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two psykers are enough for me too, still not sold on MBH honestly 420pts are really too much. For me blightspawn with relic and tallyman are auto take

I agree that foul blightspawn has become an auto include for me, (of course with the vicious death pathogen).

Being able to pop the strategum for 1 cp to let him have a 18" range on his flamer is pretty crazy, and 4-5 S:8 AP-3 D:2 auto hitting attacks is no joke. Not to mention the extreme utility of his relic and aura. Absolute gas.

I'm also loathe to acknowledge "auto-takes", but agree with everyone that Tallyman is definitely one, and Foul Blightspawn probably is. The later is such a mind-**** deterant that it doesn't even need to do anything to start effecting your opponent's play. Tallyman, meanwhile just provides shocking value for points. All those CP, plus elevates some units to being surprisingly killy as a bonus.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I'm also loathe to acknowledge "auto-takes", but agree with everyone that Tallyman is definitely one, and Foul Blightspawn probably is.

It might be a good idea to take two Tallymen in a foetid virion, one to go forward and act as a buff while the other can stay back and simply be used to farm CP.

spawn couters itself some armies out there, who charge 10 termies with tallyman+spawn? and to win in this game you need melee. Now with DA termies around is critical attack first (just an example)

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I'm also loathe to acknowledge "auto-takes", but agree with everyone that Tallyman is definitely one, and Foul Blightspawn probably is.

It might be a good idea to take two Tallymen in a foetid virion, one to go forward and act as a buff while the other can stay back and simply be used to farm CP.

No need. This weekend the wife ran a single Tallyman as a buddy to a Relic Contemptor and he contributed a TON offensively from essentially the backfield.

Can the “Champion of Disease” stratagem be used to give a Deathshroud champion or Blightlord champion a Plague Company relic that they are a part of? BattleScribe doesn’t allow me to select Infected Remains with the strat for my Champion in a Harbingers detachment. I don’t think it’s some power move or anything but I can figure out why it doesn’t seem legal.
Thanks!

Champion of Disease is limited to Reaper of Glorious Entropy, Plague Skull of Glothila, Plague Bringer and the Supurating Plate. It does not work for relics in general.

Ah, I don’t know why I didn’t know that.

I’m on the fence about the whole Harbingers aura, and the infected remains relic in general. I love the idea of dropping it on the center objective or even an opponents backfield objective to make the end game units in those locations -1t and disincentivize being near that objective. The best way to drop that would be on a deep striking terminator model, and that leaves now a LoC, LoV or sorcerer in terminator armor.


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As a bonus nerf, the model dropping the remains has to be alive for the relic to work later in the game. Might be garbage but man it seems good, probably needs to be dropped off by a flying prince, but again, you’re already gonna have the objective and the opponent won’t really ever be near it anyways.

It's also worth noting that some missions like scorched earth or overrun don't have a center objective.

I've tried to use the relic twice to no effect. The idea is great, but it's just to difficult to set it up. In future, I'd rather just have the same model throw the grenade relic at something.

The grenade relic is great to take on a champion rather than a character. Where you use it in the movement phase you can often break out of combat with it, especially if followed up with a smite.

i miss the grenade relic... what is that?

 blackmage wrote:
i miss the grenade relic... what is that?

Plague skull of Glothila: Once per battle, at the end of movement phase, we can use this relic to lob this grenade at an opponent unit 6 inches away. Roll seven D6, for each 4 or 5, that unit suffers 1 mortal wound, for each 6 that unit suffers d3 mortal wounds.

It can be taken on a champion. Pretty nifty grenade.

ah yes that...thought i missed something

It's so awesome due to being able to throw it whilst in combat or at a unit that's in combat or at a character that wouldn't be targettable. I think it must average about 5 MWs so pretty great for character sniping...

 blackmage wrote:
two psykers are enough for me too, still not sold on MBH honestly 420pts are really too much. For me blightspawn with relic and tallyman are auto take

Can someone enlighten me on why +1 to hit for a Core unit is so good? I understand about the chance for CPs, and that might be enough, but I don't seem to have nearly as much trouble getting my DG to hit as I do getting them to stick any damage.

My preferred Virion model is the Plague Surgeon, because he helps with the durability of my already-durable PMs. I usually run a Foul Blightspawn (because duh), a Biologus Putrifier, and a Surgeon.

Tell me why I'm wrong!

 Octopoid wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
two psykers are enough for me too, still not sold on MBH honestly 420pts are really too much. For me blightspawn with relic and tallyman are auto take

Can someone enlighten me on why +1 to hit for a Core unit is so good? I understand about the chance for CPs, and that might be enough, but I don't seem to have nearly as much trouble getting my DG to hit as I do getting them to stick any damage.

My preferred Virion model is the Plague Surgeon, because he helps with the durability of my already-durable PMs. I usually run a Foul Blightspawn (because duh), a Biologus Putrifier, and a Surgeon.

Tell me why I'm wrong!

What makes the marine apothecaries so good isnt necessarily the 6++, but being able to revive models from the dead. They are easily able to recoup the point investment usually.
The plague surgeon just provides the 6++, and as it turns out for the point investment *usually* its better to just bring a few extra marines.

For example, for his price you can get 3 plague marines. 6 wounds. So, for the plague surgeon to recoup his value back, the squad he is protecting would need to take around 36 wounds (36/6=6). 36 wounds might just be too much for the squad to survive anyways. My math isnt perfect, and doesnt account for everything, but I think it conveys the idea. Now, if you castle really hard, take multiple blocks of terminators near him, with fugaris helm and maybe the droning so you can pop a strategum to make his aura range like 12", then thats a different story. But just with plague marines, plague surgeon has been meh for me, both in paper and on the battlefield.

Honestly same kinda goes for the Biologus Putrifier, just comparing him to 3 marines doesn't really incentive me to take him. And while as discussed earlier, Assasinate can be a trap pick against DG, you still want to be cautious bringing 3+ foetid virion models, as every character is a potential 3 points. Tallyman does something unique in its CP farming that has value outside of survivability/damage compared to 3 marines, and same with Foul Blightspawn with its abilities and weapon.
That is my take on them at least.

Thanks for the reply! It's given me some things to consider.

I agree with ninjafiredragon that the plague surgeon feels very lackluster compared to his Space Marine counterpart. The Space Marine counterpart is in my mind nuts with all the healing and reviving.

I do want to test out Biologus Putrifer with Blightlords though. If anyone has a lot of experience with him any info would be appreciated.

+1 to hit is huge with large blobs of termies/pm or things like culverin contemptors, hiting on 2's rerolling 1's is big. Get average 5Cp each game is good too you can spend Cp's and you know that they will be refunded. Some DG lists are CP hungry, tallyman is an auto take for me. Think about 5-6 Ds termy using manreaper cleave without -1 to hit..just a simple example, 10pm hitting on 2's rerolling 1's with a billion of attacks, remember lot of armies have/will have access to -1 to hit.


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 Eldarsif wrote:
I agree with ninjafiredragon that the plague surgeon feels very lackluster compared to his Space Marine counterpart. The Space Marine counterpart is in my mind nuts with all the healing and reviving.

I do want to test out Biologus Putrifer with Blightlords though. If anyone has a lot of experience with him any info would be appreciated.

10bl with an archcontaminator biologus, they reset almost anything they touch, same witjh 5-6 deathshrouds, he is still quite good if you play large bunch of Pm, 18 autohits rerolling to wound auto hits dishing out mortals at 6... something to think about.

Yeh just to reiterate ninjafiredragon's comments regarding the plague surgeon. To work out his value you need to think about what you are likely able to keep within his aura. Take the number of wounds and divide by 5.

So if you are planning to have him babysit 10 Blightlords for an entire game, 30/5 = 6 wounds. So he's giving you the durability of 2 BLs which is 80pts. Bare in mind he doesn't have the damage output the two BLs can provide that's just his break even.

In reality he probably needs to have 3 decent sized units of terminators within his aura for a few turns to prove his worth. And that's not a simple task.

Obviously the healing is a bonus but I've found anecdotally that I very often have no wounded models for him to heal. The lack of revival ability really kills him for me.


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The BioP is great with deathshroud. I run mine with arch contaminator.

The other night I charged into a unit of 6 dark angels bladeguard witha -1 damage stratagem/spell? on them. He obviously knew about deathshrouds high strength high ap 2D attacks and had the perfect buffs to presume I'd just bounce off them. (Transhuman, invuln, -1D).

The sweep attack combined with arch contaminator and the BioP is just horrific for turning up 6s on wounds. I can't quite remember how exactly it went down but I honestly think I killed at least four or five just from mortal wounds and he didn't even bother throwing all the saves for the regular wounds that got through.

Abaddon303 wrote:

The BioP is great with deathshroud. I run mine with arch contaminator.

How big of a block of Deathshrouds? Currently aiming to have 2 x 3 squads of them as their output has always been good.

To evaluate the value of plague surgeon impartially, you need to:

1. get a copy of Codex:Spacemarines.

2. read the "Selfless healer" section.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Abaddon303 wrote:

The BioP is great with deathshroud. I run mine with arch contaminator.

How big of a block of Deathshrouds? Currently aiming to have 2 x 3 squads of them as their output has always been good.

2x3 is fine, or i tried 5 with champion of disease upgrade ,relic reper and chimes of contagion, expensive but they destroy anything they touch
biologus with archcontaminator make them true killers.

I've been running them as a unit of 6. I know that's unpopular due to blast/coherency but it hasn't been an issue for me so far and gives a bit of redundancy to losing a couple before they get stuck in.

It doesn't always make a difference, but you really don't want to have 6 terminators if there is a rift cannon or a bunch of guard artillery on the other side.

Rift cannon is nasty admittedly, but most of the time if you're facing guard artillery they are running them as catachans or have gunnery experts so the minimum 3 isn't kicking in an awful lot. For me I've found I'd rather have the extra redundancy, after the first kill the blast bonus is gone anyway. It's not like taking 6 as opposed to 5 is resulting in the difference that the entire squad is wiped out.

5 makes not difference they hit hard as trucks anyway...so why get more vulnerable to blast weapon just for one extra model?

 blackmage wrote:
5 makes not difference they hit hard as trucks anyway...so why get more vulnerable to blast weapon just for one extra model?

As i said, attrition basically. There's a small chance that having 6 may result in them being vulnerable to more damage but it's only until the first one dies. Lets take the rift cannon as an example of something that is really nasty. Against a unit of 5 it has a 10/9 chance of killing a Deathshroud against a unit of 6 that rises to 15/9 so the odds are you're still gonna only lose one, admittedly you might lose two and then you're left with 4 in the squad anyway and wasted 50pts. After that first casualty it's moot.

In reality most of the time you're not coming up against a rift cannon and blast makes no difference to whether or not you lose the first model, it's more like a unit of Plasma Inceptors might get an extra wound through or something. I'd rather start with 6 and as I inevitably take casualties they are still doing damage in turn 4 or 5 and the relic wielding champion is that little bit safer.

If blast weapons start punishing me for taking 6 i might change my mind but so far it hasn't been an issue...

Speaking of blast, I ran a test game of my DG vs Chaos Knights, a list running a Castellan tyrant, double thermal knight and lots of armigers. My DG list wasn’t even really competitive and it was largely due to being “blasted,” eating max volcano Lance, max thermal cannons and max plasma vs my Blightlords block and my large pox walker bricks really ruined my day. Additionally, even three PBCs didn’t offer nearly enough ranged firepower to take down a big knight and if I didn’t focus on the melee armigers, I would have been over whelmed by them. I had it set up with a good amount of obscuring terrain, but it just wasn’t enough. I was able to counter charge with mower drones, demon prince and deep striking death shroud, but they were smoked as soon as they took down an armiger.

Some take aways: the old idea that your list needs to be able to down a large knight a turn is probably still relevant. Next, staying power is important but apparently doesn’t stand up to insane knight shooting. Lastly, “blast” is a thing and it really really hurt me that game.