Mortarion's sons Death Guard tactica 9th ed

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**jivardi**

It appears that Adrian and Brian from Tabletop Titans got their copy of Codex: Deathguard early.

They are doing a batrep Saturday 1/17/2021 @ 2PM Central Time here in the US. It's a matchup between DG and Harlies.

Fast and fragile vs slow and hearty. I doubt they will go over much of the codex but it'll be interesting none-the-less to see the new DG in action.

Though I'm sure they aren't the only YT's to get theirs. I'd expect more discussions over the next few days.

**darthryan**

So morty is now T8 with3+/4++/5+++ with minus 1 damage and can still be healed by deamon spells. He is going to take alot to put down . Stick some deathshroud next to him and watch your opponents cry.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
By my maths and please correct me if im wrong but on average that would take 328 s4 ap-1 d1/d2 hits to bring Morty down

**techsoldaten**

darthryan wrote:
So morty is now T8 with3+/4++/5+++ with minus 1 damage and can still be healed by deamon spells. He is going to take alot to put down . Stick some deathshroud next to him and watch your opponents cry.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
By my maths and please correct me if im wrong but on average that would take 328 s4 ap-1 d1/d2 hits to bring Morty down

We will learn more soon.

Someone in the News thread said he also gets a 5+ FNP. So that number is low.

**Neophyte2012**

techsoldaten wrote:
darthryan wrote:
So morty is now T8 with3+/4++/5+++ with minus 1 damage and can still be healed by deamon spells. He is going to take alot to put down . Stick some deathshroud next to him and watch your opponents cry.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
By my maths and please correct me if im wrong but on average that would take 328 s4 ap-1 d1/d2 hits to bring Morty down

We will learn more soon.

Someone in the News thread said he also gets a 5+ FNP. So that number is low.

If that is true, he should be priced at 600pts level

**darthryan**

No that is including the 5+fnp

**Selfcontrol**

https://www.goonhammer.com/9th-edition-codex-death-guard-the-goonhammer-review/

TL;DR :

- Daemons are entrirely gone, as is summoning. Good riddance.
- Deathsrouds and Blightlords still have a 4++ ;
- Plague Surgon gives a 6+++ around him and can heal ;
- Poxwalkers have a 6+++. They can't perform actions except one ;
- Cultists don't have ObjSec but they can perform actions ;
- Possessed are still 2 Wounds. Damn you Warhammer Community for saying they were going to get a third Wound ...
- DG Stratagems are absolutely insane, such as Flash Outbreak ;
- Warlord Traits are good / very good ;
- Mortarion seems to be a total monster (he cannot be bodyguarded by Deathsrouds anymore though) ;
- Many Contagions are really fething good.

EDIT : Mortarion's rule about "NO PSYKER" was BS.

**lare2**

Thanks for the summary. Happy to hear the no psycher malarkey was malarkey.

**Eldenfirefly**

Excited about the new deathguard codex. It looks like an awesome codex!

**Jidmah**

Reposting my first impressions after reading the codex. Note that I didn't mention things that I've already read in the goonhammer review, so I suggest you go read that first, it's really good.

Jidmah wrote:
Notable stuff not talked about in the reviews:
- 5++ aura relic is gone
- LoC can have a relic that's effectively a plague thunder hammer
- grenade combo has been dismantled, but there is a stratagem which allows you to get 18 grenade auto-hits in combat.
- relic sword for DP and wurmspitter pistol are gone
- Typhus' destroyer hive is now a bespoke rule which allows you to pick a unit within 6". On a 2+ it takes d3 mortal wound.
- Typhus' aura provides +1A and +1S to poxwalkers, no more toughness boost.
- Still no thunder hammer for DG chaos lords.
- Felthius Orb is a one-use 3d3 S4 AP-1 2 damage plague grenade.
- Malignant Plague Caster fallout ability has gone up to 12" range (from 7")
- flails do 2 attacks instead of d3 and have lost the overkill ability
- Icon changed to do a mortal wound to models in engagement range during your moral phase
- Sigil of decay(new plague marine gear) causes hit rolls of 6 with bolters to automatically wound.
- Plague swords have been renamed to "daemonic plague blade".
- You only get a second blight launcher or plague spewer when you have 10 models (=heavy weapons)
- In addition, you can have one melta, plasma gun or plague belcher per 5 marines (= special weapons)
- So, units of 5 or 7 can have a plasma gun and a blight launcher, but not two of either. A unit of 10 can now have 2 blight launchers and 2 plasma guns. If you include the champion, you can now have 3 plasma guns and 2 blight launchers in a unit of 10.
- One of each melee weapon per 5, all of them get an extra attack and keep the plague knives for the stratagem now.
- Champions get an extra attack if they wield a power fist as well.
- Pox walkers get contagions of nurgle.
- Get new pox walkers from eating anything but monsters or vehicles (just infantry so far).
- Blightbringer's melee bell-mace has AP-1 now.
- Foul Blightspawn's unholy death head is now S5 and AP-1.
- Most characters lost their grenades (plague and krak).
- Plague Surgeon is just a pain boy now, no other fancy rules.
- Breaking news: GW finally reacts to the criticism of not having enough combi-bolter bits in the box. Only one combi-bolter per type per 5 now
- Aura of rust is gone.
- Deathshroud no longer give characters +1 to attacks and cannot protect Mortarion and only can protect Typhus if they are Harbingers.
- Helbrutes don't have disgustingly resilient, but get -1 damage anyways.
- MBH lost fog and tri-lobe, but kept -1 to hit in combat
- 7" explosions down to 6"
- Entropy cannons are plague weapons, rothail volley gun is not.
- Landraider, predators, defiler and rhino got smoke screen, but no DR for any them and no way to get it.
- Rhino cannot carry possessed, LR can carry 5.
- Terrain has a 6" 2d6 S4 AP-1 flamer, and is 12 wounds T8, 3+ with DR.
- The little extra part is a pox furnace which is an obstacle with various traits, including light cover. It can be used to claim cover and gain that -1 to hit from the big piece.

Outside of a couple of cool relics missing and the DR stratagem for shared units gone, I'm very happy.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Selfcontrol wrote:
- Daemons are entrirely gone, as is summoning. Good riddance.

Until Codex: Chaos Daemons changes, summoning is still possible as it was before. But I agree that this is most likely heralding its end.

**JDarion**

One thing I’m seeing is that the interaction between Contagions and Deathclaw Drop Pods may not have been considered. Normally you would want to use their native deepstrike, but using a pod can drop termies round 1. Its pricy, but a LoC with Droning and the helm, three deathshroud, and a psyker with Gift comes down anywhere not screened T1 and provide a 12” bubble of -1T and half move, and is a PITA to shift without dedicating a lot (add surgeon in the 10th slot in the bod if desired).

**Salt donkey**

I got one am excited for every non-deathguard player to complain about Mortarion until he gets nerfed. The no other pysker rule may have been a bad design, but I believed it because Mortarion needed another drawback to be justified.

As it stands I struggle to see him as anything but an auto-include, despite costing 490 points.

**KurtAngle2**

Salt donkey wrote:
I got one am excited for every non-deathguard player to complain about Mortarion until he gets nerfed. The no other pysker rule may have been a bad design, but I believed it because Mortarion needed another drawback to be justified.

As it stands I struggle to see him as anything but an auto-include, despite costing 490 points.

And he can get -1 to hit with a Psychic Power too...
Completely broken at 490 points

**Abaddon303**

So with no way of putting DR on a rhino, and PMs having 2 wounds, plague surgeon giving out 6+++ and I think I saw something giving it cover. Are we better going full foot slog and leaving the fast movement to things like the drones and MBHs?

**Denegaar**

Congratulations guys! You got a nice, nice book, really fluffy and fun to play for sure.

And Mortarion is a beast of a centerpiece. I hope my book is as good as yours.

Have fun!

**KurtAngle2**

Abaddon303 wrote:
So with no way of putting DR on a rhino, and PMs having 2 wounds, plague surgeon giving out 6+++ and I think I saw something giving it cover. Are we better going full foot slog and leaving the fast movement to things like the drones and MBHs?

Yes.

Or Triple KoS lists with Mortarion being the only DG model played there

**Salt donkey**

Morty in soup doesn’t sound too bad, but I think mono deathguard has legs.

The key IMO is to run morty of course, terminators (I think deathshroud are slightly better than blightlords, but both are extremely good), tallyman, surgean, and poxwalkers. Skip plague marines, terminators let you take poxwalkers and they are a much better troop option than plague marines. You might also want some fire support options as well. That’s the list IMO.

**Jidmah**

JDarion wrote:
One thing I’m seeing is that the interaction between Contagions and Deathclaw Drop Pods may not have been considered. Normally you would want to use their native deepstrike, but using a pod can drop termies round 1. Its pricy, but a LoC with Droning and the helm, three deathshroud, and a psyker with Gift comes down anywhere not screened T1 and provide a 12” bubble of -1T and half move, and is a PITA to shift without dedicating a lot (add surgeon in the 10th slot in the bod if desired).

1. You cannot disembark from dreadclaws the turn they arrive, and none of the FW models have any contagion range.
2. Contagion range in turn 1 is 1" plus 3" from the LoC plus 6" from the power
3. If the power fails, all that stuff will be dead with no effect.

**Abaddon303**

Salt donkey wrote:
Morty in soup doesn’t sound too bad, but I think mono deathguard has legs.

The key IMO is to run morty of course, terminators (I think deathshroud are slightly better than blightlords, but both are extremely good), tallyman, surgean, and poxwalkers. Skip plague marines, terminators let you take poxwalkers and they are a much better troop option than plague marines. You might also want some fire support options as well. That’s the list IMO.

Suprised you think Poxwalkers are a much better troop choice? It's hard to eyeball the numbers because there's so many spinning plates when trying to compare Poxies and PMs resilience, but point for point I'm pretty sure PMs would stand up better to most common anti-infantry shooting.

I can see an argument for a MSU of Poxwalkers because it costs half the points of a MSU of PMs if you want something to sit out of LOS maybe holding an objective but they'll still die to a stiff breeze. Could use a single unit to do your contagion action first turn before they die or something. Maybe a big unit could survive long enough to spread it around a bit but they're so slow you'd need to advance between objectives and then do the action next turn.

But if you need any kind of staying power, actions, offensive contribution then Poxwalkers are surely outshone by PMs? Unless I'm missing something?

Of course in 9th, you could just take a patrol and almost skip the troops completely but I think PMs are looking like a very solid choice at the moment...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
If my maths is correct, looks like 20 bolter hits will kill 1 Plague Marine or 8 Poxwalkers. That's almost double the resilience per point.

**KurtAngle2**

Abaddon303 wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Morty in soup doesn’t sound too bad, but I think mono deathguard has legs.

The key IMO is to run morty of course, terminators (I think deathshroud are slightly better than blightlords, but both are extremely good), tallyman, surgean, and poxwalkers. Skip plague marines, terminators let you take poxwalkers and they are a much better troop option than plague marines. You might also want some fire support options as well. That’s the list IMO.

Suprised you think Poxwalkers are a much better troop choice? It's hard to eyeball the numbers because there's so many spinning plates when trying to compare Poxies and PMs resilience, but point for point I'm pretty sure PMs would stand up better to most common anti-infantry shooting.

I can see an argument for a MSU of Poxwalkers because it costs half the points of a MSU of PMs if you want something to sit out of LOS maybe holding an objective but they'll still die to a stiff breeze. Could use a single unit to do your contagion action first turn before they die or something. Maybe a big unit could survive long enough to spread it around a bit but they're so slow you'd need to advance between objectives and then do the action next turn.

But if you need any kind of staying power, actions, offensive contribution then Poxwalkers are surely outshone by PMs? Unless I'm missing something?

Of course in 9th, you could just take a patrol and almost skip the troops completely but I think PMs are looking like a very solid choice at the moment...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
If my maths is correct, looks like 20 bolter hits will kill 1 Plague Marine or 8 Poxwalkers. That's almost double the resilience per point.

It makes no sense to spam Plague Marines when your Terminators (40/50 pts depending on the unit you take):

Move the same and are no longer hampered by half Advance and 4"
3W AND a 2+/4++
Superb damage output
Superb stratagem supports

Just go Terminators and Poxwalkers and march across the table

**JDarion**

Jidmah wrote:
JDarion wrote:

1. You cannot disembark from dreadclaws the turn they arrive, and none of the FW models have any contagion range.
2. Contagion range in turn 1 is 1" plus 3" from the LoC plus 6" from the power
3. If the power fails, all that stuff will be dead with no effect.

1) Somehow I missed that the FW Droppod assault rule was different than the standard. Thank you. Seems ... not intended but that kills the idea.
2) Are we sure Helm doesn’t effect the contagion aura (so 1+3+3+6 max 12)?

**Abaddon303**

I'm not saying to spam PMs necessarily, but the army needs mobility/ability to spread out and heavy investment into terminators would seem to restrict that?
I was thinking a unit of poxwalkers for a first turn action, they might survive to pick up another in a second and a couple of PM squads to hopefully pick up another couple later in the game.

**KurtAngle2**

Abaddon303 wrote:
I'm not saying to spam PMs necessarily, but the army needs mobility/ability to spread out and heavy investment into terminators would seem to restrict that?
I was thinking a unit of poxwalkers for a first turn action, they might survive to pick up another in a second and a couple of PM squads to hopefully pick up another couple later in the game.

If you mean in game actions, Poxwalkers can't do them aside from the Secondary objective DG has (which is 100% overhyped and not S+++ like some folks on Goonhammer say).
The ability to spread out is 100% not viable with Plague Marines anyway: their damage output is abysmal for the points and you need a mandatory Blight Launcher + Flail of Corruption to kill anything more than mere guardsmen.

On the other hand Blightlords are better in the melee department and Deathshroud are AB-SO-LU-TE-LY fantastic for 50 ppm (bonus when you give them 6++ and +1 to hit)

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Seriously, I was just watching the breakdown on Auspex Tactics, and DG are now Ugly Custodes on Space Crack. They hit harder, are tougher to kill, cost less, and have waaaaaaay over the top support in the realm of abilities, spells, strats, and relics. I can't wait to see what they do to Custodes....

**KurtAngle2**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Seriously, I was just watching the breakdown on Auspex Tactics, and DG are now Ugly Custodes on Space Crack. They hit harder, are tougher to kill, cost less, and have waaaaaaay over the top support in the realm of abilities, spells, strats, and relics. I can't wait to see what they do to Custodes....

Mortarion (490 pts) + a Battalion of Lord (between 85 and 120 pts) + Sorcerer (110-120 pts), 3x10 Poxwalkers (150 pts), 15 Deathshroud (750 pts), Tallyman (70 pts) and Plague Surgeon (75 pts) and you've got 200-250 pts to include few other units as well...scary list that should cost much more in terms of points but hey DG is evidently undercosted

**Eldarain**

Jidmah wrote:
Selfcontrol wrote:
- Daemons are entrirely gone, as is summoning. Good riddance.

Until Codex: Chaos Daemons changes, summoning is still possible as it was before. But I agree that this is most likely heralding its end.

How does that work? Would you need a Daemon detachment? Seems odd to be able to use rules from a book you haven't used to create your army.

**lare2**

KurtAngle2 wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Seriously, I was just watching the breakdown on Auspex Tactics, and DG are now Ugly Custodes on Space Crack. They hit harder, are tougher to kill, cost less, and have waaaaaaay over the top support in the realm of abilities, spells, strats, and relics. I can't wait to see what they do to Custodes....

Mortarion (490 pts) + a Battalion of Lord (between 85 and 120 pts) + Sorcerer (110-120 pts), 3x10 Poxwalkers (150 pts), 15 Deathshroud (750 pts), Tallyman (70 pts) and Plague Surgeon (75 pts) and you've got 200-250 pts to include few other units as well...scary list that should cost much more in terms of points but hey DG is evidently undercosted

The pox have to be 1 to 1 with core bubonic astartes core infantry. As is you'd need 2 more PM or termy units.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or perhaps you're thinking of running the shroud as multiple?

**ArcaneHorror**

Is it true that possessed fill two seats in a rhino now? Fluff-wise, that doesn't make much sense as they aren't that larger than regular Marines, certainly not to the extent of something like a terminator.

**Eldarain**

That seemed to make more sense to me when it appeared they were going to 3 wounds and playtester channels were using 40mm minis for them. Now I have no idea what's happening with them.

**Jidmah**

JDarion wrote:
Jidmah wrote:

1. You cannot disembark from dreadclaws the turn they arrive, and none of the FW models have any contagion range.
2. Contagion range in turn 1 is 1" plus 3" from the LoC plus 6" from the power
3. If the power fails, all that stuff will be dead with no effect.

1) Somehow I missed that the FW Droppod assault rule was different than the standard. Thank you. Seems ... not intended but that kills the idea.
2) Are we sure Helm doesn’t effect the contagion aura (so 1+3+3+6 max 12)?

Contagions are specifically not auras. You can't boost them with the helm, but stuff like AdMech or Nightlords can't EMP or scream your contagion away.

**Marshal Loss**

lare2 wrote:
KurtAngle2 wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Seriously, I was just watching the breakdown on Auspex Tactics, and DG are now Ugly Custodes on Space Crack. They hit harder, are tougher to kill, cost less, and have waaaaaaay over the top support in the realm of abilities, spells, strats, and relics. I can't wait to see what they do to Custodes....

Mortarion (490 pts) + a Battalion of Lord (between 85 and 120 pts) + Sorcerer (110-120 pts), 3x10 Poxwalkers (150 pts), 15 Deathshroud (750 pts), Tallyman (70 pts) and Plague Surgeon (75 pts) and you've got 200-250 pts to include few other units as well...scary list that should cost much more in terms of points but hey DG is evidently undercosted

The pox have to be 1 to 1 with core bubonic astartes core infantry. As is you'd need 2 more PM or termy units.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or perhaps you're thinking of running the shroud as multiple?

He's got 15 in the list, that's 3 units even if 2 are maxed out