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Considering that the Death Guard were one of the first codices to be released for ninth edition, there's a good chance that the next one will be released soon after the launch of tenth edition. What would you like to see for their rules in the next edition? For my part, these are my ideas:

- Keep obsec for Terminators. This is a crucial rule that keeps the army viable in the current meta. Also, increase their number of attacks to match those of CSM Terminators.
- Have a stratagem for Possessed to give them more uniqueness. My ideas would be for one that would either dole out mortal wounds (to reflect how extremely toxic they would be, or one that would allow them to advance and charge. On the topic of Possessed, their profiles should be updated to match those of the CSM Possessed, with increased attacks, wounds, damage, a champion, and the ability to take the Sigil of Decay (the Icon of Despair does nothing for them since it's for ranged weapons).
- Increase the number of attacks for Plague Marines to three for regular ones, four for the champion.
- Give Disgustingly Resilient to every unit in the army. Yes, even the cultists and tanks. Are the daemons inside Myphitic Blight Haulers somehow stronger than those in Defilers?
- Update the tank stats to match those of CSM.
- On the topic of cultists, they should be given access to the weapons that the CSM cultists get. The Dark Commune is not necessary for the DG, though I'd love to see the Accursed and Torments get moved over.
- Have Poxwalkers' attacks be given the plague weapon ability. Shouldn't zombies be infectious?
- Make all of the Plague Companies worth taking. As it is, the Ferrymen and Mortarion's Chosen are objectively inferior to the others. The Ferrymen's warlord trait is only useful in specific circumstances, while the Ferryman's Scythe is good for cutting down infantry, but not good enough to warrant using the company. I personally might do something like add the ability to the relic to let it have have full would re-rolls, like what is seen for Great Unclean One weapons. For Mortarion's Chosen, while Nurgle's Fruit in and of itself is not bad, since there's a good chance that the warlord will be taking a flamer-esque weapon that automatically hits anyway, its usefulness is limited. Personally, I would change it so that the enemies in contagion range take a mortal wound on any wound rolls of six.
- Put the Terminus Est list in the codex.
- Put the Gellerpox rules in the codex and give them the Death Guard and Contagions of Nurgle keywords. On the topic of the Gellerpox, the Hideous Mutations weapon should get the plague weapon ability. It might also be cool if the Mutoid Vermin could be taken in a detachment without the need to have a unit of Infected along with them. Also, the Nightmare Hulks should get a better regular save so as to not be so squishy, maybe a 4+.

That's all I can think of for the moment, I might add others later.

Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

@OP

Not wanting to sound rude but other than an updated codex - not a damned thing.

World Eaters and Emperor's Children need some love.

DG got plenty to-date.

I think that in many ways Death Guard are rather indicative of the systemic issues that GW has with writing rules. Their book is full of rules that can either be punishingly good or nearly useless. This results in a lot of games with death guard being decided in the list writing phase rather than on the table itself, and leads to many games that feel un-winable for either the death guard or their opponent,

For Example:

DG reduce the toughness of enemy models, so they can wound then better, however, there is a large prevalence of "transhuman" rules that prevent you from wounding better.

DG mostly have -1 damage across the board, so against an army bringing a lot of damage 2 weapons they are incredibly durable, but against a force with lots of damage 1 guns, the rule has no effect.

DG have a large number of plague weapons, so they can re-roll wounds, however there is a growing prevalence of rules that prevent re-rolls

DG plague marines have AP -1 melee weapons, however many armies have some access to an "armor of contempt" style rule, negating this advantage.


Overall, when you play a game with Death Guard you either have a ton of special rules that improve your durability and damage output making them a very strong force, or you face an opponent who negates the majority of the DG special rules and you are playing with slow and over-costed marines.



When the DG rules are re-written, I would like to see these systemic issues tackled, and the DG have rules that function consistently in the majority of match ups, so they can have a more consistent power curve.

- Bubonic axes or double knives for every PM like in 8th
- Mace can be equipped on its own and is not tied to bubonic axe
- special weapons can be changed freely, no need to have 3 plasma, 2 blight launchers - instead give me the option to put 4 specials on 10 Marines (or two+combi to 7 Marines)
- option for Combiweapons on champions
- options for combiweapons on every blightlord terminator
- Palanquin of Nurgle or Bloat Fly as an option for all the Chars

When CSM get updated, give us the updates on the shared units as well (and vice versa, see Possessed, Land Raiders, Spawn and so on).

- make them even more tanky (by reducing the damage in the game)
- have each plague company give a different contagion to every model (replacing the -1T)
- let them have all the demon engines
thats pretty much it for me, i think the army is fine but the game is so lethal that their identity isnt well represented

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

I would 100% prefer to take the risk of a 5+++ rather than what we have now. Especially considering we have virtually zero protection against MWs.

just make DR work against mortals

Remove Contagions, make Relics more interesting than

Add 3" to the range of the bearers aura abilities (to a maximum of 12").

perhaps by allowing them to spread contagions...

Death Guard should not have increased toughness, that makes them more susceptible to poison than bolters which is weird. Disgustingly Resilient should be removed as well because it makes no sense for them to be extra durable against multi-wound weapons, increase their Wounds characteristics to compensate for the nerfs.

Get rid of AoC along with 9th's Type/AP/D creep. AP-1 is a significant boost in how armour-piercing a weapon is and ignoring that is just as wrong as handing out that AP-1 to weapons that shouldn't have it (rusty prison shank S User AP-1).

 lare2 wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

I would 100% prefer to take the risk of a 5+++ rather than what we have now. Especially considering we have virtually zero protection against MWs.

W2 is better against mortal wounds than W1 5+++

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 lare2 wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

I would 100% prefer to take the risk of a 5+++ rather than what we have now. Especially considering we have virtually zero protection against MWs.

W2 is better against mortal wounds than W1 5+++

This falsehood keeps being brought up. We were always going to get 2 wounds, so old to new DR needs to be compared as is not 1w to 2w. 5+++ is less annoying a rule to play against, gives us better protection and IMO is a fluffier representation of DG toughness. It needs to be added back as my number 1 change. Furthermore I like them to remove Revolting Stench Vats and compensate us in another way. i never played the match up as not-DG but I can tell from my friends that relic is pure hell to play against with any CC army.

 Castozor wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 lare2 wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

I would 100% prefer to take the risk of a 5+++ rather than what we have now. Especially considering we have virtually zero protection against MWs.

W2 is better against mortal wounds than W1 5+++

This falsehood keeps being brought up. We were always going to get 2 wounds

Not really. The Plague Marine entry in the Death Guard codex was vastly different compared to the one in the CSM codex for a lot longer than it should've been, so the comparison works.

DR is a terrible rule the way it was used in 8th. Having more save rolls just slows game play down to a crawl and makes the DG boring to play and play against. Why are really diseased people tougher than healthy people anyway? They should (maybe) retain the T5 bonus and get more offense and some way to actually get the plague marines up close to do some punching and close range shooting. It feels like they get stuck being good at melee but can't get there.

I'm not a Death Guard player, but...

I like the idea of changing up their contagions to be more about "spreading" and progressing the disease rather than just making it increasingly annoying to get close to them.

So for instance, maybe give them something akin to judgement tokens where you can infect enemy units in various ways and units with tokens suffer some sort of debuff.

Maybe you gain infection tokens (to a max of 1 per turn) by...
* Starting the Fight phase within 3" of a Plague unit.
* Taking one or more casualties from plague weapons.
* Ending your Movement phase within 6" of a friendly unit that has one or more Plague Tokens.

And then you let DG players choose from a list of plagues before the game starts that determines what those Plague Tokens do. Units with 1-2 tokens suffer the Initial Symptoms, and units with 3+ tokens suffer the Advanced Symptoms. So sample plagues might look something like:

Joint Rot:
Lesser - Minor penalties to movement/charging.
Greater - Penalty to WS and # of attacks.

Phantom Fever:
Lesser - -1 to Combat Attrition tests.
Greater - Can't benefit from auras.

Fang Froth:
Lesser - Lose obsec.
Greater - May not Fall Back.

You get the idea. The current rules are weird in that they beg the questions, "Why are these disease auras only now becoming so powerful? And if they're diseases, why does a unit stepping into range of them on turn 5 get affected so much more than a unit that stepped near them on turn 1?" The plague tokens make it feel like you're actually leaving some nasty germs behind when you hit with your plague weapons and encourage the enemy to spread out (reducing their ability to support one another) to avoid spreading the infection. And obviously you could do neat things with the tokens like having them make certain psychic powers more effective, letting pox walkers zombify infected enemies more easily, etc.

Also, it really seems like the god-specific legion books should just lump the daemons in with the mortals. Let plaguebearers hang out with plague marines. Let daemonettes dance in the echoes of noise marines' guns. Let horror split up and camp objectives while expensive rubricae move forward to deal with more heavily armored foes. Etc.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 lare2 wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
Bring back Disgustingly Resilient.

The problem with the old DR is that it often did not go off, while the new one is always on. I do think that the Revoltingly Resilient warlord trait should go back to 4+++.

I would 100% prefer to take the risk of a 5+++ rather than what we have now. Especially considering we have virtually zero protection against MWs.

W2 is better against mortal wounds than W1 5+++

I'd rather W2 with a 5+++. The way the game is, I don't think that's obscene.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LesPaul wrote:
DR is a terrible rule the way it was used in 8th. Having more save rolls just slows game play down to a crawl and makes the DG boring to play and play against.

Subjectively, I disagree.

The old FnP rule is rule I hate regardless of whether it is in 40k og AoS. I am just not interested in testing the luck dragon extra just to see if my boys live a little longer. Mostly because often the dice betray me and often my opponent(when they play maggotkin) have the blessings of the pantheos of earth on his side in those rolls. It's basically gambling and feel bad experience in one. At least the current form can be somewhat accounted for. Probably easier to just put it as "every 3 damage marker can be ignored". It's stupid, but effectively the same rule unless you are heavy into gambling.

Just slap a 5++ save on Death Guard and call it a day. I mean, if Sisters, Harlequins, Deathwing, and more can get their invuln save I don't really see why DG can't have their own. Blight Lords with their 4++ would effectively be a boost from that and continue to differentiate them.

There is really no enjoyment factor in the old FnP DG rule. It's only fun for those who really like throwing dice all the time non stop. I am already over that after playing FEC and rolling 400 dice in a single Fight Phase with one unit. In my mind less dice is better.

Personally I think putting Plague Marines to 3 wounds and termies to 4 wounds would give them a slight edge while propping them either with the 9th edition DR or change it to 5++.

Would love for DG to get access to all daemon engines.

Subfaction warlord contagion should be for all units in that subfaction.

Personally I'd like the Blightlord sword and axe be one entry instead of two.

The Contagion Chime should be an automatic ugprade/ability for Death Shrouds at 0 points.

Plagueburst Crawler really needs a better No-LoS firing again.

Lord of Virulence needs a better designated role than just a differen Lord model with flamer. Why not make him heal Daemon Engines or something.

Plague Marine Icon Bearer should be a standard upgrade that doesn't cost extra.

Make Noxious Blightbringers more attractive to use.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Just slap a 5++ save on Death Guard and call it a day. I mean, if Sisters, Harlequins, Deathwing, and more can get their invuln save I don't really see why DG can't have their own.

The question is what should DG be resilient against? Then you should find an existing rule or stat to tweak to make them more resilient against that thing while still leaving them weak to things they are supposed to be weak against. Anti-infantry, poison, anti-MEQ, anti-vehicle. Which ones should Death Guard be more resilient against compared to regular CSM?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:- Bubonic axes or double knives for every PM like in 8th
- Mace can be equipped on its own and is not tied to bubonic axe
- special weapons can be changed freely, no need to have 3 plasma, 2 blight launchers - instead give me the option to put 4 specials on 10 Marines (or two+combi to 7 Marines)
- option for Combiweapons on champions
- options for combiweapons on every blightlord terminator
- Palanquin of Nurgle or Bloat Fly as an option for all the Chars

When CSM get updated, give us the updates on the shared units as well (and vice versa, see Possessed, Land Raiders, Spawn and so on).

This is probably the least likely thing to happen as it would require GW to change their rules philosophy of righting rules around what is in the box, which I don't see happening, or for them to completely redesign the sprues that come in the box, which seems less likely.

 KingGarland wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:- Bubonic axes or double knives for every PM like in 8th
- Mace can be equipped on its own and is not tied to bubonic axe
- special weapons can be changed freely, no need to have 3 plasma, 2 blight launchers - instead give me the option to put 4 specials on 10 Marines (or two+combi to 7 Marines)
- option for Combiweapons on champions
- options for combiweapons on every blightlord terminator
- Palanquin of Nurgle or Bloat Fly as an option for all the Chars

When CSM get updated, give us the updates on the shared units as well (and vice versa, see Possessed, Land Raiders, Spawn and so on).

This is probably the least likely thing to happen as it would require GW to change their rules philosophy of righting rules around what is in the box, which I don't see happening, or for them to completely redesign the sprues that come in the box, which seems less likely.

You are not wrong (GW is, though). But the thread says "What do you want to see" and not "what is GW likely to do" so I wrote down the things I feel are most necessary for DG right now.

Well if you want to spend time writing what happens after earth has blown up earliest

Simply, the better Profiles for Predz, Land Raiders, and Chaos Spawn that the CSM just got.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
Just slap a 5++ save on Death Guard and call it a day. I mean, if Sisters, Harlequins, Deathwing, and more can get their invuln save I don't really see why DG can't have their own.

The question is what should DG be resilient against? Then you should find an existing rule or stat to tweak to make them more resilient against that thing while still leaving them weak to things they are supposed to be weak against. Anti-infantry, poison, anti-MEQ, anti-vehicle. Which ones should Death Guard be more resilient against compared to regular CSM?

Theyre more resilent whan compared to regular CSM because they get an extra point of toughness on everything.

Theyre only as resistent against mortal wounds but tbh, mortal wounds were a mistake (said as a thousand sons player)



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KingGarland wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:- Bubonic axes or double knives for every PM like in 8th
- Mace can be equipped on its own and is not tied to bubonic axe
- special weapons can be changed freely, no need to have 3 plasma, 2 blight launchers - instead give me the option to put 4 specials on 10 Marines (or two+combi to 7 Marines)
- option for Combiweapons on champions
- options for combiweapons on every blightlord terminator
- Palanquin of Nurgle or Bloat Fly as an option for all the Chars

When CSM get updated, give us the updates on the shared units as well (and vice versa, see Possessed, Land Raiders, Spawn and so on).

This is probably the least likely thing to happen as it would require GW to change their rules philosophy of righting rules around what is in the box, which I don't see happening, or for them to completely redesign the sprues that come in the box, which seems less likely.

like they did for Legionnaires and Sister squads?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Theyre more resilent whan compared to regular CSM because they get an extra point of toughness on everything.

The question is what should they from a fluff and gameplay perspective be more durable against.

Fluff and game play often don't aligne with each other tough. All marines are very tough, but PM seem to be largely immune to small weapon fire in the lore. Such a state considering what for some armies is a basic weapon, can not be achived without turning PMs in to mini tanks each.

If nothing else, just sort out the shambles that is the Plague Marine Squad datasheet.

 vict0988 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Theyre more resilent whan compared to regular CSM because they get an extra point of toughness on everything.

The question is what should they from a fluff and gameplay perspective be more durable against.

I think they should be the most durable of all Marines, against guns, blades, psychic fire, everything. So, normal toughness but -1 to wound against everything, -1 damage against everything, AoC even if others lose it and a 5+++ to all mortals. You should never be happy attacking them.

Their weaknesses should be:
A massive lack of speed, they have that now but I'd go even further and restrict what can go into reserves, slow down (but toughen up) their Possesed, Spawn, MBH and FBD, etc.
Less tricks, get rid of stench vats, they should be letting people hit them first and weathering it. I think some of their "burst" mortal wounds maybe should go as well. It should be steady chip away at you with their guns, then close with you and grind you down with combat. If they do put out mortals, it should be a slow drip of mortals that adds up over time.

I can see the design issues with trying to pull it off though, and the issue with trying to do the same kind of fluffy lore appropriateness to all 18 legions.

EightFoldPath wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Theyre more resilent whan compared to regular CSM because they get an extra point of toughness on everything.

The question is what should they from a fluff and gameplay perspective be more durable against.

I think they should be the most durable of all Marines, against guns, blades, psychic fire, everything. So, normal toughness but -1 to wound against everything, -1 damage against everything, AoC even if others lose it and a 5+++ to all mortals. You should never be happy attacking them.

Their weaknesses should be:
A massive lack of speed, they have that now but I'd go even further and restrict what can go into reserves, slow down (but toughen up) their Possesed, Spawn, MBH and FBD, etc.
Less tricks, get rid of stench vats, they should be letting people hit them first and weathering it. I think some of their "burst" mortal wounds maybe should go as well. It should be steady chip away at you with their guns, then close with you and grind you down with combat. If they do put out mortals, it should be a slow drip of mortals that adds up over time.

I can see the design issues with trying to pull it off though, and the issue with trying to do the same kind of fluffy lore appropriateness to all 18 legions.

This is an interesting idea, it's similar to what happened with the Maggotkin. I wouldn't want the Possessed and FBD to go down much in speed, as their speed is one of the things that makes them special. Also, I don't mind the stench vat ability as it's very limited on the field. However, most of the rest of what you said I agree with. As to the slow drip of mortals, again, the Maggotkin do the same thing (maybe that's what you were referring to), and maybe the Diseased rule could be ported over, with everything being hit with a plague weapon in melee and shooting with a plague weapon or is within three inches of a Death Guard unit being given a point, with an enemy unit being able to accrue a maximum of seven Disease points at a time. At the end of each round, one dice is rolled for each Disease point an enemy unit has, with a mortal wound being inflicted on a 3+ (I lowered the threshold from 4+ to 3+ given the fact that AOS doesn't have the same punishing shooting that 40k has). Also, like in AOS, each unit would get one wound back at the end of the turn. I wonder if it would be fair to tag on the rule that especially large units get D3 wounds back. In the case of the Death Guard, this would affect Mortarion and maybe the daemon prince. Daemon engines still only get Infernal Regeneration, with no extra healed wounds stacking.