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 Eldarain wrote:

 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.

Summoning just requires you to have a CHAOS CHARACTER. Oddly enough, it's an ability of unit you summon, not of the summoner.


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 ArcaneHorror wrote:
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.

Possessed cannot enter rhinos at all, and take two spaces in a landraider.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

That's just seven units though, and poxwalkers are easy to wipe. You might end up losing the game despite not losing anything because you can be in too few places.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

 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.

Summoning just requires you to have a CHAOS CHARACTER. Oddly enough, it's an ability of unit you summon, not of the summoner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
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.

Possessed cannot enter rhinos at all, and take two spaces in a landraider.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

That's just seven units though, and poxwalkers are easy to wipe. You might end up losing the game despite not losing anything because you can be in too few places.

You don't need to be IN ALL PLACES ALL THE TIME, just holding out 3-4 wins you games since you're the best army in the game right now in terms of staying power

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

 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.

Summoning just requires you to have a CHAOS CHARACTER. Oddly enough, it's an ability of unit you summon, not of the summoner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
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.

Possessed cannot enter rhinos at all, and take two spaces in a landraider.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

That's just seven units though, and poxwalkers are easy to wipe. You might end up losing the game despite not losing anything because you can be in too few places.

You don't need to be IN ALL PLACES ALL THE TIME, just holding out 3-4 wins you games since you're the best army in the game right now in terms of staying power

(Cries to himself in Custodes)

KurtAngle2 wrote:
You don't need to be IN ALL PLACES ALL THE TIME, just holding out 3-4 wins you games since you're the best army in the game right now in terms of staying power

The opponent should be fully capable of killing at least one of death shroud units and the pox walkers, that leaves you with just 3 units and 12 points worth of assassination, with no way to interrupt any secondaries or primaries your opponent is scoring. Since Mortarion will likely not be sitting on an objective, you are holding 2-3.
In a mission with 6 objectives, an opponent could easily deny you more than 5VP and possibly score 15 for themselves by sacrificing an obsec unit per turn. You also would be open for deep strikes everywhere.
How do you expect to get stuff like deathwing terminators off objectives? What about someone tarpitting Mortarion with a C'Tan or Thrakka?

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'm challenging the idea. With the old codex, when my unit count dropped too low, I found it impossible to win games against armies properly built for 9th, and I don't think anything in your suggested list changes that.

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.

From a mathhammer standpoint, you are correct sir. Plague marines are better against bolters and many other types of weapons than poxwalkers. That said I still vastly prefer poxwalkers over plague marines for one big reason.

Troops by in large in 9th are a tax for detachments and obsec bearers, not units that you want to actually do something with. You don’t want your troops taking fire, you want them to sit them on backfield objectives, or to simply steal a midfield objective mid game after hiding behind obscuring terrain.

Based on this the math I care about is how much does it cost to fill out a battalion with both troop options at a min price. For plague marines it’s a 315 points, for poxwalkers 150.

In your example you are comparing poxwalkers to plague marines vs bolter fire. But both units are worse against bolters than terminators are. So if I’m spending 150 on poxwalkers vs 315 for plague marines, really the comparison becomes poxwalkers and terminators vs plague marines. And really this is faulty comparison as well, because if I’m letting bolter shots into my troops be a meaningful part of the game, I’ve already screwed up.

Finally, as a minor point I’d like to say mathematically bolters are the ideal weapon to favor plague marines. Anything with S3 wounds both units the same. Any AP on a weapon only hurts the plague marines, and any weapon with D3 or greater is going to be good against marines but not poxwalkers (nobody wants to shoot either with D2 weapons). So therefore S4 weapons with no AP and S5 weapons with no AP favor marines the most over poxwalkers.

Really the problem with plague marines is this they fill no good role. All of our spicy options (terminators, possessed, Mortarion, etc) both bring more durability point for point and more offensive output. This unlike good troop units like necron warriors, which are still durable in comparison to the rest necron codex and harlequin Troups, who bring good damage output. So that just leaves them as obsec bodies, which poxwalkers do as well for half the points.

Eldarain wrote: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.

It's a shame they weren't bumped to three wounds. Do they at least get this edition's version of Disgusting Resilience (they didn't last edition).

Jidmah wrote:
Possessed cannot enter rhinos at all, and take two spaces in a landraider.

Wow, that's bs. They don't have obsec, and need to get into combat quickly to be of any use. Also, I'm still wondering why the greater possessed weren't added. Is there some fluff reason why the Death Guard can't merge with Nurgle heralds?

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

Eldarain wrote: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.

It's a shame they weren't bumped to three wounds. Do they at least get this edition's version of Disgusting Resilience (they didn't last edition).

Jidmah wrote:
Possessed cannot enter rhinos at all, and take two spaces in a landraider.

Wow, that's bs. They don't have obsec, and need to get into combat quickly to be of any use. Also, I'm still wondering why the greater possessed weren't added. Is there some fluff reason why the Death Guard can't merge with Nurgle heralds?

While I can understand being upset that Warhammer community lied to us about 3w possessed, as someone who hate the model, I’m glad they aren’t at 3W. 24 points 3w possessed would have been broken beyond belief and to be honest I’m surprised that people are surprised this was too good to be true. It’s still a good unit even at 2w due to 7 inch move and the 5++. Rhinos are bad IMO. They’re too fragile for their points in this army, as shown in the tabletop tactics battle report where the were the first to die (despite a 3 man deathshroud team taking the bulk of the early turn shooting).

That said I agree that no greater possessed is dumb.

Yeah, I love Rhinos, but they are essential only if the troops inside them are kind of fragile. Deathguard honestly doesn't need to be in Rhinos because our infantry can weather a lot of shooting. That 85 to 90 points on a Rhino could be easily spent to get yet another plague marine squad by topping a bit more points. I would rather have 6 squads of plague marines moving up the board rather 3 squads of PM in 3 Rhinos.

I don't think being 1 inch movement slower is that big a deal when comparing our marines to other infantry.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Yeah, I love Rhinos, but they are essential only if the troops inside them are kind of fragile. Deathguard honestly doesn't need to be in Rhinos because our infantry can weather a lot of shooting. That 85 to 90 points on a Rhino could be easily spent to get yet another plague marine squad by topping a bit more points. I would rather have 6 squads of plague marines moving up the board rather 3 squads of PM in 3 Rhinos.

I don't think being 1 inch movement slower is that big a deal when comparing our marines to other infantry.

Rhinos bubble your plagues out, and couple of them are just flat broken.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

 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.

Summoning just requires you to have a CHAOS CHARACTER. Oddly enough, it's an ability of unit you summon, not of the summoner.

Right, but the scenario of playing an army entirely composed of Death Guard but then using a Summoning mechanic from a Codex you aren't using that interacts with a rule on datasheets not in your book doesn't seem right to me.

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

Lets wait to see if there would be anyone scream: Deathguard is way too broken OP


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
You don't need to be IN ALL PLACES ALL THE TIME, just holding out 3-4 wins you games since you're the best army in the game right now in terms of staying power

The opponent should be fully capable of killing at least one of death shroud units and the pox walkers, that leaves you with just 3 units and 12 points worth of assassination, with no way to interrupt any secondaries or primaries your opponent is scoring. Since Mortarion will likely not be sitting on an objective, you are holding 2-3.
In a mission with 6 objectives, an opponent could easily deny you more than 5VP and possibly score 15 for themselves by sacrificing an obsec unit per turn. You also would be open for deep strikes everywhere.
How do you expect to get stuff like deathwing terminators off objectives? What about someone tarpitting Mortarion with a C'Tan or Thrakka?

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'm challenging the idea. With the old codex, when my unit count dropped too low, I found it impossible to win games against armies properly built for 9th, and I don't think anything in your suggested list changes that.

Ctan and Gazy cannot tarpit Morty, Morty cast psychic powers, dealing 3 MW, shoot his pistol, deal another wound, melee WILL deal 3 more wounds. So there is 7 wounds down already. If that Ctan is not Nightbringer that can deny inv save and FnP, the Ctan cannot bring Morty down in reply then in next round Morty kills the Ctan.
For his T8 16W 4++ 5+++ , -1 dmg and can be -1 to hit and heal lost wounds, Str16 6A or Str8 18A, possessing 3 very good WTs, He is very overpower if priced at 490pts. It should be around 600pts to be priced fair.

stratigo wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Yeah, I love Rhinos, but they are essential only if the troops inside them are kind of fragile. Deathguard honestly doesn't need to be in Rhinos because our infantry can weather a lot of shooting. That 85 to 90 points on a Rhino could be easily spent to get yet another plague marine squad by topping a bit more points. I would rather have 6 squads of plague marines moving up the board rather 3 squads of PM in 3 Rhinos.

I don't think being 1 inch movement slower is that big a deal when comparing our marines to other infantry.

Rhinos bubble your plagues out, and couple of them are just flat broken.

This whole “you need a fast, expendable unit for contagion spreading” notion is cute, but not tactically sound. Outside of plagueburst crawlers and blighthaulers, we have no major range threats, so the -1 T is of limited use for range. Even if was very valuable your rhino isn’t getting close to the enemy that much faster than anything else. Why run a rhino at my enemy when I can use something like morty or a plague drone with flesh-mower instead?

So what are rhino’s good for then. As the poster above said they don’t add protection for our troops (boyz before toys). That leaves mobility, but as as also stated by the above poster we don’t need that to reach the middle of the board. So basically we are left with the idea that maybe our opponent will be bad and not realize that they don’t need to destroy a rhino on objective in order to steal it from us. That way we can get the objective after they blow it up right!?

Neophyte2012 wrote:
Ctan and Gazy cannot tarpit Morty, Morty cast psychic powers, dealing 3 MW, shoot his pistol, deal another wound, melee WILL deal 3 more wounds. So there is 7 wounds down already. If that Ctan is not Nightbringer that can deny inv save and FnP, the Ctan cannot bring Morty down in reply then in next round Morty kills the Ctan.

Both have saves against the pistol and neither smite nor plague wind is super-reliable at dealing 3-4 MW. You could easily be stuck fighting one or the other for two turns.

For his T8 16W 4++ 5+++ , -1 dmg and can be -1 to hit and heal lost wounds, Str16 6A or Str8 18A, possessing 3 very good WTs, He is very overpower if priced at 490pts. It should be around 600pts to be priced fair.

He cannot heal wounds though?

He was trash at 490 before and the only big thing that changed about him are +1T and -1 damage so he actually has a chance of surviving first turn now and a slightly larger aura range. Outside of that he just got more versatile stuff instead of his mortal wound aura which could-autowin games by pulsing through an entire army once. For both and old Mortarion, you were fethed if he got too close, and he does jack in turn 1.

For 600 points, at the very least he should have a shooting attack capable of wiping out a 5 man squad of primaris turn 1.

So just some list ideas for discussion.

For melee deathguard, I think units like deathshroud, chaos spawn and possessed are good. These hit hard in close combat. I think melee deathguard will change in form. We will have to see.

Seems like daemon engine deathguard is less of a thing now. But it might still be a viable list. Run Three PBCs, 3 fleshmowers, and 3 deathguard hellbrutes. Thats 9 hard to kill vehicles. Could be a thing. Cam throw in some Blight Haulers to increase the vehicle count even more.

Or try the list where you stuff as many terminators as you can into your army. Lord of contagion, Termi sorceror, 3 units of deathshroud, 2 units of Blightlords... and bam, you now have chaos version of a custodes list lol.

Someone somewhere is going to try out a list with 60 or more plague marines just to swarm the board with obsec,hard to kill bodies and see how that works out. Btw, 60 plague marines are moving 5 inches and rapid firing 24 inches on their bolters for 120 shots!

Salt donkey wrote:

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.

From a mathhammer standpoint, you are correct sir. Plague marines are better against bolters and many other types of weapons than poxwalkers. That said I still vastly prefer poxwalkers over plague marines for one big reason.

Troops by in large in 9th are a tax for detachments and obsec bearers, not units that you want to actually do something with. You don’t want your troops taking fire, you want them to sit them on backfield objectives, or to simply steal a midfield objective mid game after hiding behind obscuring terrain.

Based on this the math I care about is how much does it cost to fill out a battalion with both troop options at a min price. For plague marines it’s a 315 points, for poxwalkers 150.

In your example you are comparing poxwalkers to plague marines vs bolter fire. But both units are worse against bolters than terminators are. So if I’m spending 150 on poxwalkers vs 315 for plague marines, really the comparison becomes poxwalkers and terminators vs plague marines. And really this is faulty comparison as well, because if I’m letting bolter shots into my troops be a meaningful part of the game, I’ve already screwed up.

Finally, as a minor point I’d like to say mathematically bolters are the ideal weapon to favor plague marines. Anything with S3 wounds both units the same. Any AP on a weapon only hurts the plague marines, and any weapon with D3 or greater is going to be good against marines but not poxwalkers (nobody wants to shoot either with D2 weapons). So therefore S4 weapons with no AP and S5 weapons with no AP favor marines the most over poxwalkers.

Really the problem with plague marines is this they fill no good role. All of our spicy options (terminators, possessed, Mortarion, etc) both bring more durability point for point and more offensive output. This unlike good troop units like necron warriors, which are still durable in comparison to the rest necron codex and harlequin Troups, who bring good damage output. So that just leaves them as obsec bodies, which poxwalkers do as well for half the points.

You make some good points but I'm not sure I agree that troops are a tax in 9th. Certainly not as much as they were in 8th. The new HQ restrictions in the DG codex means you might as well take a patrol or two if you're so adverse to taking troops.

I don't think PMs are expected to sit on rear objectives either. They're possibly some of the best troops in the game to be able to advance on an objective shoot, charge and turn it over and then be resilient enough to hold on to it.

As for what weapons hurt PMs and Poxies, things like bolters are generally what will be fired at them. Many armies' anti infantry weaponry is around the profile of a bolter and if all you have is Poxwalkers they are gonna take the full brunt of all of that and dissolve pretty quickly. Them you're left with a couple of blobs of terminators.

I'm also not sure that point for point terminators put out more damage. They're certainly resilient but the new weapon restrictions means in a squad of seven you'll have a single blight launcher and single plasma etc. They also have no multi damage melee units apart from the single flail.

Plague Marines are absolute beasts in combat with several options for multi damage weaponry and 3 attacks each of geared for combat. That's point for point 6 attacks compared to a Blightlords 3.

I dunno, honestly it's gonna take a bit of time to fully digest the codex I think it's a little early to be dismissing Plague Marines.

BL are in a weird spot damage wise, they still work as a midboard bully but I think you're right and plague marine melee squads are much scarier.

I haven't seen the full rules, but a biologus for the mortals on unmodified 6s and tallyman for +1 to hit (those are both correct right?) Is frightening if you can get there. Does the champion get 4 attacks with 2 melee weapons or is he still on 3?
Getting there is still a bit ask, but a squad of 10 with 2 of each and the overflow strat or new more expensive VotLW is going to be terrifying.

How are people leaning towards equipping PM squads at first glance?

shabadoit wrote:
BL are in a weird spot damage wise, they still work as a midboard bully but I think you're right and plague marine melee squads are much scarier.

I haven't seen the full rules, but a biologus for the mortals on unmodified 6s and tallyman for +1 to hit (those are both correct right?) Is frightening if you can get there. Does the champion get 4 attacks with 2 melee weapons or is he still on 3?
Getting there is still a bit ask, but a squad of 10 with 2 of each and the overflow strat or new more expensive VotLW is going to be terrifying.

Both correct.
Not sure about the champion. He has 3 attacks base now, but the Vectors of Death rule says Plague Marines get +1 A with 2 cc Plague weapons, but technically he is a Plague Champion. (Still with the PM keyword though) Plus as far as i can see his only option for a second weapon is a power fist, which is no Plague weapon.


I will play close combat Plague Marines for sure. Just ordered 2 more boxes for 1 cc squad and maybe some Plasma to mix into all my Blight Launchers.
The amount of buffs you can stack is amazing:

+1 to hit (Tallyman buff)
+1 to wound (Shooting strategem)
+1 attack with plague knifes (Strategem)
MW on natural 6s in cc (putrifier ability)
AP -4 on Plague Weapons on natural 6s (CC strategem)
extra AP on natural 6+ shooting & cc (Inexorable Contagion)
auto-wound on natural 6s (The Wretched Contagion or the new Sigil of decay option for PM)
Excess damage spills over (CC strategem)
you can get reroll 1s to wound for non plague weapons on 1 enemy unit
make bolt weapons plague weapons & +6" on plague weapons (strategems)


So what might be the optimal loadout for cc Plague Marines?
You could take 8-9 and let them ride in a Rhino with 1-2 support characters - in that case with 1 double knife, 1 axe, 1 mace & axe, 1 flail, 1 cleaver, 1 champion with Plague Bringer relic for 199 / 220 points.
Otherwise 10 PM with 2 double knifes, 2 mace & axe, 2 flails, 2 cleavers, 1 Plague Bringer for 266 sounds solid to me.

That squad will kill about 10-12 Intercessors / 6-7 Gravis Primaris / 20 Boys / 14 Necron Warriors without any buffs.
If you toss in Haze of Corruption and / or other buffs like +1 to hit thats 30+ Orksboys or 20+ Necron Warriors down.


Not sure about squads of 5. Mixing BL & Plasma will give the most Dakka with 2 Plasma & 1 BL for 135 points.
Or 3 Bolters 1 BL & 1 flail as a flexible midfield squad that can do some cc damage and shooting for 125 points.
In the end i guess it will depend on remaining points. 20 points left? Then those two models get a Flail and a BL.
Otherwise 1 or two squads of 5 Bolter marines sound still good to do actions or camp at your backfield objectives. You will get 20 Poxwalkers for the points though, if you don`t care too much about actions.

I'm actually thinking I might start with taking all rounder squads and see what sticks to be honest
Squads of 7:
Plasma champ
Plasma
Blight launcher
Flail
Axe/mace
2 bolters as ablative

I might even try the cleaver in one unit. I have one but I've never run it. With three attacks mitigating the -1 now and the strat to spread damage it could be really nasty!

 Marshal Loss wrote:
How are people leaning towards equipping PM squads at first glance?

I think I might be trying one squad of 10 with 3x plasma 2x blight launcher and tallyman support (+2-3 CP from the chant alone should make him worthwhile) and two squads of 5 with a blightlauncher and maybe 1-2 plasma guns, depending on points left. Or maybe just bolters and possibly a sigil for cheap all-round units.

For melee hit squads, I'm not sure when you should stop adding options. From priority it's probably flails>knives>axes>PF>cleavers>icon and I would skip the mace/axe combo completely, as they are 13 points per model but worse than any other option.
A biologus putrifier seems like great support for those squads, and spending 65 on him is definitely superior to spending the same points on melee wargear as he stacks well with both the the knife and the grenades-to-pistols stratagem.

The mace is only 5 points now, meaning mace/axe is 8. I think it's worth a look at that price, although I might just be over excited about the damage spill over strat and the possibility of one shotting gravis.

You need to compare melee loadout plague marines to possessed as well. Because once you start adding so much stuff to plague marines, I think the cost becomes comparable to running a unit of possessed. And possessed move fast, and have a 5++. Just throwing this into the mix here. Of course, possessed lose out by not being obsec, but I think the idea is to be killy rather than to sit on an objective in this case.

Just realised that our daemon engines no longer cause damage to Nurgle when they explode. Thank f$^k for that. I always hated that in 8th.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
You need to compare melee loadout plague marines to possessed as well. Because once you start adding so much stuff to plague marines, I think the cost becomes comparable to running a unit of possessed. And possessed move fast, and have a 5++. Just throwing this into the mix here. Of course, possessed lose out by not being obsec, but I think the idea is to be killy rather than to sit on an objective in this case.

10 Posessed are 240 points now, for that you get 10 Plague Marines with 3 special weapons + the option to gear up more.
Also they just have D1 weapons which makes them worse against multi wound units per point.
But they are fast and good against specific targets, so they might find a place in some lists.
At least they are core and get most of the buffs Plague Marines can get as well.
Who knows, maybe GW will give them 3 wounds after all.

So am I right in thinking that if I take a Nurgle daemons detachment the only thing I'll miss out on is Nurgle's Gift?

 lare2 wrote:
So am I right in thinking that if I take a Nurgle daemons detachment the only thing I'll miss out on is Nurgle's Gift?

Correct, your warlord trait(s) will spread contagion as usual. You just should have a daemons warlord, or you'll lose out on some more stuff like relics.

 lare2 wrote:
So am I right in thinking that if I take a Nurgle daemons detachment the only thing I'll miss out on is Nurgle's Gift?

You can't use the Death Guard secondaries as well.
So, overall there might be some cheese for soup lists, like stacking renamed strategems before it get's FAQ'd.

Possessed versus Plague Marines is interesting. I think marines being more flexible leans me that way. The possessed stat line (strength 5, minus 2, 1 damage) feels a bit less interesting, especially with minus 1 toughness all around. I'm probably wrong though heh

But possessed can probably run up the board faster, just something to consider. And 5++ means they are more durable to AP3 or more. They got more attacks too. So I do think its an interesting comparison. I gotta caution that given how shooty some lists can get, pure melee is probably not the best option. Especially since DG are relatively slow. We still need some shooting in our lists.

 Jidmah wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
So am I right in thinking that if I take a Nurgle daemons detachment the only thing I'll miss out on is Nurgle's Gift?

Correct, your warlord trait(s) will spread contagion as usual. You just should have a daemons warlord, or you'll lose out on some more stuff like relics.

Hmmm, so basically weighing up -1t or taking nurgles... I'll have to try soup and mono if lockdown ever ends.