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 Jidmah wrote:
despite not losing a single thing compared to what they could do before.

That's not quite true though, is it?

Aside from the fact we don't know the full story yet, we have a good indication of certain changes. In general the new DG is built around a mono-list with several of its new perks tied to that mono idea. Whereas some were upset by the change to DR in relation to the new two wounds, that combination never existed.

What did exist was a very effective DG army that could be a part of a Nurgle God Army with a Daemons of Nurgle detachment without sacrificing any of the core aspects of what made the DG army an effective fighting force. You didn't lose DR or the MW auras from your HQs for participating.

Now we have had changes to DG at a core level. DR is no longer as powerful as it was, they've lost abilities such as DTTFE and that (in a mono sense) has been replaced with contagions. However, because this has been attached to the mono requirement, it means souping them removes some of their core aspects as a fighting force and makes them less effective as part of a Nugle Faction because these 'balancing' abilities have been attached to the mono side rather than to the core army. So yes, there has been some loss as to what they could do before and how that synergy paired up. I'm not discussing/complaining about the effectiveness of these changes themselves, more so that they've clearly been done in a balancing act for the army in context of the changes. So yeah, something has been lost for soup - undeniably so.

As I've previously said, in situations such as this (in a world where soup exists), the better idea is to balance every army without detracting from its core character or effectiveness and then to add benefits for mono to counter the benefits that can come from soup which could only come from having clear understandings of how armies work. So, for example, we know that DG core theme is to be slow, endurable, use of elite units without particularly heavy weapons and have nasty up close. Naturally, you would tend to soup them with legal factions that are either faster or hit harder at range. As such you would then seek to add a Mono bonus that would counteract this soup potential but in doing so, you wouldn't seek to make the DG less effective at their core themes.

Following on from the previous para, my personal feelings on the matter are that the contagions have been added to balance out the loss of other things within the army list; mainly the overall drop in effectiveness of DR and 'explosive' potential of DTTFE, not to mention other anticipated losses (such as strats). I don't feel that contagions should be a mono bonus and that there should have been other benefits. Reverse balancing at mono level but still allowing soup risks being just a switch of meta from one extreme to another without actually answering the underlying issues of balance through better tailored armies. People can complain about bloat but the answer to bloat isn't to have less flavourful armies, it's to have less armies and better game mechanics overall (ie living digital rule books). The answer to balance might be to have less flavourful armies though.

Semper wrote:
Now we have had changes to DG at a core level. DR is no longer as powerful as it was, they've lost abilities such as DTTFE and that (in a mono sense) has been replaced with contagions.

As far as I can tell DTTFE was replaced with an army-wide +1 attack and buffs to WS/BS of daemon engines. Assuming all the people shouting about Hateful Assaults not going away being right.
And taking that rule as an example is just grasping straws anyways, since it doesn't do anything in quite a number of games.

However, because this has been attached to the mono requirement, it means souping them removes some of their core aspects as a fighting force and makes them less effective as part of a Nugle Faction because these 'balancing' abilities have been attached to the mono side rather than to the core army. So yes, there has been some loss as to what they could do before and how that synergy paired up. I'm not discussing/complaining about the effectiveness of these changes themselves, more so that they've clearly been done in a balancing act for the army in context of the changes. So yeah, something has been lost for soup - undeniably so.

Well, this is a glass is half empty/full discussion. If soup loses nothing from souping, then a mono codex obviously doesn't win anything from going mono. If there is any advantage to playing mono codex, soup loses something from souping.
Bringing both daemons and DG already has multiple benefits, if you also get contagions, there would be again no reason to go mono once again.

Following on from the previous para, my personal feelings on the matter are that the contagions have been added to balance out the loss of other things within the army list; mainly the overall drop in effectiveness of DR and 'explosive' potential of DTTFE, not to mention other anticipated losses (such as strats). I don't feel that contagions should be a mono bonus and that there should have been other benefits. Reverse balancing at mono level but still allowing soup risks being just a switch of meta from one extreme to another without actually answering the underlying issues of balance through better tailored armies. People can complain about bloat but the answer to bloat isn't to have less flavourful armies, it's to have less armies and better game mechanics overall (ie living digital rule books). The answer to balance might be to have less flavourful armies though.

Maybe your feeling is right, maybe it is not. No one knows, and in the end, it's irrelevant to the discussion.
If contagions is made available to mixed armies, the only way to balance soup against mono DG is by adding another mono codex rule on top of what we have now, and then we would be having this very same discussion again - soup players complaining about losing out on that rule.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Nah the Death Guard codex shouldn't contain or cater to daemons at all - Nurgle Daemons stopping contagions from spreading is fluffy.

Err wait a minute, that doesn't sound right.

DG only being able to operate a full efficiency when they bring daemons or other legions along is even less fluffy. This kind of rule is meant to reward playing mono-codex DG, something that was nothing but a handicap up until now.

If you want a fluff justification - I imagine controlled spreading of the newest plagues and toxins your putrifiers and blightspawn have cooked up in months of work is quite troublesome if a horde of plague daemons is chaotically infecting people with whatever their instincts them.

If Contagions were tied to the <Nurgle> keyword, then DG would still be able to make use of them while taking 0 daemons.

If contagions were tied to the Nurgle keyword, there would be zero reason to play pure Death Guard.

There would still be benefits to pure DG detachments, and you only get 3 of those. Running pure DG would offer far more unit slots to play with than being limited to 2 or even 1 detachment, in particular it would mean 2 DG detachments alongside a fortification.

But more importantly; given the choice of having army-wide bonuses attached to Nurgle or having DG contagions evaporate because some swarms of nurglings showed up I think people would generally prefer the former.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There would still be benefits to pure DG detachments, and you only get 3 of those. Running pure DG would offer far more unit slots to play with than being limited to 2 or even 1 detachment, in particular it would mean 2 DG detachments alongside a fortification.

Why exactly would units slots matter for a low unit count army? The only disadvantage for full access to all of nurgle soup is paying 2CP for a patrol detachment in addition to your free battalion, which clearly is not enough.
For all of 8th and 9th we have seen almost no pure DG list in competitive gaming (blogs started considering DG armies "pure" if they only brought 33% of something else), up to the point that people were mixing DG and nurgle daemons in single detachments - because their synergy was so great that people chose it over losing both army bonuses.

But more importantly; given the choice of having army-wide bonuses attached to Nurgle or having DG contagions evaporate because some swarms of nurglings showed up I think people would generally prefer the former

That's just an euphemism for "forcing all DG players to play daemons if they want to compete", and I'm sure that quite some people don't like that.

Having the mono-codex bonus despite souping should only possible if nurgle daemons lose all existing synergy with DG - no more infiltration for nurglings, no more auras or heals for daemon engines, no more reviving MBH and Epidemius limited to units from daemons codex.

There is no good reason to not reward DG to sticking to just their codex. If you want to mix daemons and DG, just do so. It will work just as well as it has during the last 3.5 years, unless you are facing the one DG player in your area that hasn't caved in and bought himself some nurglings to get some decent troops.

 Jidmah wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But more importantly; given the choice of having army-wide bonuses attached to Nurgle or having DG contagions evaporate because some swarms of nurglings showed up I think people would generally prefer the former

That's just an euphemism for "forcing all DG players to play daemons if they want to compete"

No, it isn't. No one is suggesting DG lose the benefits for pure-DG battalions. Or that all synergy abilities should affect all Nurgle.


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 Jidmah wrote:
There is no good reason to not reward DG to sticking to just their codex.

There is no good reason to not reward Nurgle for sticking to their god. There is even less good reason to punish DG players for bringing daemons that are so closely aligned with the army they are literally part of the models.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
There is no good reason to not reward DG to sticking to just their codex.

There is no good reason to not reward Nurgle for sticking to their god. There is even less good reason to punish DG players for bringing daemons that are so closely aligned with the army they are literally part of the models.

There already is a reward for sticking to your god, you are just ignoring it. It's called synergy.

There are only two options for an army-wide rule:
1) Reward DG players for not bringing daemons = Punish DG players for bringing daemons
2) Reward DG players for bringing daemons = Punish DG players for not bringing daemons

"They are part of their models" is not a relevant argument anyways, you cannot create a daemon detachment from just the models in the codex. Bringing just the daemon datasheets found in the codex has always denied you access to army-wide rules, and there is no reason why the Contagions of Nurgle should work any different from Inexorable Advance, Plague Host or Plague Companies. Oddly no one seems to have had a problem with those, odd huh?
If you want daemons, you are supposed to summon them. DG aren't lacking for characters to do so, and have some of the best summoning support in the entire game.

The goal of those army-wide rules clearly is to improve the viability of mono-codex armies, the only reason why people are crying for an exception is because they want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Gents it was basically already spoiled that daemons are not in the codex on TTT. Even though lore wise nurglings are a huge part of the DG, they won’t be in it.

broxus wrote:
Gents it was basically already spoiled that daemons are not in the codex on TTT. Even though lore wise nurglings are a huge part of the DG, they won’t be in it.

Oh, I haven't heard that. Got a source for me to link?

 Jidmah wrote:

broxus wrote:
Gents it was basically already spoiled that daemons are not in the codex on TTT. Even though lore wise nurglings are a huge part of the DG, they won’t be in it.

Oh, I haven't heard that. Got a source for me to link?

Yeah, I'd like to see that as well. Did they mention if Hateful Assault is still a thing? If the Legions lose that I'll bury gw in , as it would once again mean we'd be paying the same price as loyalists for shared units, but getting inferior rules.

 Jidmah wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
There is no good reason to not reward DG to sticking to just their codex.

There is no good reason to not reward Nurgle for sticking to their god. There is even less good reason to punish DG players for bringing daemons that are so closely aligned with the army they are literally part of the models.

There already is a reward for sticking to your god, you are just ignoring it. It's called synergy.

There's already a reward for running mono-DG, you are just ignoring it. It's called synergy.

See how that works?

 Jidmah wrote:

broxus wrote:
Gents it was basically already spoiled that daemons are not in the codex on TTT. Even though lore wise nurglings are a huge part of the DG, they won’t be in it.

Oh, I haven't heard that. Got a source for me to link?

It was during one of their 4-hour battle reports. He didn’t outright say it, but said “it would be odd and out of place if daemons were in the new codex” (note he is a 9th Ed DG play tester).


Speaking where are the leaks? Someone due your duty and spill some beans we have waited 3.5 years.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
There is no good reason to not reward DG to sticking to just their codex.

There is no good reason to not reward Nurgle for sticking to their god. There is even less good reason to punish DG players for bringing daemons that are so closely aligned with the army they are literally part of the models.

There already is a reward for sticking to your god, you are just ignoring it. It's called synergy.

There's already a reward for running mono-DG, you are just ignoring it. It's called synergy.

See how that works?

Yeah, I do. You either have no idea what you are talking about, or you are trolling. Good talk.

Well that is certainly one way to admit defeat.

End of the day, souping DG with DoN is not the same as souping them with Thousand Sons and it shouldn't be treated as such.

And yet, souping with daemons of nurgle is exactly the same as souping with the black legion, chaos knights or renegades and heretics.

You are just trying to find a fluff justification for getting more power for your flavor of soup.

 Jidmah wrote:
And yet, souping with daemons of nurgle is exactly the same as souping with the black legion, chaos knights or renegades and heretics.

You are just trying to find a fluff justification for getting more power for your flavor of soup.

Why do you say that? Fluff-wise, there's a big gulf between Death Guard with Nurgle Daemons, and Death Guard with Thousand Sons.

Or are you going to claim that Inquisition teaming up with Grey Knights, Deathwatch, or Sisters is just as fluffy as them teaming up with Custodes too?

Yeah, except that I didn't use the diametrical opposed Thousand Sons as an example, but the Black Legion whose company Typhus seems to prefer over his own primarch. Whenever Abaddon does something worth noting outside of the eye of terror, the Terminus Est isn't far.

If you have to pick the most extreme example possible to support your position, it's safe to assume that your argument is not a strong one.

My "claim" is merely that nurgle daemons should not get any special treatment in regard to souping whatsoever, and I would greatly appreciate if my argument isn't completely twisted out of shape for once.

DG souping with DoN is not the same as them souping with literally another codex, and should not be treated as such. Happy now? I'm not sure what you see in that hill but you seem very determined to die on it.

If the Imperium can have special exceptions to the army purity rules I don't see why Chaos couldn't have thematic exceptions too.

Surely the huge advantage of mono daemons or mono Deathguard is that you get access to stratagems and relics, since those require a mono-detachment.

So contagions with deamons of nurgle is a 2CP strat kind of thing.

Honestly, coming back to 40K (Here goes grandpa again) and finding that Daemons have been pulled out of the Chaos forces into their own army is one of the dafter things to get my head around. Not having Daemons as part of a mono-God faction makes no sense to me, fluff-wise or from a gaming perspective. The fluff I remember showed Chaos as a mishmash of corrupted marines, crazy zealots and the Daemons of the god they worshipped mixed together in an army of hate and madness.

 Jidmah wrote:
I understand that this is what you are suggesting.

What I am saying is that that there needs to be an advantage to just play the Death Guard legion without any daemon involvement.
Death Guard and chaos daemons of Nurgle are already two armies which synergize extremely well, from the utility that nurglings provide, plague bringers just being better pox walkers, character auras affecting daemon engines, psychic powers being able to heal them, GUO reviving MBH up to Epidemius super-charging an entire army.

And now, when for the first time just running plague marines, pox walkers and DG characters gets a small boon, suddenly all the nurgle soup faction players want that too and are complaining about how their army has been ruined and that the fluff is lying in shreds - despite not losing a single thing compared to what they could do before.

See I get what you are saying but why shouldn't we just want DG to work perfectly fine without demons but can bring them because it makes sense if we want to without nerfing the army to do so ? That is what I think most would like. Feeling like taking nurgle demons with wasn't just making the list worse for no real reason. DG should be well viable on its own but I for one would still like to take demons with them and not feel like it's making the list hard mode because I love some dirty demon monsters when by their fluff they are all over the place in DG attacks.


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 Jidmah wrote:
And yet, souping with daemons of nurgle is exactly the same as souping with the black legion, chaos knights or renegades and heretics.

You are just trying to find a fluff justification for getting more power for your flavor of soup.

Why are you taking this tact with it ? Why can't I love demons because I just do for feeling and not because I'm a cheesy power monger ? I think you need to dial back that all who want demons of nurgle with DG are just in it for the power. My love of nurglings is well documented and was from before they were as good, or beasts of nurgle, or the stinky fly guys, etc etc. In fact my only sadness from them has been how outlandish expensive the new Great unclean one is as I love it but I won't pay that much for one. That is on feeling and not because " Unlimited power !!! "

Would it be nice to take them without being nerfed for it ? Yes it would be they already hit allies hard this edition and now it'll cost even more with army rules ? Just seems too punitive for something so very chaos in design as chaos marines working with chaos demons of the same aligned god.

 Horla wrote:
Honestly, coming back to 40K (Here goes grandpa again) and finding that Daemons have been pulled out of the Chaos forces into their own army is one of the dafter things to get my head around.

Not as daft as the fact that taking the few Daemons that do remain in the Codex actually hampers your army.

 Eldarain wrote:
If the Imperium can have special exceptions to the army purity rules I don't see why Chaos couldn't have thematic exceptions too.

An Inquisitor or an Assassin doesn't stop Ultramarines from remembering that they are Ultramarines, but Nurgle Daemons in a specific CSM army dedicated to Nurgle stops them from spreading contagion.

And some people think this makes sense.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
In fact my only sadness from them has been how outlandish expensive the new Great unclean one is as I love it but I won't pay that much for one.

Dude it's worth it though. The miniature is so cool. I know it's expensive, but for me the list of things I have gotten more enjoyment out of for the same amount of money is very short.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
In fact my only sadness from them has been how outlandish expensive the new Great unclean one is as I love it but I won't pay that much for one.

Dude it's worth it though. The miniature is so cool. I know it's expensive, but for me the list of things I have gotten more enjoyment out of for the same amount of money is very short.

Trust me I'm tempted but wrapping my head around a GUO being as much as a baneblade just makes me feel that is wrong. It is very cool but I can't help feeling like if I bought it I'd be endorsing its price, which I don't. So instead I just quietly or not so quietly rage at its price tag.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
See I get what you are saying but why shouldn't we just want DG to work perfectly fine without demons but can bring them because it makes sense if we want to without nerfing the army to do so ? That is what I think most would like. Feeling like taking nurgle demons with wasn't just making the list worse for no real reason. DG should be well viable on its own but I for one would still like to take demons with them and not feel like it's making the list hard mode because I love some dirty demon monsters when by their fluff they are all over the place in DG attacks.

This is the thing. Your army doesn't get worse by bringing daemons. There is no nerf. Pre codex death guard with daemons worked perfectly fine, and there is no reason why it shouldn't work just as well with the new codex. All the cross-codex synergies between the two codices have remained - death guard are providing ranged shooting to a daemon army that doesn't have any and daemons providing mobility, damage and durability to DG through the NURGLE DAEMON keyword overlap.

 Jidmah wrote:
And yet, souping with daemons of nurgle is exactly the same as souping with the black legion, chaos knights or renegades and heretics.

You are just trying to find a fluff justification for getting more power for your flavor of soup.

Why are you taking this tact with it ? Why can't I love demons because I just do for feeling and not because I'm a cheesy power monger ? I think you need to dial back that all who want demons of nurgle with DG are just in it for the power. My love of nurglings is well documented and was from before they were as good, or beasts of nurgle, or the stinky fly guys, etc etc. In fact my only sadness from them has been how outlandish expensive the new Great unclean one is as I love it but I won't pay that much for one. That is on feeling and not because " Unlimited power !!! "

Simple. I take this stance because there is no other reason why you should get access to completely new a rule whose only purpose is to improve otherwise lacking mono codex armies.
Daemons are not being nerfed. People just asking for getting it buffed at the expense of mono codex armies.


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
If the Imperium can have special exceptions to the army purity rules I don't see why Chaos couldn't have thematic exceptions too.

An Inquisitor or an Assassin doesn't stop Ultramarines from remembering that they are Ultramarines, but Nurgle Daemons in a specific CSM army dedicated to Nurgle stops them from spreading contagion.

And some people think this makes sense.

So, if I get you correctly, if the very same rule was called "Experimental Biotoxins", people would be perfectly fine with daemons breaking the rule?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarain wrote:
If the Imperium can have special exceptions to the army purity rules I don't see why Chaos couldn't have thematic exceptions too.

The exception is called "Daemonic Ritual".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tastyfish wrote:
Surely the huge advantage of mono daemons or mono Deathguard is that you get access to stratagems and relics, since those require a mono-detachment.

So contagions with deamons of nurgle is a 2CP strat kind of thing.

All 8th edition soups had access to the stratagems of all three codices involved. The only downside to soup right now is losing 2CP, which is trivial when you see that other army are paying 3+ CP to upgrade units.

The fact taking the Demons costs me CP and my army abilities does in fact make the army worse unless I'm missing something there. I am saying make them in the codex and choices, if limited ones for flavor otherwise it's hampering a list by their inclusion.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
DG souping with DoN is not the same as them souping with literally another codex, and should not be treated as such. Happy now? I'm not sure what you see in that hill but you seem very determined to die on it.

It is not, and as you have not brought as single argument besides "I say so" while also failing to respond to single one of my arguments, the only conclusion left to draw is that you are wrong on this.
There simply is no good reason why DG+daemons should inherently be more powerful than an army made of just Death Guard units.


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 AngryAngel80 wrote:
The fact taking the Demons costs me CP and my army abilities does in fact make the army worse unless I'm missing something there. I am saying make them in the codex and choices, if limited ones for flavor otherwise it's hampering a list by their inclusion.

That is not a fact, that's wrong. Fact is that even in 9th daemons mixed with death guard have completely eclipsed all mono-death guard armies in power, despite the CP tax. Mono-DG isn't even considered as a sperate army from nurgle soup by data collectors.

You don't think that is more to do with cost and performance as opposed to " Dem OP demons ? " If the book is getting a rework and it actually works with just plague marines you don't think people will leave demons behind for that ?

You are acting like the reason mono DG isn't good is because demons steal the thunder when its more the fact that mono DG just isn't that great currently so the negatives don't out weight the positives of demons, currently.

If they do a good job I don't see why demons should be so punitive to DG to take then. As there should be incentive in the DG units without demons already. Much like how a Marine list can function fine on its own but even it has exceptions for imperial allies to take to augment them. So why can't DG do that with demons ?

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
You don't think that is more to do with cost and performance as opposed to " Dem OP demons ? " If the book is getting a rework and it actually works with just plague marines you don't think people will leave demons behind for that ?

You are acting like the reason mono DG isn't good is because demons steal the thunder when its more the fact that mono DG just isn't that great currently so the negatives don't out weight the positives of demons, currently.

Please don't twist my argument. I have not said anything about daemons being OP.

Taking the best units for each role from two armies will always result in a more powerful army than just taking from one army, especially when the two armies eliminate each other's weaknesses as well as DG and nurgle daemons do. This advantage is worth much, much more than the 2CP you lose.

For all intents and purposes, DG+Daemons should be exactly as powerful as DG+Contagions of Nurgle+2CP.

If they do a good job I don't see why demons should be so punitive to DG to take then. As there should be incentive in the DG units without demons already. Much like how a Marine list can function fine on its own but even it has exceptions for imperial allies to take to augment them. So why can't DG do that with demons ?

Marines have exceptions for inquisitors and assassins, both of which are not an army on their own. Unlike daemons, these could literally not be fielded otherwise. They do not have an exception for guard (or any other imperial faction which is stand-alone) which are very much to marines as daemons are to death guard.
You also can get around this with the drawback of having to summon your daemons.
Also note that including a vanguard detachment of Black Legion with nothing but plague marines and other nurgle marked models will also prevent the DG from using the contagions of nurgle.

Then like I said, why not just limit the amount of demons you can take or the kinds so it isn't just cherry picking all the best in slot units ? Why does it have to be a zero sum game when it makes perfectly good sense and reason for DG to fight with nurgle demons ?

Saying no, I want just and only DG, that is fine and it's your choice but for those who do in fact like cake and eating it as well, we may like a little demon flavor on that cake without needing to summon them or suffer the over the top negatives which we all know were in place for some very real problem lists " cough guard and knights..cough..ad mech knights..cough imperial soup, command point farming..cough."