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Tyel wrote:
The Internet certainly seems fond of the LoC - but I'd like to understand why. Is it synergy with say flash outbreak? I guess its a source of 3 damage attacks that you can't easily get elsewhere. It just seems to me the LoV at least has the double heavy flamer to (hopefully) do some work without being at the mercy of long charge rolls.

I think Daemon Princes are in this odd place because wings make them expensive but the idea of not taking them feels very alien. I'd be interested to see if people experiment without the wings as its another source of 3 damage - and 6 attacks hitting on 2s should be more consistent than 5 attacks hitting on 3s (even if plague weapon rerolls to wound can mitigate this.) Throw in a psychic power and it seems a reasonable choice.

simple his ability work only on CORE with PLAGUE weapons so basically work only on deathshrouds, no real reasons to add him, beside his wepon+patogen and mortarion choosed sons company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The Internet certainly seems fond of the LoC - but I'd like to understand why. Is it synergy with say flash outbreak? I guess its a source of 3 damage attacks that you can't easily get elsewhere. It just seems to me the LoV at least has the double heavy flamer to (hopefully) do some work without being at the mercy of long charge rolls.

Well, the manreaper allows you to massacre stuff like harlequins, orks or daemons, while the plague reaper has been upgraded into a better thunderhammer that wounds pretty much every vehicles in the game on 3s and gravis or bikes ons 2s with re-rolls, with no less than 5 attacks. Either way you have a powerful counter-charge unit that can seriously mess up anything that wants to fight with whatever unit he is buffing.

I think Daemon Princes are in this odd place because wings make them expensive but the idea of not taking them feels very alien. I'd be interested to see if people experiment without the wings as its another source of 3 damage - and 6 attacks hitting on 2s should be more consistent than 5 attacks hitting on 3s (even if plague weapon rerolls to wound can mitigate this.) Throw in a psychic power and it seems a reasonable choice.

Honestly, having a 4++ in combat is more valuable than than the psychic power since blades is gone. If you want more attacks, you can just drop the explosive outbreak pathogen on the LoC.

agree in my tests i always found LOC better


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5) Noxious Blightbringer. Movement is always an issue with DG infantry. Gaining +1 movement can add up during a game. Regrettably his movement aura only gives +1 regardless if you normal move or run. His other auras to impact enemy morale and combat attrition tests really won’t come up as often as you would like with all the armies that ignore modifiers. If you wanted to build around this it could be very good against some opponents. (Utility)

remember anyway his relic...2+ and unit at 6" cant fall back. Is not so useless.

How are people equipping their plague Marines now since you can't double up on weapons until you're at 10? Cheap or going for a mix of firepower?

Blight Launcher drones seem pretty darn good choices while Plague Spewers seem to be pretty bad. Fleshmower seems good as well.

Are people taking multiple detachments now to include more than one Lord? Speaking of, how is the Lord of Virulence? I have one on backorder because it's a cool model but how are people using him?

Wayniac wrote:
How are people equipping their plague Marines now since you can't double up on weapons until you're at 10? Cheap or going for a mix of firepower?

Blight Launcher drones seem pretty darn good choices while Plague Spewers seem to be pretty bad. Fleshmower seems good as well.

Are people taking multiple detachments now to include more than one Lord? Speaking of, how is the Lord of Virulence? I have one on backorder because it's a cool model but how are people using him?

I prefer Plas/plas/launcher, 3 special weapons in 5 men unit is still a good ratio.

A full-equipped 10 men squad is somehow...overcosted. More expensive than 6 BLords, but dont have the same threat level as 6 Blords.

 tokugawa wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
How are people equipping their plague Marines now since you can't double up on weapons until you're at 10? Cheap or going for a mix of firepower?

Blight Launcher drones seem pretty darn good choices while Plague Spewers seem to be pretty bad. Fleshmower seems good as well.

Are people taking multiple detachments now to include more than one Lord? Speaking of, how is the Lord of Virulence? I have one on backorder because it's a cool model but how are people using him?

I prefer Plas/plas/launcher, 3 special weapons in 5 men unit is still a good ratio.

A full-equipped 10 men squad is somehow...overcosted. More expensive than 6 BLords, but dont have the same threat level as 6 Blords.

I was thinking of Plas/Plas/Launcher myself. I read somewhere, I forget where, of taking a squad or two with one melta, one launcher, one flail, one cleaver and plas (on champ) and putting them in a Dreadclaw. It sounded odd but the person saying it worked like really hyped it up, saying how they were undefeated in local games with two squads there and a few extras. The weapon mix seemed really odd though.

 Brymm wrote:
Mortal wounds list?
After reading up on the leaks for Dark Angels, durability seems like it’s going to be something most lists plan for. Additionally, they have basically Transhuman army wide. A -1 toughness aura and adding to wound and rerolling are all basically moot against transhuman.

That got me thinking, mortals bypass both transhuman and the 4+ jink from Ravenwing.

What’s a good list composition to maximize mortals?

I’ve been trying to make Typhus/poxwalkers work with a Wretched detachment to get as much pestilential fallout as possible but am having a tough time getting the correct warlord traits and auras where I need them.
Any ideas?

Don't know about having Typhus but my wretched army shall have quite a bit of MW output with a plague caster with the Wretched relic, mutant strain on Poxwalkers, a few FW dreads with Volkite (Contemptors still have Core so can actually benefit from alot of the rules and stragems like Haze of Corruption)

I tried out the vulkite Contemptor with the tallyman/tollkeeper last night. It was decent but it got me thinking how much that was down to the tallyman? First turn I put his tally ability on the Contemptor but after that I tended to put it on my Blightlords since it helps them in both shooting and melee. The Contemptor still enjoyed double hits on 6s for the majority of the game but i started to wonder how affective that really was.

To be honest I'm really not that sure about some of the foetid virions so I'm interested to hear people's thoughts. The issue is they are largely just pure buffing characters that don't offer a lot themselves and I'm started to wonder if spending their equivalent costs on more models isn't better value.

TALLYMAN
With the relic he is throwing out what amounts to a 16% shooting output boost to core units in 6" and a further 16% shooting and melee on one unit. In practical terms, unless building a list to really maximise it, that's probably hitting a couple of units of PMs and a unit of BL Terminators.

The 16% boost is equivalent to an extra model in a 6 man unit. So a tallyman is providing the damage output of 2PMs and a BL Termi which would cost 82pts and provide extra bodies, more durability and melee threat. Is that worth 70pts and a relic?

PLAGUE SURGEON
He provides what amounts to a 20% boost in wounds. Again using two units of PMs and unit of BLs, that's a 75pt model giving the equivalent wounds of 82pts but with no damage output. He does heal D3 so he does have a little more value but I'm thinking I'd rather have the extra models?

FOUL BLIGHTSPAWN
He has a nice gun and is probably the hardest to evaluate. Both his built in ability and his relic aura are very strong. I'm gonna need to practice more with him to maximise his abilities but I'm finding the 3" fight last ability very difficult to actually pull off. The same ability on a SM judiciar is on a bit of a melee beast who wants to be in combat and has the 4++ durability to survive.

The blightspawn isn't easy to navigate into within 3" of a melee target without getting tagged himself and dying pretty rapidly due to zero melee output and no invulnerable save. I'd be interested in hearing people's advice on using this guy affectively because I feel like he should be awesome but I'm struggling.

FOUL BLIGHTSPAWN
He has a nice gun and is probably the hardest to evaluate. Both his built in ability and his relic aura are very strong. I'm gonna need to practice more with him to maximise his abilities but I'm finding the 3" fight last ability very difficult to actually pull off. The same ability on a SM judiciar is on a bit of a melee beast who wants to be in combat and has the 4++ durability to survive.

The blightspawn isn't easy to navigate into within 3" of a melee target without getting tagged himself and dying pretty rapidly due to zero melee output and no invulnerable save. I'd be interested in hearing people's advice on using this guy affectively because I feel like he should be awesome but I'm struggling.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/01/31 11:18:57

use the relic revolting stench vats

 blackmage wrote:

FOUL BLIGHTSPAWN
He has a nice gun and is probably the hardest to evaluate. Both his built in ability and his relic aura are very strong. I'm gonna need to practice more with him to maximise his abilities but I'm finding the 3" fight last ability very difficult to actually pull off. The same ability on a SM judiciar is on a bit of a melee beast who wants to be in combat and has the 4++ durability to survive.

The blightspawn isn't easy to navigate into within 3" of a melee target without getting tagged himself and dying pretty rapidly due to zero melee output and no invulnerable save. I'd be interested in hearing people's advice on using this guy affectively because I feel like he should be awesome but I'm struggling.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/01/31 11:18:57

use the relic revolting stench vats

The relic aura doesn't help you if you charge, it's only useful when being charged and then it's on your opponents terms.

I played a space wolves list the other night with a wolf lord and the armour of Russ and he was able to completely dictate the terms of the fight phase despite an inferior ability just because of the mobility and durability of the wolf lord plus the fact he can actually contribute to the fight himself.

Abaddon303 wrote:
TALLYMAN
With the relic he is throwing out what amounts to a 16% shooting output boost to core units in 6" and a further 16% shooting and melee on one unit. In practical terms, unless building a list to really maximise it, that's probably hitting a couple of units of PMs and a unit of BL Terminators.

The 16% boost is equivalent to an extra model in a 6 man unit. So a tallyman is providing the damage output of 2PMs and a BL Termi which would cost 82pts and provide extra bodies, more durability and melee threat. Is that worth 70pts and a relic?

I've certainly swung from "the Tallyman relic is an autotake" to "you never effect enough to be worthwhile."
But I think you are missing the fact the Tallyman is hopefully giving you CP throughout the game. Quite what say 3 CP is worth can be debated - but at a stretch you could argue that pays for itself even before you factor in any buffs.

But yeah - both he and the Plague Surgeon I think really shine if you are marching blobs of BL/PM up the table - so they can apply their buffs to at least 500 or so worth of points. If you are taking 3 units of Deathshrouds that you intend to DS in, and that's essentially your only Core, then its unclear these guys are worth it. Or are certainly not auto-takes in any case. (Although as said, the Tallyman may be worthwhile just to hide on some objectives and generate you CP.)

With the Blightspawn it does seem like you take Stench Vats or don't bother. Again I think you can use them nestled right behind a unit of Terminators - but 3" can be danced around.

Abaddon303 wrote:
I tried out the vulkite Contemptor with the tallyman/tollkeeper last night. It was decent but it got me thinking how much that was down to the tallyman? First turn I put his tally ability on the Contemptor but after that I tended to put it on my Blightlords since it helps them in both shooting and melee. The Contemptor still enjoyed double hits on 6s for the majority of the game but i started to wonder how affective that really was.

To be honest I'm really not that sure about some of the foetid virions so I'm interested to hear people's thoughts. The issue is they are largely just pure buffing characters that don't offer a lot themselves and I'm started to wonder if spending their equivalent costs on more models isn't better value.

TALLYMAN
With the relic he is throwing out what amounts to a 16% shooting output boost to core units in 6" and a further 16% shooting and melee on one unit. In practical terms, unless building a list to really maximise it, that's probably hitting a couple of units of PMs and a unit of BL Terminators.

The 16% boost is equivalent to an extra model in a 6 man unit. So a tallyman is providing the damage output of 2PMs and a BL Termi which would cost 82pts and provide extra bodies, more durability and melee threat. Is that worth 70pts and a relic?

PLAGUE SURGEON
He provides what amounts to a 20% boost in wounds. Again using two units of PMs and unit of BLs, that's a 75pt model giving the equivalent wounds of 82pts but with no damage output. He does heal D3 so he does have a little more value but I'm thinking I'd rather have the extra models?

FOUL BLIGHTSPAWN
He has a nice gun and is probably the hardest to evaluate. Both his built in ability and his relic aura are very strong. I'm gonna need to practice more with him to maximise his abilities but I'm finding the 3" fight last ability very difficult to actually pull off. The same ability on a SM judiciar is on a bit of a melee beast who wants to be in combat and has the 4++ durability to survive.

The blightspawn isn't easy to navigate into within 3" of a melee target without getting tagged himself and dying pretty rapidly due to zero melee output and no invulnerable save. I'd be interested in hearing people's advice on using this guy affectively because I feel like he should be awesome but I'm struggling.

Tallyman has about 83% chance to generate 1CP per game round. Place him carefully and you would easily receive 3-4 CP.

If tallyman "don't worth his cost", then NO unit in this codex could worth its cost.

Exactly I could care less about that about the Tallyman’s ability to buff shooting. DG suck at shooting overall. I take it for the 4-5 free CP. it is honestly an auto include for me. The buff to shooting and combat is just a cherry on top.

The plague surgeon is only worth it if you take large blocks of terminators in my opinion. If you take Mortarian he likely shouldn’t be in your list.

The foul blightspawn with his relic is SO SO powerful against some melee armies it is hard not to take. If you face a gunline isn’t going to give much to your list.

I can't argue with the value of the CP generation of the Tallyman. Perhaps I should have taken that more into account in my summary. I was more analysing the value of the relic, however I suppose if you consider the Tallyman is an autotake based on his CP gen, then the relic really has almost zero opportunity cost.
I definitely think the Tallyman is my favourite of the lot.
I am going to persevere with the Blightspawn for now as I think I just need to get better at driving him

How does Tallyman have an 83% chance? Isn't it a 7+ on 2d6? That's 50%.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
How does Tallyman have an 83% chance? Isn't it a 7+ on 2d6? That's 50%.

It's done at the start of "the Command phase", so you get to try in both your phase & your opponent's AFAIK, because each round has 2 turns, and each turn has a command phase

Until they FAQ it to "start of your own command phase".
Would be fantastic if it was actually intentional, but I'll still take him if they FAQ it as it's still 2-3 CP if you keep him alive 5 turns.

Tyel wrote:
Quite what say 3 CP is worth can be debated - but at a stretch you could argue that pays for itself even before you factor in any buffs.

In AoS CP are valued at 50pts. If they're anywhere near comparable then that's a free 150pts on your army.

In 40K they value CP at 20pts each. Right now the Tallyman is very strong.

I struggle to decide if the surgeon is worth it honestly. Sometime I would rather just have the extra points for more models. I mean if you run 10 Blightlords I’ve nets you 5 extra wounds. Plus he can heal. So let’s just say in all it gains you 9 extra wounds (maybe). If you add in his cost together and give him the helm (as above valued at 20pts) he costs 95pts or the same cost as a plague caster. He seems to only be worth it if you run LOTs of infantry, can use the droning to extend his aura out to 12”, and you gain some resiliency but will lost offensive damage as if you had more models on the table.

So I am torn. So far my 2 auto includes are the Tallyman (unless he is nerfed) and blightspawn which have massive impacts to the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What I am really curious to see someone do the math is comparing 20 PM with 4 flails (450pts) to 10 Blightlords with 2 flails (420pts). I know the PMs will have more damage output especially if using the trench fighters strategem. Also close of flies for a unit is much more efficient and the ability to be in multiple locations at once.

I’m curious if the PM are both more resilient and more damage output and if so how much.

20 PMs all in one unit and 10BLs all in one unit? I could not justify either at that size. But in that vacuum, i do think if PMs struck first and were able to infiltrate with plague bolters and trench fighters they would wreck face.

Don't forget one additional benefit for a squad of 10 PM vs terminators. You can throw cloud of flies for 2CP onto a squad of 10 PM and it likely can't be shot at as long as you have other stuff nearer to the opponent units on the board. (nurglings, FBD, poxwalkers, etc). But the same strategem costs 4CP to put on Terminators are that is just too steep.

You could put put 2 blight launchers and 3 plasma guns on a squad of 10 PM. Hide it behind obscuring turn 1, turn 2, walk out, and unload with all guns, then slap on 2CP, make it untargetable, then turn 3, talk forward, fire all guns again and then charge into melee.

Making something flat out untargettable sounds better to me than being a solid brick but that means you still have to weather the shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ineedvc2500 wrote:
20 PMs all in one unit and 10BLs all in one unit? I could not justify either at that size. But in that vacuum, i do think if PMs struck first and were able to infiltrate with plague bolters and trench fighters they would wreck face.

You can't take 20 PM anymore.

I think people are forgetting that the Plague Surgeon can also flat out heal wounds in addition to his FNP aura.

broxus wrote:


What I am really curious to see someone do the math is comparing 20 PM with 4 flails (450pts) to 10 Blightlords with 2 flails (420pts). I know the PMs will have more damage output especially if using the trench fighters strategem. Also close of flies for a unit is much more efficient and the ability to be in multiple locations at once.

I’m curious if the PM are both more resilient and more damage output and if so how much.

Not easy to succinctly compare them because different weapon profiles have different efficiencies for killing either but here's how many shots it would take to kill them with some common anti elite weapons:

10 BLs v 20 PMs

PMs
540 Bolters
240 H.Bolters
144 Grav
45 H.Plasma Incinerators
45 Meltas in melta range

BLs
810 Bolters
270 H.Bolters
180 Grav
45 H.Plasma Incinerators
45 Meltas in melta range

Kind of what i suspected that the BLs are generally more robust. Will see about trying to compare damage output tomorrow maybe.

 Marshal Loss wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
How does Tallyman have an 83% chance? Isn't it a 7+ on 2d6? That's 50%.

It's done at the start of "the Command phase", so you get to try in both your phase & your opponent's AFAIK, because each round has 2 turns, and each turn has a command phase

Got it. That seems so unintentional my brain clearly ignored it. That would be FAAAAAAAAR too good.

there is really nothing that Pm do better than Bl and for troops you have far cheaper and effective choice...poxwalkers. Maybe just play a cheap squad to get some backfield obj, protected by cloud if needed.
About blightspwan....pure gunlines WONT work in 9th, opponent must come to you if want try to win, he is a strong option, the relic+viscous death for me.

A basic squad of PM actually has a fair amount of melee ability because of plague knives and strategems like trench fighters. Add just 10 points for a flail of corruption or a power fist or a great cleaver and you have something that only dedicated melee units can beat.

PM is a 5-10 men unit, no longer 5-20. So when you give buffs(psychic, strat) to a full PM unit, 200+pts of your army is boosted. When the buffs given to BL unit, 400+pts could be boosted.

Even with the changes with restrictions I'll still be running squads of seven what's a better choice of plague weapon Plague Spewer or Blight launcher? 7 man squad with plasmagun, icon and champ with powerfist and plasmagun though I could always swap out the fist for a flail. Thinking short ranged but still able to deal damage in close combat so wonder if a spewer or blight launcher would be best. Army is mostly long ranged walkers like helbrutes and defilers supporting infantry

 plagueknight wrote:
Even with the changes with restrictions I'll still be running squads of seven what's a better choice of plague weapon Plague Spewer or Blight launcher? 7 man squad with plasmagun, icon and champ with powerfist and plasmagun though I could always swap out the fist for a flail. Thinking short ranged but still able to deal damage in close combat so wonder if a spewer or blight launcher would be best. Army is mostly long ranged walkers like helbrutes and defilers supporting infantry

Blight Launchers over Plague Spewers for PMs, without a doubt.

Tracking that you can’t take PM in squads of 20. I was referring to getting 2 squads of 10. Sorry I should have been more clear.

Basically you get 2 PM for 1 BL. I think if you try to keep things cheap with bolters and flails the PM do more damage, but the BL are more resilient per point.

Speaking of which what the top damage character you all can come up with? Sadly I think I the deathshroud champion with a Reaper of Glorious Entropy relic and virulent fever pathogen. If you are lucky enough to have putrifier around you can do 3 mortal wounds on a wound roll of 6 which is nasty.

Sadly due to almost every buff being core normal characters such as LoC lag behind champions in terms of damage.

Concerning the debate PMs.Vs BLs, today I watched this very instructive video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roi75zojMDA&ab_channel=GeneralJannisDeathGuardtactics

Basically, BLs are more resilient but have per point mediocre damage. Deathshrouds rock.

Poxwalkers are good, possessed not so much.

I just had a game last night and went and tried out a lot of the less talked about stuff in the new codex.

A tollkeeper tallyman last night who was buffing a block of 3x plasma 2x blight launcher marines to great effect. He occasionally repositioned to get a second PM squad with a single blightlauncher as well as one of the two MM helbrutes I had running around. Getting extra hits out of blight launchers and multi-meltas really made a huge difference to the game, and on top of that he managed to refund a whooping 5 CP.
Plasma was kind of disappointing though, I really don't want to kill plague marines with overcharging and without 18" rapid fire they aren't worth 10 points. They might be better vs armies with many 2W models though.

Helbrutes in general did quite well, though I should have put a bolter or flamer on the fist to get more benefit from auras. They no longer stick out like a sore thumb that is easy to kill and using haze of corruption on a helbrute fist just massacres anything trying to hold an objective. Being Death Guard CORE really makes them great.

Putting the Reaper of Glorious Entropy on the Death Shroud Champion was so powerful it almost felt like cheating, especially if you use my new favorite stratagem haze of corruption. My opponent agreed and threw four hundred points of melee death star with character support at the deathshroud to kill them. Turns out they eventually die when you hit them with dozens of high AP attacks.

Both the noxious blightbringer and the surgeon had issues keeping up with their respective terminator squads. While the blightbringer was essential to the deathshroud getting into combat, he ended up without protection and got splatted by a reaper.

PBC do a lot more damage now, but it really feels like they fold like any other tank now. Rothail volley gun is decent.
The PBC stratagem wasn't great. Once the PBC completely missed so I spent 2 CP for nothing and once it did 3 damage to a vehicle and a single mortal wound on a nearby unit. Probably not worth it unless you are shooting at 6+ model units with multiple wounds.

LoV was ok-ish. I used him as deep-striking one-man army, and his pathogen-enhanced flamer cleared two objectives and he got some work done on the charge. His AP aura was worthless, despite multiple units nearby being able to trigger it.
I feel like he could be a decent second HQ if he wasn't a Lord of the Death Guard, but as it is, he is not worth giving up re-rolls elsewhere.

I wasn't that amazed by Ferric Blight as other posters were. It really feels useless unless you spend 2 CP for flash outbreak.
Ferric Miasma though? That stratagem actually made the difference between losing and winning. My opponent only barely managed to connect to a unit of blightlords due to it, denying parts of his unit to join combat, preventing him from consolidating onto the objective and allowing the remaining two blightlords (flail and champion) to fight back and survive until the end of the game for while we stand, we fight. Total gain: 10 VP. 1 CP makes it cheap enough to just toss at the enemy whenever they attempt 6"+ charges.