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So.. you can have 20 poxwalkers, each poxwalker has 2 hits so thats a potentially 40 hits.

Each roll of 6 gives a mortal wound in the hitting phase, each hit of 1 kills a poxwalker. Im no death guard player so i could be wrong, but im sure theres a way to reroll hit rolls of 1 to avoid killing poxwalkers.


What in the living feth happened with this stratagem? For 1 CP, you essentially turn your lowest cannon fodder in to the craziest most stupidest damage dealer in the entire death guard codex, by dealing mortal wounds? for ONE CP?! Who designed this ability! Poxwalkers dont even suffer leadership issues so it doesnt even matter if half of them died to their own hit rolls of 1. and even THEN they still come back from the dead after killing something.

no matter how i look at it i just cant see how this is a fair ability. I could understand if maybe the hit rolls of 6 would then hit with minus -2AP when moving on to the saving phase or something but direct mortal wounds? In the hitting phase? By god at least it could be in the wounding phase but nooo it had to be in the hitting phase where there are MOST rolls. Whats the average amount of 6s you'll get for 40 hits? 10? 7? odds are you can do way worse or the other way around, you can roll exceptionally many Mortal wounds and what ever you send there to tank the dudes or kill the dudes will melt.

It should at least be in the wounding phase and even THEN i would say 2CP. 1CP for 6s in the hitting phase causing direct mortal wounds is so insanely out of this world im not even sure what to say except it looks disgusting. It doesnt at all, fit on such a low ranked cannon fodder unit, as it means no model is ever going to be safe against these fethers when going in to close combat. Lets not forget the dude whos name i forgot, that negates your charges in a 6 inch aura usually hanging around these guys so you cant even destroy them first in CC. Or at least it will be difficult to find that one spot you can stand before piling in outside the 6 inch aura.

If they were given to plague marines id understand it but poxwalkers? Not in a million years. GW must've hit the blunt when making that stratagem.


Maybe im ranting, but ive never jumped to the forums to complain about a stratagem before now. Mutant strain? jesus fething christ, when you pay 1CP you shouldnt get more than D3 or so mortal wounds, thats usually how it works. 1CP never pays for many mortal wounds, then these destroyers of worlds come around and dish out like 8 or more mortal wounds like it was nothing, putting all other factions "mortal wounds" stratagems to shame.

I mean, on average with no rerolls you are getting between 6 and 7 mortal wounds from 20 guys. That’s 3 dead marines.

It’s good but I don’t think it’s this crazy strat you think it is.

You can do that with a couple casts of Smite at range no less.

Pox Walkers are slow and when they’re in combat they can suffer casualties in retaliation. Most of the time a good player will only be in combat with this unit if they want to be there.

Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.

It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.

It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.

Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.

No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.

Beardedragon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.

It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.

Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army

What army?

And in that case, charge them first.

Edit: Do you play Orks? Because they have a lot of shooting-not the best, but you can easily bring some guns.

Beardedragon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.

It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.

Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army

Which close combat army do you play that is completely crippled by, on average, a half dozen mortal wounds, once per fight phase?

Yes, its very dumb.

There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I mean, on average with no rerolls you are getting between 6 and 7 mortal wounds from 20 guys. That’s 3 dead marines.

It’s good but I don’t think it’s this crazy strat you think it is.

You can do that with a couple casts of Smite at range no less.

Pox Walkers are slow and when they’re in combat they can suffer casualties in retaliation. Most of the time a good player will only be in combat with this unit if they want to be there.

NO unit does that much smite damage with 1CP, as smite is D3 mortal wounds unless you are lucky and get to deal D6. and even then, you only pay 1CP to reroll.

All these type of strats should probably have a hard cap on the Mortal Wounds you can do (as they did with Wrath of Mars, though a cap of 6 at possibly 1 CP is still strong).

That said, it's not half as broken as the 8th Ed. Death Guard "Grenade"-schtick. That was obnoxious, lol.

 p5freak wrote:
Yes, its very dumb.

There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.

THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.

Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...

There's no way to reroll 1s for poxwalkers. You'll get maybe 6MWs on average, at the cost of around 30pts of poxwalkers and a CP.
Unless those MWs are going into something like Custodes it's not a ridiculously unbalanced trade.
Without the strat poxwalkers are largely doing very little otherwise and the CP drain does bite

Sorry there is a reroll strat that harbingers can use

you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.

not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.

All the mortal wounds inflicted on the Poxwalkers happen after the fight is resolved.

You can't do 40 attacks, take 7 mortals, deal 7 mortals, kill 7 bad guys and grow back to full. Instead, you take the 7 mortals at the end so will always be down models.

There doesn't appear to be a source of re-roll 1s, but Harbingers poxwalkers can re-roll all hits for 1 CP (so you obviously re-roll your 1s~5s and fish for more 6s).

You do need to get all 20 bases into the right range to get all 40 attacks.

But, for 1 CP, an average of 7 mortals but losing 7 poxwalkers is very good as long as you are choosing the right target. 2 CP to boost that to 12 and 12 is also very good.

Without this strat and The Dead Walk Again strat poxwalkers they are probably overpriced at 5pts.

Also, I keep seeing The Dead Walk Again misplayed (roll 7d6 and bring back poxwalkers on 3s). The end of the strat is quite clear that you can only use it on each unit once per battle.

Wait til you hear about what Drukhari can do with Eviscerating Flyby

It's a dumb strat, not necessarily because it's overpowered but because it's one of those things your opponent either doesn't care about at all because they have a ranged army, or has no real counter for because they don't. I.e. one of those rock paper scissors promoting mechanics that don't make for fun gameplay on the table.

The DG book is unfortunately full of this sort of stuff. Play a shooting army with predominantly 1D weapons? DG feel gimp, because none of their special stuff does much to you. Play a melee army with predominantly 2D weapons? DG will wipe the floor with you, just because of the power of math.

It's one of the reasons I think it is a sleeper contender for worst designed 9th edition codex. It's certainly more powerful than the DW or SW books that people usually say are the 9th edition duds...but being powerful is different from being well designed. The way they re-did DG to totally stomp certain things while getting totally stomped by other things is not a great way to design a faction.

Not Online!!! wrote:
you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.

not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.

really? a +1 damage stratagem is the same as the potential to deal an insane amount of mortal wounds from one of the otherwise weakest units in the codex? You are turning POXWALKERS in to units that can deal with ANYTHING. my +1 damage on a mega nob doesnt make me able to get out of swarm units which i shouldnt be near. Mega Nobs needs to hit high quality units, poxwalkers now dont need to give a damn. Many weak units? Mortal wounds! Toughness 8 monsters like Gorkanauts? Mortal wounds!

More dakka? really is that an ability you consider overpowered on a faction hitting on 5s in general in the shooting phase? There are few units that benefit a lot from getting more dakka. Most of the units benefitting from actually paying 2CP for this stratagem are NOT competitive.

Beardedragon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.

not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.

really? a +1 damage stratagem is the same as the potential to deal an insane amount of mortal wounds from one of the otherwise weakest units in the game? You are turning POXWALKERS in to units that can deal with ANYTHING. my +1 damage on a mega nob doesnt make me able to get out of swarm units which i shouldnt be near. Mega Nobs needs to hit high quality units, poxwalkers now dont need to give a damn.

More dakka? really is that an ability you consider overpowered on a faction hitting on 5s in general? There are few units that benefit a lot from getting more dakka.

You misunderstood, i referenced Votwl and cacophony not the orky strats.

EightFoldPath wrote:
All the mortal wounds inflicted on the Poxwalkers happen after the fight is resolved.

You can't do 40 attacks, take 7 mortals, deal 7 mortals, kill 7 bad guys and grow back to full. Instead, you take the 7 mortals at the end so will always be down models.

There doesn't appear to be a source of re-roll 1s, but Harbingers poxwalkers can re-roll all hits for 1 CP (so you obviously re-roll your 1s~5s and fish for more 6s).

You do need to get all 20 bases into the right range to get all 40 attacks.

But, for 1 CP, an average of 7 mortals but losing 7 poxwalkers is very good as long as you are choosing the right target. 2 CP to boost that to 12 and 12 is also very good.

Without this strat and The Dead Walk Again strat poxwalkers they are probably overpriced at 5pts.

Also, I keep seeing The Dead Walk Again misplayed (roll 7d6 and bring back poxwalkers on 3s). The end of the strat is quite clear that you can only use it on each unit once per battle.

you would consider a unit of 5 points over priced when it can hold objectives like a boss by not fleeing from combat? having 2 attacks with strength 3? Try using Grots then. they flee the moment 1 grot dies, they only have strength 2 and i cant even use stratagems on them. 5 points even without Mutant strain isnt bad at all. sure they dont do actions, but they hold the ground well for their price. If grots had the same ability as you did, by even retaining their 1 attack only? id grab 30 grots and charge them at the enemy i wouldnt even blink. Yet you have 2 attacks per model, and no leadership issues at all.

Besides, im not angry that they deal mortal wounds, im mainly angry that they only pay 1CP for it, and that its done in the hitting phase. Im annoyed that the worst and cheapest deathguard unit, is essentially a fething mortal wounds powerhouse that can chew through ANYTHING if they want to. And when coupled with the garden hose man for negating charges?

This unit can deal SO much damage, compared to what you pay for it. Im not even sure how people can sit and defend it like: uh we might lose 7 poxwalkers". yea who gives a gak, you can bring them back again by killing something or by using The dead walk again in the command phase if they survive the round. So the fact someone dies from using mutant strain barely even matters. Sure theres a risk element to it, as you can roll lots of 1s. But you could also roll lots of 6s. ive once taken 14 mortal wounds from this. This happened the first time i had to fight against the new death guard codex. Sure mistakes were made but it doesnt matter.

How you can defend a 5 point model deal MORTAL WOUNDS is just ludacris, especially considered you can bring them back from the dead even if they failed by rolling 1! AND you can hit first with the garden hose man! This is a criminally undercosted stratagem for that utility! it should at least be done in the wounding phase!

This comes off as somebody's first game against Death Guard after playing garage games with start collecting boxes. It seems like you've got no understanding of the rest of the scope of the game.

Poxwalkers are not a damage dealer, even with this stratagem. They are exceptionally slow, and they will never get the chance to initiate a charge unless you let them. They also can't just attack 40 times, they have to actually get models into engagement range. A third to half the squad probably won't be able to attack.

If you're a melee army, just charge them first. You'll attack first, and if you kill most of the squad, then this strat doesn't matter.

If you think this does crazy damage for 1CP, I could point to a dozen other examples that'd blow your socks off. This is extremely tame, and a serious player wouldn't burn a CP on this except in ideal circumstances anyway.

 DarkHound wrote:
This comes off as somebody's first game against Death Guard after playing garage games with start collecting boxes. It seems like you've got no understanding of the rest of the scope of the game.

Poxwalkers are not a damage dealer, even with this stratagem. They are exceptionally slow, and they will never get the chance to initiate a charge unless you let them. They also can't just attack 40 times, they have to actually get models into engagement range. A third to half the squad probably won't be able to attack.

If you're a melee army, just charge them first. You'll attack first, and if you kill most of the squad, then this strat doesn't matter.

If you think this does crazy damage for 1CP, I could point to a dozen other examples that'd blow your socks off. This is extremely tame, and a serious player wouldn't burn a CP on this except in ideal circumstances anyway.

DO you NOT know what the gardenhose man does? he negates charges and makes YOU hit last. I would barely even care if i could just freely charge in and destroy them. But thats even a lie. No unit should deal 8 mortal wounds for 1CP. they just shouldnt, no matter the situation. It makes them able to deal with even Toughness 8 units which they should have NO right to even deal with.

Sure its a utility stratagem, that doesnt always come in to play. If i shoot them down, thats that. But in those cases where you DO play a close combat faction, maybe khorne, and you lack shooting, then you charge in, and maybe you cant avoid his gardenhose man 6 inch aura? That means you will take those hits in the face, before you can even do anything. You cant even tank those hits with a T8 unit, because they will melt half its hp away as well.


Ive had a couple of games against death guard. as i said, i CAN deal with it, by shooting them its not about that. Its about this being a stupidly OP stratagem on a unit that shouldnt have any ground even hurting toughness 8 models barring wounding on 6s.

Beardedragon wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Yes, its very dumb.

There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.

THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.

Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...

Yea, but it isn't really overpowered as F. Deathguard tend to have even less shooting than melee Orks. They have to do damage somewhere.

You're talking about 175 points and 2CP having an overage chance of taking a BW down by 12 out of 16 wounds, which is a base of 135 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Beardedragon wrote:
and maybe you cant avoid his gardenhose man 6 inch aura?

Foul Blightspawn and the aura is 3". Plan your movements accordingly.

I'm not sure how 6/7 MWs is 'an insane' amount. That is also best base scenario for the strat and in reality your opponent has to walk into it blind to pull that sort of return off.

The FBS only has a 3" range on his fight last ability and I'm not sure anybody is using him to back up a unit of poxwalkers, much better sat just in front of some deathshroud.

Poxwalkers are great for sitting on an objective and not dying. They can also operate reasonably independently.

This strat is just not strong enough for anybody to build around it to maximise the offensive capability, ie FBS support, running your army as Harbingers and a further CP on the rerolls.

Comparing Poxies to grots is a little disingenuous as orks obviously haven't had the codex power level boost and grots got hit pretty hard at the beginning of 9th.

There is far more broken gak in 40k at the moment...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Beardedragon wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Yes, its very dumb.

There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.

THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.

Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...

Yea, but it isn't really overpowered as F. Deathguard tend to have even less shooting than melee Orks. They have to do damage somewhere.

You're talking about 175 points and 2CP having an overage chance of taking a BW down by 12 out of 16 wounds, which is a base of 135 points.

Melee orks tend to advance so they cant use pistols. Most melee ork armies are Ghaz with 90 or so boys with str 5 and 5 Mek gunz. Mek Guns arent meant for Poxwalkers. Death guard isnt winning most tournements by being a trash faction that cant deal damage. They dont NEED poxwalkers to deal 12 mortal wounds for 1CP.

A CP shouldnt be that good on a single unit that it can deal 12 mortal wounds to begin with. If you could deal 12 mortal wounds from a trash unit to a battle wagon? How is that not worth it? retreat the poxwalkers afterwards and let it get shot down.

This isnt a strategy question because there are ways to deal with it. its a question of whether its okay for 1 unit to pay 1 CP to deal 12 or so mortal wounds. I say a massive no. Actually id be semi okay, if it happened in the wounding phase, but not the hitting phase. its stupid, the design is stupid. as someone already pointed out, this stratagem could come in to play, maybe nothing at all if im a shooty faction. OR you could completely face melt me if im using a close combat specialist army. Stratagems shouldnt face melt people like that for 1CP.

It's known to be overtuned. Good news is poxwalkers are very easy to kill.

Stratagems are very unbalanced and don't even try to hide the fact. Some are just better and it is unacceptable. Way she goes - your army probably has an OP stratagem too.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's known to be overtuned. Good news is poxwalkers are very easy to kill.

Stratagems are very unbalanced and don't even try to hide the fact. Some are just better and it is unacceptable. Way she goes - your army probably has an OP stratagem too.

sure. Flying headbutt to suicide my burna bomma but at least my unit dies from it. If Mutant strain killed the entire unit i wouldnt care. Most ork stratagems are very situational. We have good stratagems, but none that can deal that much amount of mortal wounds on the go.

He can pay for a relic to get a 6" range, and the aura is slightly different. The relics prevents them from counting as having charged instead.

But yes, you can exactly plan your movement so you're not within 6" of him. The blob of Poxwalkers is 20 models, which takes up a lot of space. Charge it from the side furthest from the Foul Blightspawn and he won't be able to affect you.

Or just don't fight them at all. They've only got a 4" movement. Poxwalkers are just not important compared to other Death Guard units. Play to your own army's strengths and focus on actually winning the mission objectives. Killing stuff is not very important in 9th edition.

You know death guard can take a 60pt biologus and spend a CP on giving him a relic grenade that on average does circa 5MWs, with insane luck it could do 21MWs.
He's character protected and faster than poxwalkers too.
Is that too strong?

 DarkHound wrote:
He can pay for a relic to get a 6" range, and the aura is slightly different. The relics prevents them from counting as having charged instead.

But yes, you can exactly plan your movement so you're not within 6" of him. The blob of Poxwalkers is 20 models, which takes up a lot of space. Charge it from the side furthest from the Foul Blightspawn and he won't be able to affect you.

Or just don't fight them at all. They've only got a 4" movement. Poxwalkers are just not important compared to other Death Guard units. Play to your own army's strengths and focus on actually winning the mission objectives. Killing stuff is not very important in 9th edition.

you do know that most poxwalkers sit on objective markers right? i NEED to go on the objectives especially if i play Khorne or ghaz Goff Orks. Neither of which have a ton of movement to "flank".

Strategy doesnt matter. Im not here to discuss any of those things. Sure i can just shoot them and it wouldnt matter. But the stratagem is overpowered compared to what you pay for it. It deals potentially too much mortal wounds. there should be a MAX for how many it could deal. the stratagem is badly designed. Strategy was never the discussion because i CAN deal with it. the stratagem remains badly designed still. Thats what i wanted to say.


1CP to deal that much MW is insane. Potentially, should i say, insane.

Also it's not 12MWs from mutant strain. To get that kind of average takes another CP and your whole army to be in a relatively weak plague company


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If they're sat on an objective, your opponent is an idiot if he's babysitting them with an FBS?!?

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's a dumb strat, not necessarily because it's overpowered but because it's one of those things your opponent either doesn't care about at all because they have a ranged army, or has no real counter for because they don't. I.e. one of those rock paper scissors promoting mechanics that don't make for fun gameplay on the table.

The DG book is unfortunately full of this sort of stuff. Play a shooting army with predominantly 1D weapons? DG feel gimp, because none of their special stuff does much to you. Play a melee army with predominantly 2D weapons? DG will wipe the floor with you, just because of the power of math.

It's one of the reasons I think it is a sleeper contender for worst designed 9th edition codex. It's certainly more powerful than the DW or SW books that people usually say are the 9th edition duds...but being powerful is different from being well designed. The way they re-did DG to totally stomp certain things while getting totally stomped by other things is not a great way to design a faction.

I think that's an overly simplistic survey of DG. And they don't do well just because they're facing D2 and ignore it.