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Hello everyone !

I was recently wondering if Death Guard armies could be competitive, and if so in what build ?

I thought something like this could work, but i'd like to have your opinion

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Winged deamon prince (personal icon, nurgle's rot, aura, essence, flight, stature, strength, 2 ccw)

4x Favored Plague marine squads (7 each) with 2 plas, champion with nurgle's rot, strength and power weapon

2x Favored Plague bearers squads (7 each)

1x Favored Havoc squad (7) with 4 plas and infiltrate, champion with nurgle's rot, strength and power weapon

2x Pred, las turret, las sponsons, mutated hull, demonic possession
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The battle plan for this army would be

1. to use the army's small count of bodies do deply on one side of the battlefield in order to hopefully make the ennemy waste half of his firepower,
2. to charge with the DP as quick as possible, then summon the plaguebearers near him to give him some support and tie up as many units in close combat as possible
3. shoot with the rest against MEQ, or slog it towards hordes armies to get full advantage of the rapid fire option of the bolters/plas, and taking it to close combat if necessary.
4. use the 2 preds to act obviously as AT

do you think it could work, or would it need some tweaking ?

or are DG armies completely un-competitive ?

thanks a lot for your imput, it is much appreciated !

I like it. The only thing that I'm concerned over is your lack of manouverability. There are 2 reasons why it's important:

1) Eldar/Tau skimmer non-sense. Need I say more?

2) Seizing objectives. In almost all missions, you've gotta get somewhere and do something; moving 6" a turn won't get you there.

Also, are plague bearers all that useful? They don't have power weapons or movement buffs and are kind of fragile.

Possibly drop the demons and get some rhinoes and indirrect defilers. I know transports aren't all that great this edition...more infiltrate?

Either way, Deathguard are great.

cheers

Teleport Homers on infiltrating Plague Marine squads and Deathguard Terminators (Tankhunters with 2xReaper ACs),

Just an idea...though you're probably covered for antitank with your two Preds (excellent upgrades, exactly how I like mine).

Countercharge is an excellent vet skill for Plague Marines with Plasma, who will never be charging. It is especially fun with 14 man foot squads...

Actually a 14 man squad is fun to slog up the middle or park on an objective, and attract enemy fire while your other units are actually doing things. It takes a while to whittle down 14 T5 3+ save guys, except by assault - and thats where the hidden Pfist, Rot and Countercharge are your friends.

First of all, im not a nurgle player. That being said, here are my 2 cents...

You're seriously lacking both in manouverability and ranged firepower. Either would be an acceptable flaw, but combined you're going to suffer for having both. Since you can't do much more about your ranged firepower you should try and find some ways to add some speed to your list. I think most of your units are good and well built, no obvious bad choises as such. However, I think your overall plan of action is going to need some revising.

I think you should get at least 2 rhinos. Possibly 3 at this points level. That way you could redeploy some units to either concentrate fire & powerfists. Also, being able to close the escape of some of the annoying skimmer tanks could prove essential. An alternative could be some seriously expensive flying possessed or some such, but you'll know better how to achieve that, I just think you need something of the sort.

I played just yesterday against a quite similar DGuard list in 1500pts and was able to decide where and when to attack throughout the game. Only his predators were able to do much of anything. I had 2 small rhino squads, a Lord of Change and a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince w/ flight + firepower in my army, and was able to split the Death Guard completely in in two with the tag teaming big birds. I could concentrate both ranged fire and assault power in small areas, and he couldn't respond since he had only 1 rhino-unit (which I was able to block most of the game with my 2 empty sreening rhinos). He propably should have deployed in an ignored flank formation and just go for a minor victory / draw. I did get sloppy in the end though and let his lord eat some of my support squads... Could have avoided, but I was too curious. Ended a bit over 500vp in my favour. Simply because I could hit him where it hurt and he could mostly just shamble after me and get shot to pieces or assaulted by several units at the same time. Our armies were similar enough to be quite evenly matched otherwise.

So, rhinos. 2-3.

just realized I forgot to mention this was 1700 pts !

Thanks for the advice on rhinos, but can't they be a problem in escalation ? or having 2 reserves out of 6 infantry units = not that bad ?

However, the real problem is that death guard dosen't have much choice in fast attack. Actually they have none...so what would be an alternative to rhinos ?

About the escalation... I've happened to play it very rarely, which must be because here in Finland there aren't that much scenarios with escalation in tournaments. Or maybe I just haven't been out enough or something

Anyway, most armies have trouble dealing with escalation, which kind of is the point behind the whole rule. Unless you're going to play 100% escalation, get rhinos (or something mobile). Starting 12" ahead still doesn't match the rhinos mobility in responding to enemy threaths. Besides, do you really think that adding 14 to the already considerable 28 plague marines starting on table is going to make a difference? The way I see it, you're going to keep the squads relatively close to gether so you can avoid getting killed piecemeal. Having a rhinosquads (26,5" inch range of plasmaguns, measured from table edge on the turn they arrive) dealing out hot plasma death all along your board edge should be an added bonus.

Then again, im NOT a nurgle player and I've never played/watched a really successful nurgle army do it's magic. I love the mobility my army has, and it suits the way I play very well. Could be im just trying to impose my way of playing on your army, which is usually a baaaad idea. Also, left my codex at work so maybe someone else could check for the mobility options? Possessed with wings? Eeeeexpensive and propably not worth it at 1700pts? I'll get back to this in ~12 hours

After having a look at the codex, here are the options I found in addition to the rhinos.

-Possessed with flight & mark of nurgle cost 42pts a piece. Rather costly, but the only jump infantry you can get.
-Lieutenant tooled for fast assault/daemon delivery.
-Terminators & teleport could perform in some scenarios. Doubtful.
-Land Raider (included for sake of completeness, and to drive the point home: your options suck

The lieutenant seems worthwhile, the possessed _could_ perform in a 2000+ pts game... As to terminators, I like these even less than the extra-expensive possessed. So, once again, I recommend Rhinoes.

You're probably right.

so how about 2 rhinos for mobility and 2 chaos lieutenants  instead of the Demon prince ?
they lack the anti-vehicle possibilities of the prince, but are more prone to get real quick to the opponent and prevent him from shooting with some infantry units.

tthe list would now look like this :

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2x Chaos lieutenant, (infiltrate, spiky bits, speed, stength, aura, PW, bolt pistol, rot, frag)

3x Favored Plague marine squads (7 each) with 2 plas, champion with nurgle's rot, power fist

2x Favored Plague marine squads (7 each) with 2 meltas, champion with rot, PW, bolt pistol and strength IN rhinos, extra armor and smoke lauchers

1x 4 nurgling bases (had 40 points I could not figure what to do with !)

2x Pred, las turret, las sponsons, mutated hull, demonic possession
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Do you think meltas would be a good idea in the rhino squads ? or straight plasma is better to allow rapid fire ?

thanks for your 2 cents

give your plague marine squads the counter-attack veteran skill to take advantage of true grit and that might help your limiting lack of fast attack choices and do what nurgle does best, walk around dealing mid ranged death to your foes whilst having most standard models and weapons hurting you on 5s

Looks like a fun to play against! People that make fluffy lists = fun to play with!

I commend you! (I'm guessing you're over the age of 21)

All i have too say is Dread KLaws and counter charge with Nurgle works wonderful