Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 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?

Also, if you really want to take 6 Deathshrouds it does feel like it is better to take two squads of 3. That way you can offer threat in different zones and the sergeant provides you with that extra attack as well.

Currently building a list(4 Termies and 10 poxwalkers to paint) that has 2x3 Deathshrouds and 2x5 Terminators with one flail each. Then just 80 poxwalkers along with Typhus. I just feel like DS and BL termies are so expensive that if you build a large squad of them you are limiting your threat range and objective capture potential.

 Brymm wrote:
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.

Everyone will be factoring requiring the ability to kill a knight because of stuff like Mortarion as well. Knights seem to be a sort of natural counter to us because our shooting isn't that great, especially against T8, and big knights can't be locked up in combat. Luckily knight lists aren't quite that common these days.

So I’ve come around to thinking plagueburst crawlers as our vegetable unit. Nobody is excited to be using them, but we have to because they fill a niche that we are weak in. Here’s hoping that GW will learn that core as it’s currently implemented is a bad idea.

Knights aren’t really a problem. Tons of our CC can handle theme pretty easily. Especially when start throwing in mortal wounds from things like the poxwalker combo.

My question is are people thinking that a 10 man blightlord squad is the way to go over 2 5 man? At first I thought the answer is a for sure yes due to buff stacking, but MSU is usually best in 9th and we actually like the CP on other places as well. Tallyman 2+ is a big incentive to take the 10 man though.

Buff stacking sure incentivizes a 10 man brick, even with blast weapons being out there. It really only suffers to knight level weapons and if that’s the case, I would suggest deep striking them. Against all other threats, a large unit functions like the Death Stars of old, can be given -1 to hit, 6+ fnp, can be selected for tallyman, can benefit from turning their guns into plague weapons or +1 to wound and are really almost unkillable in the center of the battlefield.
The only reason I’ve toyed with 2 five mans was to meet my requirements to get 3 squads of pox walkers.

Salt donkey wrote:


Knights aren’t really a problem. Tons of our CC can handle theme pretty easily. Especially when start throwing in mortal wounds from things like the poxwalker combo.

Hmm, I don't know. A knight exploding in our midst (because we killed them in melee) would do a heck of a lot of MW on our army and MW is something our army doesn't like. There are strategems on exploding in both knight codex I think.

I ran a chaos Knights list last night. Full disclosure it was first time playing pure chaos Knights but I do think my list was reasonably well tuned and I don't think I made any terrible mistakes.

They were just utterly outclassed by a pretty uncompetitive space wolves army. The most effective thing they did all game was when my Knight Tyrant exploded.

I don't think Knights are anything to worry about, they're not durable enough, they don't have enough damage output and they suck at the mission.

No inv saves in melee and no real way to dictate fight order (there's a fight first trait but that is trumped by fight last abilities) or counter things like the FBS or loyalists mind worm just means they can't really compete in the objective grabbing meta game.

I think you bring up great points, but the things your bring up, Death Guard doesn’t do. We aren’t a fast moving melee hammer army, which I agree really rips up knights. DG is Morty plus stuff or a big brick of terminators with smaller groups of melee terminators trying to make 9” charges out of reserve. We try to rely on resilience to make sure we win the objective game, and win the war of attrition backed by hard hitting counter charges, all the while the heart of our army is immune to hard hitting charge threats due to FBS and his super relic. Knights just shoot with impunity because our ranged firepower can’t scratch a knight. If we try mortal wound shenanigans, we still gotta get close.

The space wolves example is exactly why knights aren’t good versus the field.


Knights are good against us.

no because they are unable to take/keep objectives...i saw an IK player play against a Dg piloted by a very good player (pull some win in old ITC) and IK had nothing on table end game, and lost. Again remember you cant stay away from DG and try to shoot it out of table you need to close up and move on objectives.

I've been toying with the idea of a 3 daemon prince list. Extremely heavy on CP, as you have to fork out 4cp at minimum for the privilege (3× patrol detachments, warlord in one) but you can give each one a warlord trait and relic with the stratagems (4 additional CP, by my count).

Load them up with supporting plate, warp insect hive, and maybe the plague skull of glothila. Combine with the three resilience WTs, and you have a very tough and deadly trio who can't be shot at while screened.

Any thoughts?

Been brought up here before but it might be a tough sell to try to play hero hammer with our book. This might seem crazy, but the princes just aren’t Killy enough or cheap enough to be thrown in as a missile and trade with something. If you’re using them to clear off an objective of say 5 Primaris marines, the prince is likely to die in counter assault or counter shooting after. Making that trade probably isn’t the best 185 you can spend, since he’ll give up bring it down or assassination points.
My two cents!

Played vs. my wife's Emperor's Children today, and their Prince makes the DG Prince look adorable by comparison. If our Codex is any indication the age of top-tier Princes is likely ending across the board for Chaos.

DP is still useful if you want a relic holder who is relatively fast. For example, if you need someone to keep pace with a trio of MBH. Or some chaos spawn, or some FBD.

DP is also the only way you can fit two heroes who give rerolls to 1 into one batallion. So, a Lord and a DP. Unless you replace the DP with Mortarion of course. But not everyone has a Mortarion.

With the last FAQ the DP is ok, but only because you can't have another lord. Instead of forking out CP for another detachment, I'd just add another unit of 3 deathshroud.

 Brymm wrote:
I think you bring up great points, but the things your bring up, Death Guard doesn’t do. We aren’t a fast moving melee hammer army, which I agree really rips up knights. DG is Morty plus stuff or a big brick of terminators with smaller groups of melee terminators trying to make 9” charges out of reserve. We try to rely on resilience to make sure we win the objective game, and win the war of attrition backed by hard hitting counter charges, all the while the heart of our army is immune to hard hitting charge threats due to FBS and his super relic. Knights just shoot with impunity because our ranged firepower can’t scratch a knight. If we try mortal wound shenanigans, we still gotta get close.

The space wolves example is exactly why knights aren’t good versus the field.


Knights are good against us.

I disagree tbh. Knights just don't hurt us significantly and as blackmage says, they can't just stay away and shoot, they have to start sitting on objectives to win the game. The 4++ on our terminators just shuts down their shooting which is so paltry when you actually look at it properly.

140pts for a wardog which basically has a swingy D3 multimelta with the old melta damage rule? It has about a 1/5 chance of killing a DG terminator with it's Thermal Spear. 1/3 chance with the autocannons but then they are completely unable to mix it up in the objective slog.

A Knight Despoiler firing a twin Avenger Gatling will be lucky to kill 2 Terminators, it's other main gun options fair worse.

For an army of giant superheavys that are supposed to pump out horrific amounts of firepower they're just not remotely killy enough anymore

I’m ready to let this die but avenger Gatling cannons are the absolute worst weapon against DG, and probably won’t be fielded any longer as long as DG is a main army out there.

Double thermal knights rolling Endless Torment. Volcano Lances. The thermal spear in endless torment is scary, getting charged when not in Stench Vat range by chain glaives is bad news. Even autocannon shooting is significant if you are going PMs instead of terminators, and aren’t a joke against terminators either. Again, your mileage may vary but of all of the armies that I worry about, Knights is the one.

We handle Space Marines if we can handle the eradicators / attack bikes. We handle hordes. We handle eldar especially if you still use plague spitters and bolters. I even think we’re hearty enough to handle Ad Mech shooting. Unless the meta really moves out of D2 guns or relying on counter assault to take objectives, we’re gonna be in a good spot.

If I hadn’t got completely blown away in that game, I might have a different opinion, but I just could work through what my list was going to do to win that game. And I admit I’m not the greatest list builder or player, but what do we have to “kill a knight a turn?” We don’t. And how long do we live vs a Castellen firing for 5 turns? If the plan just to score primary/secondary points and be tabled? What secondaries are we taking? Titan Hunter which we won’t score? Or just score one? Are we relying on a 9 inch charge out of deep strike with death shroud? While we stand while we hide our units to try to score 10?

Try to play it out, get some big circles for the knights you don’t own, pull up battle scribe, and try to figure out how you play around knights.

And I don’t even think knights are good! Most armies “kill a knight a turn” with super efficient shooting with anti tank weapons. Eradicators, harlequins even double shooting hive guard and exocrenes can take down knights from a distance. We just don’t have the choices. We could overpay for haulers? Which I don’t think is that bad of an idea?

I don't want to argue with you, more reassure you. As i said, it was my first time playing chaos knights but i'd read a lot of guidance on what people were having most success with so I'm pretty confident my list wasn't turd. From what I can tell, it doesn't seem to me like many people are running 3+ knights anymore. I ran a tyrant and a despoiler with 6 wardogs, 2 volkite moirax and 4 thermal spears. I didn't take Endless Torment. Maybe that was a mistake but I took Harrying Packs and Abominable Constitution to try to stay mobile and play the mission. I might post in the Chaos Knights thread and see what advice people can give there.

Fact is though, we have plenty in our army to take on Wardogs and the fact is that's probably all you need to. I conceded turn 3 the other night with my Despoiler and one of the Moirax on full wounds and everything else dead. There was no way back on a hold 2/hold 3 mission with 2 models left and i really hadn't hurt his army enough.

Bare in mind i wasn't playing against DG and my list was TAC so the avenger gatling cannons are a competitive pick against most armies. This was probably the most effective thing in the army against Space Wolves, along with the Volkite.

I believe if you come up against a Knight Despoiler you'll probably be facing the avengers as in a Wardog heavy meta antitank is already largely taken care of. So you can to some extent ignore the despoiler and just take the hits, get your buffs up, get in cover and sit on the objectives

I see your point about the big melta weapons being scary, but the reality is they just don't have enough shots. Volcano Lance is only D6 shots. Yes it can reroll number of shots if you take Endless Torment but even a good roll is probably only killing one terminator.

We can stand up and fight Wardogs all day long. The Chaincleaver will probably kill a Deathshroud on the charge, the remaining 4 will likely kill it in return. Any kind of character support makes it not even a contest there. If we get to hit first with a Fleshmower it will probably bracket it. If the Wardog hits first it'll only take 2 wounds off the drone.

As for taking down the bigger Knights, we have loads of avenues for MWs - smites, the MW grenade, BioP, Volkite Contemptor MWs. A pair of Entropy cannon PBCs should land an Entropy per turn and a couple of Mortars for around 8w per turn. 6 Deathshroud can probably wreck one in one go with BioP and Arch Contaminator.

I am 100% confident that my current regular DG list would wipe the floor with the Chaos Knights list i ran the other night. Maybe in the hands of a better knight player they could make it work but I really don't think they would run away with it.

That is reassuring. I think I really need to just plan for it. As of right now, DG plays the primary so well and usually has such good secondary options that I feel leaning into planning for knights will help me in general. Thanks for the lengthy post!

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

1. get a copy of Codex:Spacemarines.

2. read the "Selfless healer" section.

If I could even bring back a terminator for 1 CP like they can I would be happy.

Is a dreadnought list viable? I'm thinking 3 helbrutes, 3 contemptors. Or just 3 contemptors (their volkite culverins are so good its crazy), so I can still run terminators to get poxwalkers.

One idea 2 detachments
LOC runs a vanguard with
3 helbrutes (plasma cannon+fist)
3 Contemptors (volkites)
2 PBC
MP has the patrol
2 x cultist
1 x poxwalker
tally & bight
min deathshrouds
1 PBC

Run it the same as any old list
While We Stand
Spread the Plague
Grind the down (probably)

This might be better in a purge list, but wanted to try deathguard first.

The Contemptor's value drops off heavily after the first. We've been testing them in several permutations, and one with Tallyman is excellent while each additional one is merely fine. If someone does bring anti-tank fire, they're just magnets for it.

If really wanna add more engines to DG list, after PBCs and one volkite contemptor, I think the priority would be:

more FBD > a pair of MBHs > any FW stuff with built-in -1dmg > normal hellbrute >> any other vehicle without -1dmg.

A unit of MBH are not bad if you take Poxmonger plague company.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
A unit of MBH are not bad if you take Poxmonger plague company.

Tried that and it still didn’t work. MHB are just too fragile for their points and frankly they no longer hit hard enough either. They really took 3 nerfs with the book. Obviously going up 40 points is the biggest, as that hurts both their durability and damage output. But even beyond that the changes to DR is straight up horrible as well. People using melta against MHB is just so much worse than them using it against terminators. Finally poxmongers is just a bad plague company now, which at this point is just insult to injury.

Regarding morty it turns out warptime is still the key in making him competitive. I guess the more things change the more things stay the same. Thinking about running him with a heretic astartes patrol using Ahriman and some plague marines, but you could also use world bearers instead like the Original list.

I haven't tried MBH yet as I don't think they look good on paper but Don Hooson seems to swear by them. The -1 shots strat will certainly help their survivabilty.

We don't have an awful lot of anti-tank firepower in the army so I don't think they're a completely terrible option. Multi-Meltas are the big thing right now and MBH are our best means of taking them.

At 20pts more than a Helbrute with Missile Launcher and MM you lose core but gain 4" move, a 5++, the bile spurt and better melee. They are also -1 to hit in melee which keeps them a little safer when getting in close. I appreciate Helbrutes aren't exactly top drawer either.

For a similar loadout contemptor you pay 180pts +1CP. You get an extra missile and much better melee but less durability

For a similar loadout contemptor you pay 180pts +1CP. You get an extra missile and much better melee but less durability

and...it is core, that's make an huge difference.

It is, but is Core worth 40pts, a CP, no -1 to hit in melee and no access to the -1 shots strat on a unit of them? I'm not sure it is.

Regardless I think if you're taking a Contemptor you are better off with the volkite which makes it a very different unit with a very different purpose. If you think you need more anti-tank then take an MBH or two.

I think it's also worth taking into account, considering the margin of differences, you're comparing a model you can buy for £12 to a model that will cost you more like £70...

Abaddon303 wrote:


I think it's also worth taking into account, considering the margin of differences, you're comparing a model you can buy for £12 to a model that will cost you more like £70...

That is a very good point when considering FW. I used to love it once upon a time but I just can't justify the prices. I know I hamstring myself by excluding FW but in this day and age when we can see what plastic can do, I just don't want to deal with those prices... and resin.

I played a game yesterday, dg vs custodies, and this was my list.



I had originally planned on taking a plaugesurgon and tallyman in the list but left them at home so dropped them for the bloat Drone.

Having said that the list did phenomenal. Deathshroud/term sorc/lord of contagion deep struck for linebreaker (chrs ended up sitting back in the enemy deployment zone all game getting me vp as he didn't have anything to go deal with them once they were left alone), used the 5 man with blight launcher to pop strat to give blight haulers reroll 1's to hit (Sickly Corrosion) once and it didn't do anything because that was the time I rolled well lol (oh well, killed 3 bikes though), and pox walkers with mutant strain is the Bane of custodies! I ended up doing 12 mortal wounds (and losing q4 of my own guys) over the course of 2 fight phases vs custodies with it (the dead walk again is so good!).

I loved the mbh, those little plauge puppies were by far my mvp of the game. They killed 3 custodies with spears, 2 custodies bikers, traijan volaris, a terminator banner bearer, and held the middle objective by themselves while only losing 1. That strat to lower the number of shots against them is quite good! I definitely think they have a purpose in dg lists, they give some serious firepower and mobility to an army that desperately needs some fire support.

Sounds good. Custodes aren't great at the moment, we do what they do better, but they can still cause problems.
I haven't felt i needed the firepower from the MBHs, but then I seem to predominantly be coming up against elite infantry dominant armies (space marines basically).
If the meta shifts towards more vehicles then we might find they are essential.

Abaddon303 wrote:
Sounds good. Custodes aren't great at the moment, we do what they do better, but they can still cause problems.
I haven't felt i needed the firepower from the MBHs, but then I seem to predominantly be coming up against elite infantry dominant armies (space marines basically).
If the meta shifts towards more vehicles then we might find they are essential.

Also, and this is a point I don't see enough people making, MBHs are ADORABLE. Cute little plague roombas, zooming around blowing up stuff.