resilient. It's a bit of a shame that the "toughest army in the game", can be outdone by Iron Hands ...
- Access to the Dark Hereticus discipline. It makes no sense that they did't get this as an option
- Disgustingly Resilient (or similar) on Rhinos
- Some more strategems involving their unique Demon Engines.

I think that about covers my thoughts, and honestly, we probably wouldn't even need all of them to get the boost we need, although we likely won't see most of the ones I listed until we get a new codex so who knows...

Not optimistic about Psychic Awakening. If it's like Thousand Sons, it's going to make them more fragmented.

I'd say the following would make them better:

- Disgustingly Resilient on all legacy units - HQs and vehicles especially

- More cover auras akin to Crawlers. Troops should be able to get cover from any of their vehicles, this is supposed to be Nurgle's finest.

- More defensive psychic powers. There should be a way to get 2+ on normal troops, some should be almost impossible to kill.

- More ranged weapons. It just takes too long walking across the board, sometimes you need a little offense early game.

Death Guard's problems aren't really death guard specific. The areas they are weak are where all marines are weak. The problem is the base marine stat line. S4 ap0 attacks are not good. 3+ isn't what it used to be.

8th edition destroyed the MeQ statline. If the MeQ statline was good, and then DG still had their other pluses on top of it, then they'd be very nice. I've posted about this before a bunch of times, so rather than retype it all, just look at this thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/774856.page

Since I posted that, Loyalists got several layers of special rules on top of the statline, which has greatly improved them. Now Chaos needs equivalents to that too, including deathguard. If DG just get bonuses to a few DG specific units, then it'll just further the current style of Chaos lists where you spam a few powerful units and a bunch of horde infantry and never touch most of your unit list.

I agree with all of the points about stratagems, bolter discipline, etc. DG definitely need at least greater possessed. I mean, if they have regular possessed, why not the greater variety.

I knew it wasn’t going to happen when the chapter approved rumors started happening, but 2 wound marines would go a long way to making death guard more viable. Ideally they would make changes to the main strengths to keep them in line with everyone else. Reroll 1s to wound is cool, but so many armies have reroll all wounds now. So many armies have FNP rules now, so disgustingly resilient doesn’t seem so impressive. And AP 0 guns definitely do not cut it anymore.

I’m worried that they’ll just do what they did to the thousand sons, and just add some unrelated gimmick. Ritual of the Damned was all “sorry your army isn’t viable as it stands, what if everyone can teleport now?” Like I’m picturing death guard suddenly getting miracle dice.

I think 8th ruined power armor more than the stats.

claiming 8th ruined power armor assumes it was good in past editions.

BrianDavion wrote:
psykic awakening should help. IMHO one big thing death guard needs is a new "chapter tactic" bolter disipline makes their current CT a little weak.

LOL they're gonna get the same treatment Thousand Sons did with their little "different" Cults. Basically, you can expect absolutely nothing. What they and Thousand Sons need is to be rolled back into the main CSM codex.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
psykic awakening should help. IMHO one big thing death guard needs is a new "chapter tactic" bolter disipline makes their current CT a little weak.

LOL they're gonna get the same treatment Thousand Sons did with their little "different" Cults. Basically, you can expect absolutely nothing. What they and Thousand Sons need is to be rolled back into the main CSM codex.

they'd gain little from it beyond maybe being able to spam a unfluffy unit to win a game or two

1-all units (defilers, none DG HQs, etc..)get DS
2-Someone besides DP and non DG lord reroll 1s buff
3-

BrianDavion wrote:
they'd gain little from it beyond maybe being able to spam a unfluffy unit to win a game or two

... and a ton of fluffy units that have been left out of the DG codex for no reason whatsoever, a vastly better psychic discipline, a bunch of support for their daemon engines, a pile of stratagems, daemon weapons of nurgle and much more.

They have tons to gain. To be honest, if GW had communicated that they wouldn't be supporting DG outside of their initial release, I probably would have started CSM instead.

BrianDavion wrote:
claiming 8th ruined power armor assumes it was good in past editions.

This. Whenever people bring up on Dakka that Power Armour or Terminator Armour has been made useless by 8th Edition I'm thinking, you guys should have a look at threads from 6th and 7th Edition where people said the same already. Probably even earlier, when 5th Edition gave loads of Plasma to everyone. Personally, my Plague Marines sitting in cover feel more durable than ever with their 2+ and DR even against mortal wounds... But I don't really have SM players in my group that might change perception, I imagine their AP on everything is what especially hurts Power armor ironically, but not the Edition rules.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
psykic awakening should help. IMHO one big thing death guard needs is a new "chapter tactic" bolter disipline makes their current CT a little weak.

LOL they're gonna get the same treatment Thousand Sons did with their little "different" Cults. Basically, you can expect absolutely nothing. What they and Thousand Sons need is to be rolled back into the main CSM codex.

I find it crazy that some people think the PA book did nothing for 1ksons. A extra smite on all non named chars or a new power that is cult dependant. Thousand sons are pretty damn powerful and PA made them even stronger. Sure, the cult powers only affecting cult units sucks bad. But it doesnt change the fact that there is some amazing stuff in PA. The biggest hit we have taken is not PA in origin. Its the fact that our DP with wings are almost priced out of competitive lists...almost. The price hike really killed alot of my lists that I had to rework. I would have liked to see more cult stratagems and perhaps a page of non cult relics. Other than that I am very happy with PA.

As for DG. I dont play them. And have only played against them twice. Things I noticed is that my 1k sons are almost as hard to remove ( army dependent ) as DG. This should not be. Perhaps a return to 4+ FNP for DG could help. Also, more strats. And yes, the relics they have are terrible. Imho it wouldnt take much to put them back up to mid-tier from PA. For a better re-balance we would need a new codex.

Echoing what others have said, more strats (honestly I only ever use Vets and Cloud of Flies), more and better relics (would be nice to take something other than Fugaris' Helm or Suppurating Plate), and DR for chaos lords, sorcerers, possessed, etc.

I'd like to see the existing HQs buffed a little, or else some of the 'Elite' characters moved into the HQ slot - just to give a bit more list variety.

On a final note, as a Pallid Hand player with 3 predators, I'd quite like to see our vehicles get DR. I recently bought 2 PBCs and have been running them for the past 3-4 games, and I'm massively underwhelmed. The damn things cannot hit anything, with far too many -1 to hit modifiers in play, and their T8 makes little difference when I'm repeatedly faced with lascannons and venom cannons. Being able to roll with the predators again would be nice - giving DG some much-needed accurate long-range fire power.

Things I noticed is that my 1k sons are almost as hard to remove ( army dependent ) as DG. This should not be.

I have a DG and a Thousand Sons army and can't agree with this statement enough. Tsons are nearly as hard to remove (sometimes harder depending on buffs), and deal mortal wounds even better. There are just a lot of armies that took mechanics that were laid out in the DG book, but did them much better since they came later in the eddition.

That said, most of what's "wrong" in the DG book can be fixed with a pretty simple codex update. Certain folks have been borderline screaming for DG to get rolled back into the CSM book. I think that's a pretty solid way to make sure they don't get updated at all anymore.

It's a pretty trivial thing to just add the Dark Hereticus powers into their book (there's no reason why any CSM army wouldn't have this as an option), and add a few of the missing units (I don't see why Oblits, Greater Possesed, or Masters of Possesion would be unfluffy ofr example). I actually really like the way they play, the problem is just a problem of classic codex creep. What I find especially funny is that many (not ALL, but many) of the people who are yelling to have them rolled back into the CSM book are the same people saying in other threads that CSM "suck" and need a update ... so, which is it? If CSM also suck ...

Sadly, like others have said, while I'm sure PA will help the DG on some level (it should, at the very least, get us some better strats), the update we really need won't happen in a PA book. We will need a fresh codex update, and I haven't even heard rumors of that happening.

BrianDavion wrote:
claiming 8th ruined power armor assumes it was good in past editions.

It was good in 3rd and 4th. I guess that's a long time ago now.

It was good in 3rd and 4th. I guess that's a long time ago now.

Yeah, it's been a while now. The MEQ stat line has been taking a beating for quite some time. I'm not sure why so many folks feel like this started in 8th ...

It didn't start in 8th, but the AP system was the final nail.

Tycho wrote:


It's a pretty trivial thing to just add the Dark Hereticus powers into their book (there's no reason why any CSM army wouldn't have this as an option), and add a few of the missing units (I don't see why Oblits, Greater Possesed, or Masters of Possesion would be unfluffy ofr example).

Genuine question, but would Oblits be worthwhile without Endless Cacophony?

If they do nothing else, I would like to see DR on every unit. At least the non-vehicle ones.

The fact that not Lords and Sorcerers don't have DR drives my OCD absolutely fething wild.

I really wish GW would practice some rules consistency for once.

Given how 8th plays, DG maybe should have 4+ FNP, so other factions can have 5+ instead of 6+.

 harlokin wrote:

Tycho wrote:


It's a pretty trivial thing to just add the Dark Hereticus powers into their book (there's no reason why any CSM army wouldn't have this as an option), and add a few of the missing units (I don't see why Oblits, Greater Possesed, or Masters of Possesion would be unfluffy ofr example).

Genuine question, but would Oblits be worthwhile without Endless Cacophony?

The provide a kind of shooting DG are lacking right now, and they could move and shoot without penalties. I'd field them if I could.

Table wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
psykic awakening should help. IMHO one big thing death guard needs is a new "chapter tactic" bolter disipline makes their current CT a little weak.

LOL they're gonna get the same treatment Thousand Sons did with their little "different" Cults. Basically, you can expect absolutely nothing. What they and Thousand Sons need is to be rolled back into the main CSM codex.

I find it crazy that some people think the PA book did nothing for 1ksons. A extra smite on all non named chars or a new power that is cult dependant. Thousand sons are pretty damn powerful and PA made them even stronger. Sure, the cult powers only affecting cult units sucks bad. But it doesnt change the fact that there is some amazing stuff in PA. The biggest hit we have taken is not PA in origin. Its the fact that our DP with wings are almost priced out of competitive lists...almost. The price hike really killed alot of my lists that I had to rework. I would have liked to see more cult stratagems and perhaps a page of non cult relics. Other than that I am very happy with PA.

As for DG. I dont play them. And have only played against them twice. Things I noticed is that my 1k sons are almost as hard to remove ( army dependent ) as DG. This should not be. Perhaps a return to 4+ FNP for DG could help. Also, more strats. And yes, the relics they have are terrible. Imho it wouldnt take much to put them back up to mid-tier from PA. For a better re-balance we would need a new codex.

It's because they didn't do anything for Thousand Sons that couldn't really be done before. At most the extra Warlord would get some use.

 Jidmah wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
they'd gain little from it beyond maybe being able to spam a unfluffy unit to win a game or two

... and a ton of fluffy units that have been left out of the DG codex for no reason whatsoever, a vastly better psychic discipline, a bunch of support for their daemon engines, a pile of stratagems, daemon weapons of nurgle and much more.

They have tons to gain. To be honest, if GW had communicated that they wouldn't be supporting DG outside of their initial release, I probably would have started CSM instead.

They'd also lose their existing discipline, relics and strats by being rolled back in. Try playing a purge list and see if it tickles your fancy for playing death guard.