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Yup I agree too. Although I would add one thing about the LR. If its any faction that can make the LR work, I think its deathguard. Because we can give our LR a 5++ FNP. That adds a ton of resilience to it.

A landraider with contaminated monstrosity packed with dangerous stuff (like a a unit of deathshroud?) would be a very hard target to remove if it drove up and blew smoke first turn. Because it would then be a T8 model with 16W, -1 to hit, 2+ armor save and then DR on top of that.

I remember one forumer here saying he would try out a list with a LR in a small tourney. I wonder how that went...

On the topic of secondaries, I think that While we stand is a trap. I had it in a game where the opponent had to kill Mortarion and two DP with defensive warlord traits and relics to archive it and he simply won the game by doing just that. Scoring 0 VP on a secondary is very much game-deciding, and "kill my three biggest threats" is probably something your opponent was planning for anyways. Essentially, you are giving away VP for free.

The two go-to categories (for everyone, it seems) are battlefield supremacy and shadow operations.

In battlefield supremacy, I feel like Linebreaker is the best choice, as you are unlikely to have four quarters in T1 and gaining 12 VP in 3 turns trumps getting the same amount in 4 turns.
Domination is an option if the mission has less than six objectives.

Shadow operations is rather difficult to decide. IMO Investigate sites is not great at all, because it's too easy to deny. I guess if you have Mortarion barreling down the center, there will be no one left to deny it, but the infantry unit would still have to be lucky on their advance rolls to get there.
Scramblers is the easiest one, but it also never provides more than 10VP. Raise banners seems to be the option against gunlines and armies with little mobility, for teleport homers you either need rhinos or dedicate a terminator unit to performing actions instead of doing anything else.

Then there is the question of the third objective.

Assassinate and bring them down are decent if your opponent's army has enough characters or vehicles that you are likely to kill, titan killing is also a safe bet if you ever see a titanic unit.

Thin their ranks isn't too hot as DG lack the means to kill many models unless you manage to get flails into melee, and that can easily be denied.

So if you don't have a killing secondary worth taking, it's getting difficult. Abhor the witch is usually not an option, ritual is too risky. Mental interrogation can at least gain you a few VP, but at the cost of a DP casting his power or smite. Pierce the veil could be an option if you dedicate a sorcerer with deep strike to doing only that, but that also seems like a big investment.


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Eldenfirefly wrote:
Yup I agree too. Although I would add one thing about the LR. If its any faction that can make the LR work, I think its deathguard. Because we can give our LR a 5++ FNP. That adds a ton of resilience to it.

A landraider with contaminated monstrosity packed with dangerous stuff (like a a unit of deathshroud?) would be a very hard target to remove if it drove up and blew smoke first turn. Because it would then be a T8 model with 16W, -1 to hit, 2+ armor save and then DR on top of that.

I remember one forumer here saying he would try out a list with a LR in a small tourney. I wonder how that went...

That was me, and the game is later today. Whether the LR will be in range of the 5++ depends on the mission and terrain.
It's an onslaught 1vs2 game though, and I'm bringing tripple patrols for poxmonger/mortarions anvil/harbinger plague fleet shenanigans, so a full battle report will not be that useful to most of you. I'm still going to report on how the LR did.

That would be great thanks! Don't worry so much about the 5++. I think the DR is more important, and you have that already. A weapon attacking your LR would need to be -4 AP or better to make the 5++ have a difference. If you are able to deploy on a side of the board that has no melta guns or equivalent, that's probably good enough. I don't know if I would even shoot my LR's guns in turn 1. I rather increase its survivability turn 1 by popping smoke. And then turn 2 onwards, after its deadly cargo has disembarked, I can then start using its guns.

Because before its cargo has disembarked, its likely a concentration of 500 points. Its a massive target. After its cargo has disembarked, it is only a 300 points model whose shooting ability is not really on par to what it costs. So, it will be much less of a target.

I'm going up against necrons and dark angels, so I'm fairly sure to be facing hellblasters and doomsday arks. Still, hiding behind obscuring or dense terrain might be a better option than 5++. The daemon's toll is mostly supposed to protect plague marines in midfield and help the blight launcher units to advance onto objectives ASAP.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
That would be great thanks! Don't worry so much about the 5++. I think the DR is more important, and you have that already. A weapon attacking your LR would need to be -4 AP or better to make the 5++ have a difference. If you are able to deploy on a side of the board that has no melta guns or equivalent, that's probably good enough. I don't know if I would even shoot my LR's guns in turn 1. I rather increase its survivability turn 1 by popping smoke. And then turn 2 onwards, after its deadly cargo has disembarked, I can then start using its guns.

Because before its cargo has disembarked, its likely a concentration of 500 points. Its a massive target. After its cargo has disembarked, it is only a 300 points model whose shooting ability is not really on par to what it costs. So, it will be much less of a target.

So, I've won my game. At 75:65 it was a really close call because of some stupid mistakes I made. Turns out getting into your opponent's deployment zone is quite hard to do when you are playing on short table edges, so I only managed to get three linebreakers and two teleporter homers. I maxed out on primaries though and the mission secondary gave me 10 VP for keeping more than 50% of my units alive. As expected, there were no other good secondaries to be scored with mostly doomsday arcs, primaris, terminators and immortals on the table. Ironically the two of units harbinger poxwalkers and Typhus which I mostly brought as a joke unit ended up winning the game because when the appeared in turn 3, they denied two objectives to my opponents and tore down their banners. The threat of 40 poxwalker marching on from their table edge also kept quite a few units busy screening instead of shooting. I might actually try this again, even at 2k.

The land raider actually did a really good job. Due to the 44" width of the deployment zone it ended up next to the deamon's toll, so it had a 5++ until it died. It also had a plague surgeon neraby, but since I didn't roll as single one, that didn't matter much. Hilariously, both my opponents are players who started during 8th and therefore never had faced a land raider before. They were terrified by the huge tank and the prospect of it spilling mini-mortarions(deathshrouds) into their ranks. I went first turn so I could at least put a ruin between it and one of the doosday arks, but it still ate almost all of their shooting, including a full unit of destroyers with stratagem, grinding it down to 4 wounds after many 5++ saves and DR rolls. Mortarion himself couldn't have done it better.
In turn two the land raider had already fulfilled its purpose. The five deathshroud got out and succeeded to charge the destroyers, completely annihilating them with the help of the creeping blight stratagem. Even though the LR died in turn two to a redemptor charging it, the deathshroud proceeded to butcher their way through a squad of warriors, two squad of immortals and an intercessor squad clearing two objectives in the process, tearing down a banner and scoring linebreaker in the meantime.

So in my game the LR was definitely worth its points, the 10" movement boost for the deathshroud made all the difference. I might even consider advancing it next time and popping smokes, because those four lascannons simply didn't do a whole lot. Whether it is worth its points when you don't get first turn remains to be seen.

Other take-aways from that game:
- Mortarions Anvil is an interesting plague fleet even though there is not much power to be found here. The warlord trait made my relic sword prince pretty hard to kill, but he still died when he was not protected by LoS,. The stratagems mostly remained unused but forced my opponents into decisions they wouldn't have made otherwise. For example, they chose not to fire overcharged plasma at terminators and had trouble holding an objective without getting in range to be heroically intervened.
- Epidemicyst blade is hands down a mandatory relic. Combined with sword the stratagem it just slaughters anything in range. I managed to take out a plasmamancer, two cryptothralls and most of a c'tan shard in one turn.
- Ironclot Furnace felt wasted on the PBC but actually was very valuable on my MBH. The haulers also manage to regenerate multiple times by eating marines for 1 CP, keeping the tri-lobe until turn 4. If they get the new multi-melta profile they might become a pretty powerful unit.
- Teleport homers is not a good secondary for DG. None of my units that can enter the enemy backfield want to be standing around doing nothing for an entire turn, and you can't score by performing the action on turn 5.
- I'm thinking about bringing a terminator character to support my blightlords just so they can score linebreaker without the help of any other unit.

Fascinating read. Thanks so much for sharing! I always felt that DG has a stronger chance than any other faction of making a LR work. Because of contaminated monstrosity plus our terminators are movement 4, and advance half only, so they really benefit a lot from being delivered into battle in a LR.

Why would the Ironclot furnace be wasted on the PBC ? a 4++ save makes them sooo resilient. Is it because they gave up trying to shoot those PBC and instead focused all their fire on your haulers and LR instead? It is likely also because they know how hard it is to kill a PBC with the furnace protection.

@Jidmah

thanks: this is a very useful report and congrats on winning the match.

I would like to signal this new and very informative post concerning the resilience and offensive capabilities of PMs just published on goonhammer (excellent, as always)

https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-plague-marines-and-double-wounds/

Of course, things might change if the rumour of the -1 to wound is true.

My current hypothesis is that GW is really trying hard to translate on the tabletop what people are expecting from certain units based on the lore.

If this is true, we should see a push to adopt 7 man PMs squads as the core of most DG armies (they are already sold in seven, and the recent PL update support this reading), rather than big blobs.

Maybe the option of fielding 20 undying monsters on which you can project multiple buff and auras might go aways. But it's only a wild guess for now, of course.




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Concerning the LR discussion, I feel like that if we had more weapon options then it would be much more attractive to field the big tank.

For instance, if there could be the possibility of replacing the las with more heavy bolters, or even updated MMs that would be more interesting.

As of now, I think that being forced to pay for 4 lascannons is one of the things that subtract from the attractiveness of fielding a LR

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Why would the Ironclot furnace be wasted on the PBC ? a 4++ save makes them sooo resilient. Is it because they gave up trying to shoot those PBC and instead focused all their fire on your haulers and LR instead? It is likely also because they know how hard it is to kill a PBC with the furnace protection.

I don't know, it kind of didn't really make them live that longer nor did it protect them from degrading. The only real difference is that rolling fours on your invuls succeed instead of failing. They lost most of their wounds to thunder hammers and doomsday cannons, and both died with plenty of overkill. The haulers were usually hiding from at least one doomsday ark and buffed with miasma in one turn
Accelerated entropy was awesome though. Min 3 damage and plague weapons, as well as the ability to move without penalty makes it such a great weapon, not just against vehicles but also against gravis models and when you really need that last primaris dude gone from an objective.

Nice read Jidmah! I'd absolutely love for LRs to get some kind of Assault Ramp to properly support combat units, same with Spartans. The lascannons help out a lot filling the long range AT gap we have.

It seems for those taking them, lascannon Contemptors are the way to go - I've been eyeing up my Leviathan though. I hate how pricey they are, but with Contaminated Monstrosity they are very difficult to put down, especially in combat - and Grav Flux + drill does some pretty stupid stuff against vehicles and large squads of relativity elite infantry alike. Need to give it a run out and see if it's worth it's points.

Thanks Jidmah for those insights. I have been debating how best to run my PBC's with spitters or entropy. I have always run them with spitters and archcontaminator nearby with a poxbringer for the +1S. Everyone seems to be shifting to the entropy but I still like pushing my pbc's aggressively forward and harassing light infantry and doing midgame charges to bad touch vehicles.
Now even more so in 9th I'm ditching offensive capability for just being resilient.

So whats the best way to play entropy cannons?
Backfield long range units?
moving in to the midboard and clogging it up?
Do you still need to run an arch contaminator baby sitter? Definitely no need for the poxbringer I guess.

While entropy maybe better I still think the spitters have great utility and I'm not sure how much better the entropy is.

the real problem is not entropy or spitters,, is how much entropy might be unreliable and is a think you have to ponder.
They hit on 4's and just a -1 to hit mean they have issues. Said that now you face more than often marines/veichles so spitters is not always the best choice, im almost tempted to stop play them.

 Nithaniel wrote:
Thanks Jidmah for those insights. I have been debating how best to run my PBC's with spitters or entropy. I have always run them with spitters and archcontaminator nearby with a poxbringer for the +1S. Everyone seems to be shifting to the entropy but I still like pushing my pbc's aggressively forward and harassing light infantry and doing midgame charges to bad touch vehicles.
Now even more so in 9th I'm ditching offensive capability for just being resilient.

I think the stratagem has just put them on equal footing, neither is particularly better than the other. My army composition was lacking guns to take out vehicles, so I went with entropy cannons. Since my opponents tried to deny the vehicle secondary I ended up shooting marines with them instead and it worked better than expected.

So whats the best way to play entropy cannons?
Backfield long range units?
moving in to the midboard and clogging it up?

I just used them in the same way I had used spitter PBC in 8th. There is no penalty for moving anymore and you can keep shooting the cannons at targets you are engaged with - neither primaris nor vehicles are particularly happy about that.

Do you still need to run an arch contaminator baby sitter? Definitely no need for the poxbringer I guess.

You can have a plague surgeon with stratagem upgrade nearby to re-roll ones and twos for wound rolls. As the S8 guns tend to wound on 3s anyways, it's usually just as good as arch contaminator.

While entropy maybe better I still think the spitters have great utility and I'm not sure how much better the entropy is.

If feel like I don't really want to advance PBC anymore because I lose the mortar and the slugger who always hit on 4+ now. I might feel different about that when actually facing -1 to hit armies, but most of my eldar opponents seem to have moved to master artisans instead of allaitoc.

Thanks for the replies guys. Food for thought. Its also very terrain dependant. I have played on mats with only obscuring and mixed with obscuring and dense cover which really hurts the mortar.

I don't really advance my PBC's either but moving them up a turn is valuable particularly with the update to Look out sir. Having resilient units out front is god for cloud too.

Right now my biggest issue at 2k is what plague company to run. I have been focusing on poxmongers for the ironclot on pbc's but I too am thinking its time to look at others for my blightlord utility.
Hypertoxic tinctures is a good shout for the PBC's that I hadn't considered.

if i can express my opinion...for backfiled reliable long range fire use contemptors with 2xdouble lascannons, reliable, thought enough, im thinking to swap maybe PBC with them, too many heavy armors/infantry for PBC

Hi everyone,

Returning 40k player here, last game was early 7th. I previously played Nids and Tau, DG is new to me. I cobbled together the following list after some youtube/reddit research, and I'd love some opinions on how to reduce redundancy, trim the fat, and increase both killing power and resilience. I'm not a huge fan of spam, so I've tried to include at least a few different models and units. I don't need a WAC list, but I would like the end result to be a competitive TAC list that I can enjoy at local tournaments.



My thinking for the units is as follows:
1. Daemon Prince and Poxbringer escort the Defilers and PBC up the board buffing Strength, Invuln save, Hits, and healing wounds with Fleshy Abundance, until contact is made. After contact, they cause as much mayhem as possible.
2. Plaguecaster, Putrifier, Blightspawn, and melee Plague Marines go in the Drill and either drive across the board, or deep strike as needed. Upon disembarking, grenades are thrown, buffs and debuffs are distributed, and mayhem ensues. Blightspawn helps with getting charged, and protection from things like aircraft.
3. 5-man Plague Marine squad moves around assisting as they can.
4. Poxwalkers sit on a backfield objective until getting squashed.
5. Nurglings pop in early on top of objectives and hunker down with Nurgling Infestation as needed.
6. Chaos Spawn runs up a flank and tries to dislodge weak objective campers.
7. Bloat Drone goes infantry hunting.
8. Blight Hauler tries to pick off vehicles hanging back in the opposition DZ.

Thanks for any comments and/or criticism, they are all appreciated.

Its not a bad list, especially considering what your going for as far as fun to competitive levels. A few things of note if I may....

1. I prefer twin las on my defilers if you want their shooting to be more threating. If not i prefer flamers. Reaper Autocannons are just not that useful against much.

2. I dont currently care for the bloat drones... and i own a few of them lol. But compare 1 to a defiler and look at the cost, it doesn't pan out well. Heck, look at the blight haulers, they are pretty good compared to the bloat drone. And taking 2 would give you points to modify the 2 defilers a bit while spreading out mobile cover since it appears thats your goal with them. They also make good mid field objective holders.

3. If you have a way to do it, swap the plaugecaster for a normal sorcerer of nurgle. He may seem worse but he is cheaper and gets access to the most powerful weapon in the game... the mighty bolt pistol. Then swap said pisrol for the relic pistol. As long as he hits a target with the pistol all weapons in your army count as plauge weapons against said target. Those defiler cannons? Rerolling all wounds. Bolter shots? Rerolling all wounnds. Multimelta and krak missiles from the blight hauler? Rerolling all wounds. And the range of the pistol goes to 18" which is deceptively long enough to actually get good use.


But that may just all be me. :p Its not a bad list by any means Otherwise.

Thanks for the response!

1. I wanted to keep the defilers cheap, and I think what I may do instead is replace the PBC with a Chaos Decimator with 2 Butcher Cannons.
2. I've heard this, I think I'll take the advice. Thanks!
3. This was a great save, thanks!

Azuza001 wrote:
Its not a bad list, especially considering what your going for as far as fun to competitive levels. A few things of note if I may....

1. I prefer twin las on my defilers if you want their shooting to be more threating. If not i prefer flamers. Reaper Autocannons are just not that useful against much.

2. I dont currently care for the bloat drones... and i own a few of them lol. But compare 1 to a defiler and look at the cost, it doesn't pan out well. Heck, look at the blight haulers, they are pretty good compared to the bloat drone. And taking 2 would give you points to modify the 2 defilers a bit while spreading out mobile cover since it appears thats your goal with them. They also make good mid field objective holders.

3. If you have a way to do it, swap the plaugecaster for a normal sorcerer of nurgle. He may seem worse but he is cheaper and gets access to the most powerful weapon in the game... the mighty bolt pistol. Then swap said pisrol for the relic pistol. As long as he hits a target with the pistol all weapons in your army count as plauge weapons against said target. Those defiler cannons? Rerolling all wounds. Bolter shots? Rerolling all wounnds. Multimelta and krak missiles from the blight hauler? Rerolling all wounds. And the range of the pistol goes to 18" which is deceptively long enough to actually get good use.


But that may just all be me. :p Its not a bad list by any means Otherwise.

FYI you can't use the strat on the relic hellforged sword until they FAQ it

Regarding Land Raiders: I’m a big fan of the FW one - Proteus? - that can take heavy Flamers and eat people in melee. I made it work in 8ed and 9ed’s vehicle rules plus WotS’s enhancements make it a pretty intimidating prospect.

Is anyone playing Crusades? I feel spoiled for choice with a starting budget of five relics or warlord Traits.

New codex incoming


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And new character

Lmao. Anyone else find it funny we are getting our codex before dark angels get their support supplement?

And I am seeing a pattern in 9th edition, much like 7th edition had its "everyone gets a low option!" thing.

Everyone seems to be getting a new fortification. Marines get the bunker of doom. Necrons have the 3 pillars of stone coming. And then there is whatever is in the background of the deathguard reveal....



What is that?

I don't know what is? A foetid chiminea for keeping guests warm at BBQs in Nurgle's Garden?

Interesting @azuza01 you're the first person I've known to recommend Lascannons on a defiler. I've never given it much thought as I just presumed it was a bad idea. However I'm using my defiler a lot in my black legion army and he's doing good work for me I'm more open to giving him an upgrade.

But that's because Daemonforge on two Lascannons and the battle canon is actually very appealing but with DG not having access to that strat I'm not sure the Lascannons are worth it are they?

las cannons I find are worth it with the relic pistol trick and an hq with arch contaminator.

I find hitting on 4's rerolling 1's and wounding on 3's rerolling for all those shots it can put out (battle cannon and twin las) its more efficient than people give it credit for.

I wish we had access to deamonforged, but since a lot of people soup a csm parrol sorcerer w/ cultists in for warptime you could get access that way as well. I dont do that myself but I know a lot of people do.

Dunno. If I'm paying the points for something like a lascannon, I want it on a more accurate chassis than a Defiler. For about the same or less you can get a Contemptor Dread with twin las, or a Decimator with butchers. The Decimator still benefits from all of the daemonforged/daemon rules as well.

Looks like they might follow the aos route and release faction terrain. It sells well in aos so may as well port the idea over. Pretty much everything in 40ks been tested out in aos first.

Are Leviathans fully not an option anymore due to cost or are people still giving them a run out semi competitively? Does bring able to give them DR make them better value for points?

I think its too expensive for what it does myself. For 400 pts you can get much more bang for your buck just by running other units. Heck you almost get 3 defilers for that price.

Yeh thought so unfortunately. Such a shame. I was hoping somebody could justify it to me tho.
Hopefully the new FW rulebook helps them out big time because they're just about the best looking 40k model ever produced...

Oh you want a reason to own one? They are freaking awsome looking and if built as cheap as possible people will shoot it before anything else.

Azuza001 wrote:
Lmao. Anyone else find it funny we are getting our codex before dark angels get their support supplement?

And I am seeing a pattern in 9th edition, much like 7th edition had its "everyone gets a low option!" thing.

Everyone seems to be getting a new fortification. Marines get the bunker of doom. Necrons have the 3 pillars of stone coming. And then there is whatever is in the background of the deathguard reveal....



What is that?

If I had to guess it probably has a 7" aura dealing mortal wound in rare cases and otherwise is pretty worthless like almost all faction terrain