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Ok, I have been reading about the latest edition of the rules, and it seems that I WAY out of the loop here. Last edition I played was 4th.

It seems like the most valuable things in the game are mobile units, transports, and powerful heroes.

Seems like footsloggers and elites aren't that special anymore?

I want to play Nurgle, or perhaps Death Guard, and from what I have read, I can only play these a certain way. I have a few questions:

Is it better to play Deamons and just toss in Death Guard as allies?

Are there must-buy units? If so, which ones do I need to purchase first?

I just don't want to waste my money. I do not really want to play any other Chaos God besides Nurgle (I always disliked Chaos Undivided for some reason).

Yeah fast units are really good in 40k nowadays. Elite Units can be good if they are properly buffed (with psypowers and/or good wargear).


If you want to play 40k, there is no "real" Deathguard. (yeah Plaguemarines are Deathguard, but there are no other options besides the Plaguemarines which come from the Deathguard)

You only have a Codex Chaosspacemarines and in it there you can have Plaguemarines.

If you want to play Deathguard you have to play 30k and thats a bit of a different game. There are only the Heresy Legions with their Primarchs and a few other factions like oldschool Imps and some deamons. (here the Deathguard has different Troops and they are not Plaguemarines)

If you want to play Deathguard as Plaguemarines, buy yourself a Codex Chaosspacemarines and maybe the new Traitors Hate Book and then some HQ Choice (Chaosgeneral and make him Nurgle) + Plaguemarines maybe with some Rhinos.

Chaos Space Marines (Combined Arms detachment, Primary detachment)

---------- HQ (2) ----------

Chaos Lord (185 points)
- Warlord, Mark of Nurgle, Power Armour, Meltabombs, Blight Grenades, Chaos Bike, Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation
- Melee Weapon (Powerfist)
- Melee Weapon (Lightning Claw)

Sorcerer (145 points)
- Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Chaos Bike, Spell Familiar, Mastery Level 3
- Force Weapon ()

---------- Troops (2) ----------

5x Plague Marines (185 points)
- 2x Plasmagun
- Plague Champion (Bolt Pistol, Plague Knife, Boltgun)
- Chaos Rhino ()

5x Plague Marines (185 points)
- 2x Plasmagun
- Plague Champion (Bolt Pistol, Plague Knife, Boltgun)
- Chaos Rhino ()

---------- Fast Attack (1) ----------

4x Chaos Spawn (144 points)
- Mark of Nurgle

______________________________________________
844 points




Here's a nice Starterlist, if you are going to play Chaosspacemariens, you have to buy a Pack of Chaosbikers, two packs of ChaosSpawn, two packs of Plaguemarines and two Chaosrhinos.

All guys can move (with Rhinos) 12" and all Models have toughness 5 or better. Chaosgeneral needs to have Mark of Nurgle to unlock the Plaguemarines as Troops.

It's not the best List in the World but you can try a bit of Psypowers and have strong Closecombat HQ. Rest of your Troops are pretty resilent and can do some Dmg.


Maybe this is going to help you a bit^^.

Thanks for the response. If I wanted to bring in a Great Unclean One, or Demon Princes, how could I do that?

I'd like to field Nurglings, Drones, and Plaguebearers as well as marines (Oblierators, bikes, etc.)

You need to make an Allied Detachment or bring some Formations containing these Units.


You can also do Daemons as Combined Arms Detachment (CAD) and bring CSM as Allied Detachment.

If you don't have the 40k Rulebook you should get it first, there things will be better explained which Detachment is used for what.


Here is a 1000 Points Nurgle Daemon Army

---------- HQ (1) ----------

Great Unclean One (280 points)
- Warlord, Psyker Level 3, 2x Greater Reward

---------- Troops (2) ----------

10x Plaguebearers (90 points)

10x Plaguebearers (90 points)

---------- Fast Attack (1) ----------

3x Plague Drones of Nurgle (126 points)

---------- Heavy Support (1) ----------

Daemon Prince of Nurgle (335 points)
- Warp-forged Armour, Daemonic Flight, 2x Greater Reward, Psyker Level 3

______________________________________________
921 points


And if you want to add CSM as Allied Faction it can look like this:


1461 points Chaos Daemons / Chaos Space Marines

[1] Chaos Daemons (Combined Arms detachment, Primary detachment)
[2] Chaos Space Marines (Allied detachment)

---------- HQ (1 + 1) ----------

[1] Great Unclean One (280 points)
- Warlord, Psyker Level 3, 2x Greater Reward

[2] Chaos Lord (175 points)
- Mark of Nurgle, Power Armour, Meltabombs, Blight Grenades, Chaos Bike, Sigil of Corruption
- Melee Weapon (Lightning Claw)
- Melee Weapon (Powerfist)

---------- Troops (2 + 1) ----------

[1] 10x Plaguebearers (90 points)

[1] 10x Plaguebearers (90 points)

[2] 5x Plague Marines (185 points)
- 2x Plasmagun
- Plague Champion (Bolt Pistol, Plague Knife, Boltgun)
- Chaos Rhino ()

---------- Fast Attack (1 + 1) ----------

[1] 3x Plague Drones of Nurgle (126 points)

[2] 5x Chaos Spawn (180 points)
- Mark of Nurgle

---------- Heavy Support (1 + 0) ----------

[1] Daemon Prince of Nurgle (335 points)
- Warp-forged Armour, Daemonic Flight, 2x Greater Reward, Psyker Level 3

______________________________________________
1461 points

This List isn't very good, but it is only for showing you how to combine a CAD and an Allied Detachment.


Hope i can help you a bit further. If you have a friend with a Rulebook for 40k (current Edition 7th) you should borrow it or buy the rulebook, maybe some of your friends want to play Darkangels then buy a DarkVengeance Set. You get some nice CSM Models and he gets some loyalist scum =)

I'd say get a look at the daemons codex and csm codex and supplements. Try 1d4chan, it'll give you a rough idea of what's out there. There are so many formations over so many books and then there is forgeworld you'd be ill advised to get all of them right of the bat.

For a fluffy deathguard list (disregarding effiency), the traitors hate book has a terminator formation and you can bring squadrons of vindicators and the basic formation there allows you to hold objectives fairly well with lots of infantry so that might be intersting. It also has all the new psychic powers, which, while boring because they were copy pasted from the loyalists, are pretty good. It also has a formation of various dreadnoughts and the helbrute dataslate has 3 more formations that might be interesting. There also a good formation for making zombies if that's more your thing.

The crimson slaughter supplement is kinda meh for deathguard. Black Legion has more terminator formations and a nice sorcerer one so there might be some interesting stuff there.
I don't know much about daemons but I understand they got quite a significant update in one of the campaign books with all new psychic disciplines and relics.

If you're ok with forgeworld (imperial armour 13 specifically) they have a very fluffy detachment called "The Purge" and allow you to bring some nurgle daemon engines as part of csm (regardless of that detachment). Namely Plague Hulks (nurgle soulgrinders) and blight drones.They also allow you to dedicate various vehicles to nurgle, which isn't possible in the base codex. Along with unlocking some heresy era vehicles, so this would probably be the fluffiest option. It's also the only place to get artillery units if you really want a heavy infantry focus, they're pretty good too.

There is no way to truly mix daemons and marines (least for nurgle), but as Darksider mentioned, you can mix formations and use allied CAD's to mix them fairly well. The only codex that truly mixes them like in third is khorne daemonkin, but as the name implies it's purely khorne daemons and even then, they don't get as many options.

The alternative is to summon daemons in mid game, but it's (somewhat) dangerous and random. You need psykers for this. You could summon in Plaguebearers, nurglings, heralds, plague drones or a great unclean one, which ones depends on what powers you roll and then of course you have to manage to cast them without failing or being denied. Some people use a csm daemon prince to fly around and summon daemons, he's one of two units in csm that makes summoning less dangerous. The other is a sorcerer with a crimson slaughter relic, though forgeworld has a way to make it fairly reliable for any psyker too.

So yea, I'd say read up on 1d4chan first to get an idea and then come back here.

You are lucky, since the mark of Nurgle is the best in Codex: CSM and Plague Marines are the best Cult-troops and overall a very good choice. However, as others have pointed out, PMs alone won't win you a war, you need either artillery, fast attack, or - if that's what you are after - Daemons for speed or heavy hitting.
Our Primarch liked infantry of all kinds and with the new Traitors Hate book there are at least two formations to support that style, one with Terminators (Death Guard was the Legion with the most Termis, so very fluffy) one with Obliterators (whicht are even cooler Termis if you ask me). You could also throw a true Zombie horde at the enemy.

You should make up your mind what it is that you like about Death Guard/ Nurgle and then focus on that aspect for the beginning. Due to high resilience I'd say Nurgle is also quite forgiving for starters.

Thanks for all the responses. I may begin to build some lists based off this. I watched a video on You Tube where a guy used an 1850 point Nurgle list, which I found a bit fascinating. It looked like this:

Great Unclean One
3 x Demon Princes (Heavy support)
2 unit of Plaguebearers
1 unit of Nurglings
1 allied chaos marine demon prince

It actually looked kinda fun (and cheap to buy).

Would my local game shop hate me for playing a list like this for a while? (While I am collect more models and expand my force)
I don't want to round up those models if it will make everyone groan who has to play me.