Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Here is the official thread for Death Guard's tenth edition rules.

Anyone here feel that one of the stars of the new rules is the regular Chaos Lord? They're cheap, have great stats, and are good bearers of the Living Plague as the relic allows them to potentially push out even more mortal wounds with the Desiccation Conduit ability. The version in terminator armor pretty much guarantee that your Deathshroud will always hit. Also, I really like the new Icon Bearer unit as an OC multiplier for small Plague Marine units.

So I've been skimming the index and here's my first little combo that I want to try out:

- Lord of Virulence in a unit of blightlord termies
- 3 Plagueburst Crawlers

Deep strike the LoV and terminators in such a way that they gain sight on whatever target you need removed. That will grant the crawlers Ignore Cover and +1 to hit for their indirect fire.

Their mortar is not Heavy, so you can even move them around and still shoot at BS 2+.

If you equip the LoV with the Droning enhancement (and if they survive for a turn), you can move them into contagion range and leverage the battle shock bonus from the plagueburst shooting.

LoV's are also really good for increasing the deadliness of the Defiler's cannon.

Pondering a list for a 1k game of 10th, never having played 10th and using the models I have (I have more than this but not vastly more)

basically two troop blocks
- Lord of Contagion
- 5x blightlord terminators

these guys go to deep strike, mission - drop on or near an objective and then be annoyingly hard to shift, basically melee unit with some shooting, will have the plague thrower heavy for short ranged firepower

- 10x plague marines
- blightbringer
- putrifier
- rhino

this lot start in the rhino and can then move up behind it once they get out, again, go play with an objective and be a pain to shift - characters for the bonus to charge & advance rolls for a bit more mobility

- foul blightspawn

wanders about on his own, not fitting in the Rhino (did wonder on dropping to nice marines to make space) - thoughts?

- 2x bloat drones, one with the lawnmower attachment


low unit count, may struggle with objectives but some decently mobile units and hopefully the drones can help with chaff on an objective though obviously not going to work with anything serious on one

wondering whats left at the end of the second, maybe third turn and figure probably not much

I haven't played DG in 10th yet, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I'd probably delete the blightbringer and add the blightspawn to the unit instead. Fights First is pretty useful to keep your plague marines alive and he also packs a S7 Ap-2 D2 torrent weapon for a nasty overwatch.

The resulting points could be spent on 10 DG cultists for example, to bring more bodies to the table.

 BertBert wrote:
I haven't played DG in 10th yet, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I'd probably delete the blightbringer and add the blightspawn to the unit instead. Fights First is pretty useful to keep your plague marines alive and he also packs a S7 Ap-2 D2 torrent weapon for a nasty overwatch.

The resulting points could be spent on 10 DG cultists for example, to bring more bodies to the table.

wouldn't be hard to swap the characters about, nor to delete one. I don't have suitable cultists though, could add some zombies however so will have a think on that

leopard wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
I haven't played DG in 10th yet, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I'd probably delete the blightbringer and add the blightspawn to the unit instead. Fights First is pretty useful to keep your plague marines alive and he also packs a S7 Ap-2 D2 torrent weapon for a nasty overwatch.

The resulting points could be spent on 10 DG cultists for example, to bring more bodies to the table.

wouldn't be hard to swap the characters about, nor to delete one. I don't have suitable cultists though, could add some zombies however so will have a think on that

I'm don't have any either and I've been looking to fill that gap. For now it's between the renegade kill team, because they hit the visual cues of DG with their gas masks and no-nonsense gear, and the necromunda dust nomad gang for something more exotic. I wish we had a proper savlar chem-dogs kit...

This fella here won a recent GT 5-0 with DG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnmv-RaDT0&t=63s

 BertBert wrote:
This fella here won a recent GT 5-0 with DG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnmv-RaDT0&t=63s

Actually I believe he came in 2nd, still impressive.

He also mentioned he got really lucky with the dice rolls and that he got to play against Eldar who wouldn't bring any wraith knights.

All in all I'm happy he was able to pull it off, noticeable lack of character models outside of Morty and LOV

You are right, he came in second. I believe he also brought a Typhus and a Chaos Sorcerer in Terminator armor.

 BertBert wrote:
You are right, he came in second. I believe he also brought a Typhus and a Chaos Sorcerer in Terminator armor.

Oh yes and Typhus, but I mostly meant a lack of the characters like Putrifiers and blightbringers. I don't think he even bothered bringing a Tallyman for CP production.

I believe the list he brought was

Morty

Typhus w/ 20 pox walkers

LoV

Sorceror in Terminator Armor

10 plague marines

6 Deathshroud

20 cultists

3 PBCs

1 Rhino

I think he had the LoV or the Sorcery leading the Deathshroud around causing havoc and running his plague marines up the board using his rhino to get them onto an objective turn 1. Forgot his overall plan with the cultists but I imagine they were used as scouts to spread the sickness to areas of the board faster. I believe he used Mortarion as protection for his PBCs instead of as a spearhead attacking the enemy head on, keeping him in the back with them incase anything like a tank with proper toughness values or a Knight showed up to ruin the canon fun.

 Darkmatter wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
You are right, he came in second. I believe he also brought a Typhus and a Chaos Sorcerer in Terminator armor.

Oh yes and Typhus, but I mostly meant a lack of the characters like Putrifiers and blightbringers. I don't think he even bothered bringing a Tallyman for CP production.

I believe the list he brought was

Morty

Typhus w/ 20 pox walkers

LoV

Sorceror in Terminator Armor

10 plague marines

6 Deathshroud

20 cultists

3 PBCs

1 Rhino

I think he had the LoV or the Sorcery leading the Deathshroud around causing havoc and running his plague marines up the board using his rhino to get them onto an objective turn 1. Forgot his overall plan with the cultists but I imagine they were used as scouts to spread the sickness to areas of the board faster. I believe he used Mortarion as protection for his PBCs instead of as a spearhead attacking the enemy head on, keeping him in the back with them incase anything like a tank with proper toughness values or a Knight showed up to ruin the canon fun.

Beginning to think Typhus with a blob of poxwalker is looking pretty nice to soak up some shots right ?

Typhus is the only (albeit not great) option to get “precision” strikes.

Currently I run:


And mostly use Typhus as a backline drop to shoot the lone operatives.

In combat patrol he shines differently.

Cant claim any major wins, but this mechanized list loses by much less margin than my initial footslogging infantry heavy one with poxwalkers and plague marines. Waiting for codex for now.

In Tacoma top DG scored 216th place. On par with blood angels top standing of 210 and much lower than admech being #177.
This is all to be known about current DG tactics.

So, with the new update we got quite steep points reductions, most characters go down 20-30points, Plague Marines from 20ppm to 16, Bloat drone from 135 to 100.
We also got to choose one of 3 plagues as additional rule.
Is it enough? Which of the 3 will you choose?

The choice is per game so dont get fixed. Vs custodians save reduction probably good. Vs non-monster smash -1 to hit likely better. Many monster lists might still be valid for -1 to hit as theit hit odds aren't best.

Most Deathguard units are still slow af.

I think I'm going to try for vehicle and monster spam.

I think this is 2000pts on the dot:

With the contagion, I want as many number of units on the table to saturate the board. Because I want some resiliency, I'll probably choose the -1 WS/ -1 BS aura.

The LoV is attached to the Deathshroud, DS in turn 2 with LOS of backline units so that the PB mortars can do some work. Also, be a threat/do actions as needed.

20x poxwalkers + Typhus hauls ass to Center objective to contest.

Other poxwalkers holds back line objects or provide screens/DS denial area.

Tallyman is there for extra CPs and to hold back objectives.

Blight haulers+Fleshmowers + Spawns + Morty provides distractions.

The idea with this list is to win the war of attrition by outscoring Primaries and Secondaries.

So with the new additional debuffs I wonder if helbrutes become valid now?

You could choose a target outside contagion range to target with helbrute if you want to either kill it (-1 save) or debuff if (-1 BS/WS).

WRT which is best new debuff, If you are running a mostly shooty list I would say -1 save is not actually that good.
Majority armies are 3+ save and most shooting has cover saves.
Therefore the -1 to save will do nothing. (3+ save with cover is still 3+ save against majority of our shooting) When reduced to 4+ save they start gaining the benefit of cover.

CC based army -1 save sounds really good.

-1 bs/ws I think is the best all rounder. The battleshock one I can't see being used.

Played against a GSC army yesterday with this list:


My opponent brought "the good stuff" GSC list with two allied Basilisks.

Some thoughts...
1) Basilisks vs DG infantry... -2 movement, advance and charge when hit.

2) This list MIGHT be problematic on certain terrains as only Infantry/Beast/Fly can move through Ruins. Too many vehicles, and there may be scenarios where a small (or single model) enemy unit is deep within the terrain that vehicles can't assault, even though engagement range is increased to 2".

3) I may drop Typhus/Poxwalkers and bring 3 units of Spawns just for fast units that can move through Ruins.

4) Morty was generally ignored for most of the game, but I did get him into combat for two rounds and he deleted those unit.

5) I chose the -1 BS/WS aura. That saved my butt against his big choppy unit (Aberrant/Abominant) as they were hitting on 4s instead of 3s.

6) Deathshrouds still claps enemies, but not as strong as 9ed.

7) PBC and Blighthaulers are strong backbone of this army. Fast enough to challenge No Man's Land's objective and still has effective shooting.

8) All the infantry units are SLOOOOOOOOOOOW, so I would probably try to find alternative units (ie, Spawns or allied Nurgle deamons) that are faster than 4" base movement.

9) My opponent was nailing all his objectives and was winning primary at end of 4, but I basically tabled him (had on Basilisk left) and I was able to max out my points in Turn 4 and 5 to eek out a win.

Doohicky wrote:
So with the new additional debuffs I wonder if helbrutes become valid now?

You could choose a target outside contagion range to target with helbrute if you want to either kill it (-1 save) or debuff if (-1 BS/WS).

WRT which is best new debuff, If you are running a mostly shooty list I would say -1 save is not actually that good.
Majority armies are 3+ save and most shooting has cover saves.
Therefore the -1 to save will do nothing. (3+ save with cover is still 3+ save against majority of our shooting) When reduced to 4+ save they start gaining the benefit of cover.

CC based army -1 save sounds really good.

-1 bs/ws I think is the best all rounder. The battleshock one I can't see being used.

I love the Helbrute mini and making it into a de facto Tau Markerlight projector really intrigues me. Always liked the twin fists studio one and deffo going to add one to my collection from this. Think I’ll aim for being able to field one per 1K, so along with punchy’s heavy flamers to tag targets as he stomps forwards to go for a touchdown, I reckon a missiles & autocannons brute to take a hill, and a plasma and bolt fist lad to accompany a zombie horde to hold the midfield?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Decreased enemy saves isn’t just about buffing bolters against MEQ keeping one foot in cover, it’s also about forcing TEQ to fail more saves and enabling our higher AP weapons to decisively punch through big stuff. If we’re using Helbrutes, then it does become a question - do we choose the sickness that the brutes can use to enable firepower units to take out the things they afflict with -1 save and +1 to be wounded, or do we choose the one the brutes can use to poke a unit in the eye with -1 to hit so we can ignore it for a turn? I think the icon bearer just got an interesting buff from this - running one forwards and planting the flag could be interesting.

I had an interesting game against Eldar yesterday.

Ended up about 80pts (he maxed primary but we kept scoring just out of interest) and I pulled off 65, so a solid eldar win.

He took:
Autarch, Farseer on Jet Bike, Asuraman, Wave Serpent, War Walker, 10 guardians, 6 jet bikes (2 units of 3), 10 dire avengers, wraithlord, 10 wraithguard with a spirit seer. 10 Rangers with Nightspear

I took:
Mortarion, Tallyman, Typhus, Lord of Virulence. 40 poxwalkers (two units of 20), 2x 7 Plague Marines, 5 Plague Marines, 6 Deathshroud, 2 PBC, 2x units of 3 nurgling bases
(mainly due to model limits, or i'd have taken more termies in lieu of PM).

End of the game, turn 5, I had my Deathshroud and Lord of Virulence left only (minus one terminator). He had Asuraman, one biker, 5 rangers, Nightspear and the Warwalker. So I took my lb of flesh lmao.

Some observations:

Typhus is really good with a unit of PW for 200pts. His ability to spit out mortal wounds and he hits hard in Combat are very useful.

Zombies were fine. They were bodies that held up space and 20 of them for 100pts is perfectly solid. I didn't get chance to toss them at anything other than hard targets but they did manage to scratch some wounds through on a wraithlord just with weight of attacks.

I've mixed feelings about Mortarion. He's useful but he's not quite the force multiplier I thought he would be and just not very tough... a unit of 10 Wraithguard firing overwatch (so not even normal shooting) spiked very hard and took off 13 of his 14 wounds in turn 2 so he didn't do much at all then promptly blew up and dealt 12 MW on my army for 2 on my opponent. So very unlucky. All this and he killed 4 dire avengers. It was very hard to use him in line with objectives/play and keep him out of reach of the wraithguard.

The plaguebursts were also very underwhelming. Two of them managing to kill approximately two wraigthguard (which were re-spawned) and four jet bikes in two turns of shooting. I did make a little mistake here and I think i'd have preferred to have shot them at the WW but with it having an in-built -1 to wound, i was a little reluctant. Their entropy cannons just bounced off the WL due to fate dice before they could shoot again. That 24" range isn't good at all.

Deathshroud were great, just very slow but they killed everything they should shoot or charge (including wraithguard and Autarchs) without any effort.

Plague Marines are solid for their cost. They can put out a reasonable amount of shooting which, with Lethal hits, can really start to mount up on just about anything.

Nurglings were a nice little addition for 35pts/3 bases.

As for the abilities. Sticky objectives is great.
I went with the -1 BS/WS and that was fairly useful against the Eldar although I think the -1 AP would have helped more removing the Wraithguard as they were just a huge problem. So i'm 50/50 here.

Ultimately, the DG did better than I thought they would against the best army in the game.

I think mostly okay but perhaps the bigger things need an extra edge. Perhaps in terms of Morty... he possibly needs to either be faster and/or tougher (-1 damage?). I don't think he's costed right for what he can do at the moment and should possibly be sub 300pts, perhaps the 270/280 pts range.

PBC... The 5++ and T10 is fairly unreliable but i'd say okay against armies that can't just toss out S14, D6+2 damage at 36". The damage output isn't sterling. I think probably just increase the range of the EC tbf, if not 48" then at least back to 36". Maybe instead of giving the mortar the BS ability, perhaps give it the ability to dump the contagion benefits on a unit they've hit. Much like the Helbrute can do.

So, let's see if this raises some discussion:
I'm more of a fluffbunny and like to run my DG with lots of Plague Marines and their chars, but they don’t really seem to be prevalent in competitive lists. So, if you wanted to use them still, which are the good ones, which are nice combos considering we can put two in a PM squad?
Some thoughts from me:
Chaos Lord:
A nice beatstick and rerolling Ones is never bad I guess. Nothing special about him, should work in a CC squad, costs 65 points, which is on the upper Level.

Malignant Plaguecaster:
To me he looks like one of the weakest of our chars. He's 65 points like the Lord, has a debuff that goes nicely with our updated gift ability, so could give enemies -2 to hit (-1 Bs, -to hit). He also gives another debuff on enemy movement, but with only 12" range I'm not really sure how to make that worth something. He also shoots and hits a little bit. He does a lot but none of it looks great I think.

Plague Surgeon
Also 65 points, relatively good CC, revives dead Marines and heals chars. Pretty nice package, I could see him move along a Lord, but nothing special about him.

Foul Blightspawn
He's cheap, he has a mean flamer, he provides first strike. His CC is bad unfortunately, but he looks like an autoinclude in a CC squad, which makes me consider him before the surgeon.

Biologus Putrifier
Also cheap, provides lethal hits on 5s on all weapons. I want to try him in a squad with 2 poisoned meltas for the lulz. Throwing grenades one time... well, just do it. I'm wondering who's a nice partner for him. Maybe a Plaguecaster to wound a vehicle and also debuff it? (Two Meltas and some plague Marines will probably not kill a vehicle... even if you hit it with superpoisoned swords?).

Tallyman:
45 points for possibility to get CP and giving straight +1 to hit. He should be in every list, sitting with some ranged PM on an objective, no?

Icon bearer:
Going from lindsays idea I want to give him the living plague enhancement and sent him forward in a rhino to debuff the enemy turn 1(you could move 12", 3" disembark,+15" range of his banner). Other than that not really sure how to make the most of him. And even if you throw him forwards Leroy jenkins style and give -1T and -1 save, I'm not even sure our shooting is good enough to do heavy lifting. You can also just use some helbrutes to mark what you want.

Noxious Blightbringer
Nearly forgot him. He makes you a little faster and gives -2 to morale. Hmm, not bad per se but I feel all of the other CC guys give you more? But if you feel like speed of PMs is an issue I guess one could try him.

Note, these are just thoughts from reading the indizes, I didn't have the chance to try out my DG since the Patch, yet.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Biologus Putrifier
Also cheap, provides lethal hits on 5s on all weapons. I want to try him in a squad with 2 poisoned meltas for the lulz. Throwing grenades one time... well, just do it. I'm wondering who's a nice partner for him. Maybe a Plaguecaster to wound a vehicle and also debuff it? (Two Meltas and some plague Marines will probably not kill a vehicle... even if you hit it with superpoisoned swords?).

Assuming you want a Vehicle dead and are willing blow it all towards it...
Plague Marines 10 strong.
Biologus Putrifier.
Tallyman.
Champ with Plasma Gun, Heavy Plague Weapon.
Two Blight Launchers.
Maybe two Plague Spewers? Not sure they're worth it over Bolters for losing Lethal Hits.
Two Meltaguns.
Plus three Plague Bolters.

Grenades do 4 MW.
Plasma Gun does 2/3 autowounds and 1 hit at S8 AP-3 D2.
Blight Launchers do 4/3 autowounds and 2 hits at S6 AP-1 D2.
Meltaguns do 2/3 autowounds and 1 hit at S9 AP-4 Dd6(+2)
Bolters do 2/3 autowounds and 1 hit at S4 AP0 D1 per gun, at three or five depending on Spewers.
Plague Spewers do 7 hits at S5 AP-1 D1, with anti-infantry but we're targeting a vehicle.

Against a Rhino, T9 3+ W10...
4 MW
5/6 D2 from Plasma
1 D2 from Blight
7/6 Dd6(+2) from Melta
7/6 D1 from Spewers
5/6 D1 from Bolters
For a total of enough to kill a Rhino on average.

But, against a mere Armiger, T10 3+/5++ W12...
4 MW
2/3 D2 from Plasma
1 D2 from Blight
2/3 Dd6(+2) from Melta
7/12 D1 from Spewers
5/6 D1 from Bolters
For a total of 4+4/3+2+2/3*3.5+7/12+5/6=about 11.1.
Goes up to about 12.4 with Melta Damage, but that's JUST BARELY enough.

Then again, add melee...
1 autowound plus 1 hit at S8 AP-2 D2
And 9 autowounds plus 27/2 hits at S4 AP0 D1

For an extra 16/9 damage from the Champ and an extra 15/4 from the boys.
Total of 5.5 extra damage. That's pretty good!

Edit: This was accoutned WITHOUT Rattlejoint. If that applies, damage goes up considerably. Maybe... Enough to kill a big Knight?

T12 W24 4+/5++(Ranged Only)

4 MW
4/3 Plasma
22/9 Blight
11/3 from Melta (with Melta Bonus)
7/9 from Spewers
5/4 from Bolters

22/9 Champ
45/8 from the boys

Total of 4+4/3+22/9+11/3+7/9+5/4+22/9+45/8...
21.5 damage total.

Thanks for some number crunching! 255points for that combination, 330 if you throw in a Rhino to actually reach melter range... Sounds actually good enough to me.

How do you guys like using Typhus in this edition?

I finally picked one up and I'm painting him now. I still have my 20 poxwalkers from the Dark Imperium box to paint and am probably going to do them last but I wonder how creative folks are getting with him considering how good he is for the cost.

What sort of setup are people doing with Plague Marines and the heroes who can join them?

I’m looking at doing this:
- 10 with 4 heavy plague weapon, 1 pistol & heavy champ, 2 spewer, 3 bubotics; Blightspawn; Surgeon
- 10 with 2 blight launcher, 2 plasgun, 1 plasgun & heavy champ, 5 bolter; Icon bearer with Living Plague; Blightbringer with The Droning; Rhino
- 5 or 7 with 1 blight launcher, 1 plasgun, 1 plasgun & sword champ, 2 or 4 bolter; Tallyman
- 5 or 7 with 1 blight launcher, 1 plasgun, 1 plasgun & sword champ, 2 or 4 bolter; Plaguecaster with Shamblerot; Putrifier; Rhino

Tallyman’s lads sit back and peck at units, block deep strikes on a home objective, and farm CP.

Gunner squads drive up, jump out of Rhinos to take or threaten midfield objectives.

Melee squad runs up behind them and jumps into an empty Rhino to disembark and make a mess.

I like the Helbrute and Haulers, I’m hoping they’ll be a big enough distraction to keep at least one Rhino alive. Might add an extra Rhino to make sure the melee squad gets there. Might switch some Bubotics for belchers, see if it makes for a decent OW unit.

Few games that I have played is very daemon engine heavy and so far seems to work well.

Generally I have one 5 man PM squad for general grabbing objectives and being in the way.
Then 7 man CC/flamer orientated squad in rhino with plaguecaster and foul blightspawn.
They generally grab a midfield objective and do drive bys with the character flamers until they need to get out.
One shooty Helbrute to nerf a unit each turn (I generally run -1bw/ws plague and target the main shooty squad)
Some MBHs, PBCs and a bloat drone which shoots up field to be a distraction carnifex.
Then Lord of contagion with deathshroud to drop in and cause havoc. If they make charge on drop they basically kill anything.

So far it works well. I change it up slightly with numbers and with added poxwalkers too, but general main list stays same.

I would be tempted to have another shooty helbrute. I feel them reaching out to touch someone is massive, especially if opponent has a big unit they rely on for shooting damage output.

Bumping this to see how people are finding things after the last balance dataslate?

I hadn't looked at Death Guard for 10th, as I had switched to CSM (Word Bearers) at the end of 9th, but outside of the gimmicky builds Death Guard looks to be more solid overall than CSM.

What's been working for you?

Wayniac wrote:
Bumping this to see how people are finding things after the last balance dataslate?

An improvement.
But then the last time I pulled the DG out was back in July.

Since then some abilities have changed/been added & pts for my basic DG have apparently both decreased & then increased again.
But I'm still paying less for my basic guys (and can now take squads of 7 if I like) than I was in July. So I guess it's a + for me.
The pts hike for my PBC? Almost irrelevant. I only have 1 & the pts I'm now saving on my basic guys far out strip it.

As for how it's working on the table?
It'll be a month or so before I cycle back to the DG. Probably for our next Crusade.
So here's hoping things don't change again before I get to try out the new abilities.

How are people feeling about our new detachment? I think it may be a tad too infantry oriented for me, plus Plague Company's sticky objectives is just too nice to consider switching. I do think some parts of the detachment were interesting, so it's got me looking forward to our codex even more.

Anyone played much against the new Emperor’s Children? All that infiltrating precision plasma has me worried about my 4W characters generating things like strikes first. Would skullsquirm blight (-1ws/bs) be a good call? Also, how are helbrutes at the moment? I love the mini, the only role I’ve found for it in my CSM in an meta game where everyone’s loaded for knight is giving it the rubbish autocannon and missile launcher and hoping my opponent lets it sit at the back and throw chips at them, and the role of tagging people with germs seems a good fit. Give it twin las cannons and people seem to want it to die.