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Pity the stratagem doesn't work on a Lord of Virulence, that could have been nasty.

Which stratagem? The 2D one does work on the Lord of Virulence. It only doesn’t hit the big ones, the plague spitters from Drones and Crawlers.

 Brymm wrote:
Which stratagem? The 2D one does work on the Lord of Virulence. It only doesn’t hit the big ones, the plague spitters from Drones and Crawlers.

Not true. Read it again:

Until the end of the phase, plague belchers, plaguespurt gauntlets and plague spewers...

The Lord of Virulence is armed with a twin plague spewer, rather than two separate plague spewers, so it does not apply to him.

 Marshal Loss wrote:

 Brymm wrote:
Which stratagem? The 2D one does work on the Lord of Virulence. It only doesn’t hit the big ones, the plague spitters from Drones and Crawlers.

Not true. Read it again:

Until the end of the phase, plague belchers, plaguespurt gauntlets and plague spewers...

The Lord of Virulence is armed with a twin plague spewer, rather than two separate plague spewers, so it does not apply to him.

That feels like a FAQ.

Yeah quite possibly, although they might just be trying to avoid the existence of a 2D6 S6 AP-2 D2 flamer. I emailed 40k FAQ about it myself a week or so ago & would encourage others to do the same. At the moment though, RAW, it clearly doesn't apply to the LoV

Abaddon303 wrote:
I'm inclined to think the flamers take too much set up for not huge gains. You're tied into a not great plague company that I'm not sure is outweighed by the value of autohits when you can easily get a 2+ to hit and exploding 6s on a unit of marines.

You're averaging 3.5 hits but the spewers and belcher hits aren't particularly high quality and have short range when your bolters/b launchers/plasma can be doing work from further out.

Granted you can extend the range and give 2 damage but that's more CP being spent when you don't know how well you'll roll for hits and still need to get wounds through with only 0/-1ap. You're not gonna be getting masses of 2D wounds through on anything that matters.

I'd also say DG don't really have an issue causing damage at short range, even PMs set up for shooting are still nasty in melee so if you're under 12" away from something you can hurt with flamers you can almost certainly hurt it in melee and you're just gonna make your charge roll higher.

I guess overwatch and the FBS would make the unit really nasty to charge but relies on your opponent being a little silly choosing to charge such a unit.

I dunno, maybe they can work but I think I'd rather spend the 30pts for the flamers on something else tbh..

Thank you very much for this reply. Lots of valid points.

Which hull gun do you prefer on PBC, slugger or volley gun?

So Dark Angels codex looks very strong. Erm, Any suggestions how DG can handle deathwing terminators and bladeguard with obsec, DR. andpermanent transhuman ?


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 tokugawa wrote:
Which hull gun do you prefer on PBC, slugger or volley gun?

Slugger, but that's because I tend to run mine with entropy cannons so they tend to be further away, so I like the range 36 of the sluggers.

By the way, I got a question on deathshrouds. Do you guys tend to run them up the board or deep strike them in ? So far I ran mine up the board. But actually, small units of 3 only cost 150 points and are a huge threat to the backfield if we are able to deep strike them in strategic locations. It would need to be in a list that is able to clear out the chaff that might bubble up, but the tactical options are interesting. Plus it opens up some secondaries we can take.

They are almost literally the only thing we would consider deep striking in because blightlords shooting from range is good enough such that we might as well start Blightlords on the board turn 1. The only other thing we might deep strike in are a LOC or LOV.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So Dark Angels codex looks very strong. Erm, Any suggestions how DG can handle deathwing terminators and bladeguard with obsec, DR. andpermanent transhuman ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tokugawa wrote:
Which hull gun do you prefer on PBC, slugger or volley gun?

Slugger, but that's because I tend to run mine with entropy cannons so they tend to be further away, so I like the range 36 of the sluggers.

By the way, I got a question on deathshrouds. Do you guys tend to run them up the board or deep strike them in ? So far I ran mine up the board. But actually, small units of 3 only cost 150 points and are a huge threat to the backfield if we are able to deep strike them in strategic locations. It would need to be in a list that is able to clear out the chaff that might bubble up, but the tactical options are interesting. Plus it opens up some secondaries we can take.

They are almost literally the only thing we would consider deep striking in because blightlords shooting from range is good enough such that we might as well start Blightlords on the board turn 1. The only other thing we might deep strike in are a LOC or LOV.

Tarpit them with poxwalkers and focus on missions?

If the DA players just want his Terminator unit "not to die", then they won't die.

A full strength Deathwing unit with shields(1+/4++)could also have Pennant(-1 dmg, just their own Disgusting resilence), Apothecary(6+++FNP, heal up to 6 wounds per turn, revive 1 model per turn),and models in 2nd rank(not in engagement range) cannot attack them in melee, and blahblahblah... This "deathstar" may cost 600+ pts. 600pts of anything you could find in DG codex, in any combination, can't kill this blob in one turn.Not matter what they are, BLord, Deathshrould, Morty...can't kill this deathstar. But they have a very high possiblity to kill your 600pts in the next turn.

But this deathstar is not "auto-win button", it cost huge resources, if the DA player want to keep the HQs nearby, maybe 800-900pts would move together surrounding 1 unit. This unit is slow, and don't have much shooting. It would easily occupy an objective, but a smart opponet may stop them to do more works.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So Dark Angels codex looks very strong. Erm, Any suggestions how DG can handle deathwing terminators and bladeguard with obsec, DR. andpermanent transhuman ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tokugawa wrote:
Which hull gun do you prefer on PBC, slugger or volley gun?

Slugger, but that's because I tend to run mine with entropy cannons so they tend to be further away, so I like the range 36 of the sluggers.

By the way, I got a question on deathshrouds. Do you guys tend to run them up the board or deep strike them in ? So far I ran mine up the board. But actually, small units of 3 only cost 150 points and are a huge threat to the backfield if we are able to deep strike them in strategic locations. It would need to be in a list that is able to clear out the chaff that might bubble up, but the tactical options are interesting. Plus it opens up some secondaries we can take.

They are almost literally the only thing we would consider deep striking in because blightlords shooting from range is good enough such that we might as well start Blightlords on the board turn 1. The only other thing we might deep strike in are a LOC or LOV.

As far as dark angles are concerned, mortal wounds are you’re best friend. Pyskers, plague skull, ally Tzeentch stuff ect are all great options. Also remember all the stratagems that can do mortal wounds if you can. We have a lot of those! Big one to remember is the poxwalker specific mortal wound trick. With harbingers it is quite possible for 100 points of poxwalkers to kill 3-4 terminators. Just remember dark angles have a strat to make it so only one rank of the unit can attack.

The grenade relic also is great for blowing a hole into deathwing.


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A completely unrelated question: Is anyone still using daemon princes?

Mortals. It takes a lot of paying attention but we have ways to dish out mortals in the command phase, your opponents movement phase, your movement phase, the psychic phase, combat, the shooting phase, when your vehicles die, when your characters die, when your characters have a relic, when your poxwalkers attack,... there is in my opinion too many to keep track of, as I have been working on a mortal wounds list using the Wretched with Typhus/plague casters and poxwalkers with your normal DG support of terminators and PBCs.


Side note, if you can reliably get the target you want dead in contagion range of Eater Plague, sending in 40 bolter shots with rerolls to hit causes an awful lot of auto wounds that can at least force saves, which bypasses the permanent transhuman bull crap (and the most busted thing about that book). But then again they are terminators, so unless you’re playing with Morty to give them AP-1 also, you’re not even killing a dude on average, even with 12 auto wounds, he’s still saving 10 on a 2+...

Do you think 5 melee marines + Biologus is too small a squad for Terrax assault? I'd hate to sink too much points inside as I'm afraid the drill is too easy to DS block, and 5-man units are just as good for the grenade strat as 10-man units, although they become rather useless after losing 6 wounds. Also the drill packs enough potential punch to be considered a goodish purchase by itself, even though it seems unlikely to survive past it's arrival round.

 AarresaariAarre wrote:
Do you think 5 melee marines + Biologus is too small a squad for Terrax assault? I'd hate to sink too much points inside as I'm afraid the drill is too easy to DS block, and 5-man units are just as good for the grenade strat as 10-man units, although they become rather useless after losing 6 wounds. Also the drill packs enough potential punch to be considered a goodish purchase by itself, even though it seems unlikely to survive past it's arrival round.

I agree with you, if you are mainly using it for the grenade strat, you don't need that many. Alternatively, you might want to consider now though if the points might be better going into a fuller PM squad. A biologus is 65 points. Thats at least 3 PM. Or you could get 2 more PM in your squad plus better weapons like flails, great clearver, or double melta guns. A 7 or more man PM squad that charges out and wrecks face, then consolidates into something else is a lot scarier than a 5 man PM with biologus that melts one unit with grenades and then gets shot the next turn.

 Jidmah wrote:
The grenade relic also is great for blowing a hole into deathwing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A completely unrelated question: Is anyone still using daemon princes?

if you have spare points...yes might be, but anyway beside 10" nothing a cheaper LoC/LoV can do anyway

I won't say DP is a weak unit. But to make him hard-hitting, you need to invest on combat relics and traits(surppating plate, hulking physique, rotten constitution, etc. ), instead of ultility ones. However, the DG ultility relics and traits are too good to abandon...

I just found in my early games of 9th, where characters are a little harder to protect and there's so much melta flying around, that something like a DP with wings, that's always been great for leaping out from behind a screen and obliterating things, was increasingly hard to keep alive.

HQs are at a premium, lords/DPs even more so with the new codex, so using them as cruise missiles isn't as effective a strategy, and i was finding i was using relics and warlord traits just to make the DP more survivable.

Add the slight nerf to suppurating plate and the prohibitive cost of wings and I just felt that it was a lot of extra points and CP being spent to get something that was still not as tanky as a regular LOC. The DP might hit a little harder and might be quicker but with the massive improvement in our core infantry that wasn't necessarily something i needed anymore. Being a force multiplier and advancing up with big blobs of identical speed terminators seems much more effective.

The 2+/4++ base save for the LOC is vastly superior defensively. He's also infantry, so if he looks like he'll be left exposed after combat you can sometimes be fortunate with pile in and consolidation to maybe get a cover bonus for him to protect against being lit up by small arms fire plus he's easier to hide.

From an offensive point of view, the infantry keyword means he can charge through walls, he also gets Inexorable Advance so he can ignore terrain. If we are agreed the DP's wings are too expensive that means he's getting hit with terrain modifiers and has to go around buildings. As infantry and a terminator you can, if you need to, buff the LOC with +1 to hit and +1 to wound strats and cast putrescent vitality on him.

All in all, I'm at a point where I'm just not even considering DPs anymore they just seem like such a vastly inferior choice. The more important question for me is whether I go with a regular LOC or Typhus.

Typhus is an extra 40pts and unfortunately you lose the ability to take a relic or WLT. He does, however, have a mastercrafted manreaper and an extra attack which I think is worth a relic. His destroyer hive kicking out mortal wounds, the situational boost to Poxwalkers and the fact he can buff any plaguecompany could be considered a rather mediocre equivalent to a WLT. Of course, you can still put the relic and WLT you would have put on a regular LOC on another character so it's really all upside.

Finally for the extra 40pts you are getting a 2 cast/1 deny psyker rolled in which i think is a bargain, a single sorcerer doesn't feel like enough generally so it's great to have that level of psychic coverage from two HQs.

Yeah, I am leaning towards Typhus as well these days. DG can dish out a surprising amount of mortal wounds damage during the psychic as well as other phases.

Was so good against the Nightbringer the other night. I failed to get Miasma off and had to just body his charge into a unit of 5 Deathshroud, only the champion survived on a single wound (couldn't use the Surgeon's FNP so I guess he must have rolled a three for damage) so he fell back to be healed.

Typhus could have done his MWs in command phase (i was unfortunately just out of range for this and my opponent didn't consolidate quite far enough), my sorcerer used the skull relic in the movement phase. I whiffed in the psychic and only took a wound off but it was still reasonably trivial to finish him in the shoot and fight phase.

The ability to fairly easily take wounds in 5 different phases meant there was enough redundancy for it to be a very simple task in the end and i could have forced the issue if i had needed to (reroll a smite etc). I still lost 4 Deathshroud however but i thought that wasn't too awful a sacrifice...

I think people are sleeping on how much damage 6 Deathshroud do with a biologus Putrifier using the arch contaminator warlord trait does in an inexorable detachment.

50 attacks, hitting on 2s, wounding on 4s, rerolling all failed 2s, every 6 to wound does a mortal wound at -2 AP is sick. It will kill around 8 of those Dark Angel terminators with their fancy 1+ save and transhuman. That is before their flamers!


A unit of 10 Blightlords kills 7 in combat before their bolters. Just make sure you are taking the right support characters for the job.

I don't think you want to run a squad of 6 because of blast.
5 is finde.

Also if they deepstrike it's hard to get Support characters there.
Deepstriking 3 x 3 or going for 3+5 will see a lot of lists and they are great on their own as well.

IMO the only support character deathshroud need is the foul blightspawn with relic, because if another melee deathstar gets the jump on them, you are losing a lot of points.

 Jidmah wrote:
IMO the only support character deathshroud need is the foul blightspawn with relic, because if another melee deathstar gets the jump on them, you are losing a lot of points.

In most instances yes, but if you are facing the Dark Angels terminator blob you need the 12 extra mortal wounds. The foul blight spawn is also critical.

I just wanted to give the example of how 365pts of DG can own 600+ pts of Dark Angels with the right build.


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 Grotrebel wrote:
I don't think you want to run a squad of 6 because of blast.
5 is finde.

Also if they deepstrike it's hard to get Support characters there.
Deepstriking 3 x 3 or going for 3+5 will see a lot of lists and they are great on their own as well.

You can only put the MW on one unit regretfully.

broxus wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
IMO the only support character deathshroud need is the foul blightspawn with relic, because if another melee deathstar gets the jump on them, you are losing a lot of points.

In most instances yes, but if you are facing the Dark Angels terminator blob you need the 12 extra mortal wounds. The foul blight spawn is also critical.

I just wanted to give the example of how 365pts of DG can own 600+ pts of Dark Angels with the right build.


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 Grotrebel wrote:
I don't think you want to run a squad of 6 because of blast.
5 is finde.

Also if they deepstrike it's hard to get Support characters there.
Deepstriking 3 x 3 or going for 3+5 will see a lot of lists and they are great on their own as well.

You can only put the MW on one unit regretfully.

agreed, with DA biologus might be critical.

One problem I am having is that, after a while, you start stacking too many of those support characters. They are great but they won't win you the game by themselves because they are support characters. You still need enough points in actual units that can do stuff. Each of the support characters are average 70 points or more. Take too many, and that is an entire Blightlords unit or 3 PM squads you could have taken instead.

Biologus+tallyman+spawn more or less 220pts, a toll i gladly pay, consider what they bring on the table.

 blackmage wrote:
Biologus+tallyman+spawn more or less 220pts, a toll i gladly pay, consider what they bring on the table.

In my last game against Space wolves I used the following:
-Tallyman with Tollkeeper
-Plague Surgeon with Living plague
-Blightspawn with Revolting Stench-vats

Tallyman was hanging around a squad of 10 plague marines with ranged weapons and las/mis-Helbrute. He contributed to the ranged damage all game and generated a few CP's. Absolutely an auto-include unit.

Plague Surgeon escorted Deathshroud and B-lords. His Living plague did absolutely nothing all game despite the fact that the game revolved around the massive close combat over central objective. I failed all Feel no pain rolls and managed to heal one B-lord of damage all game. Still gotta experiment more with this guy.

Blightspawn provides rather generous aura but most of the time I managed to somehow screw up his movement around the terminator units and he didn't play as pivotal role as I thought he would. His flamer with increased range proved to be his most useful impact as it was in the old codex. Needs more experimenting.

My plan for the next game is try Biologis with Arch-contaminator supporting Deathshroud. But I don't know if the Arch-contaminator is necessary since Deathshroud already wound almost everything with scything on a 3+ and cleaving on a 2+ rerolling 1's.

I actually find Arch-Contaminator still relevant just because of the amount of times you run into transhuman. I haven't come up against DA yet but it will be invaluable there too. 4+ with full rerolls is pretty much the same as 3+ rerolling 1s

It is also nice higher toughness stuff. When you pair Arch Contaminator with a BP’s mortal wound ability that is when the damage really skyrockets.

Abaddon303 wrote:
I actually find Arch-Contaminator still relevant just because of the amount of times you run into transhuman. I haven't come up against DA yet but it will be invaluable there too. 4+ with full rerolls is pretty much the same as 3+ rerolling 1s

Ah yes, somehow I managed to forget Transhuman physiology even as I'm on the receiving end of that stick every game.Great tip, thanks.